Mother-of-four Alison - budgeting leads to escaping from £24,000 of debt

Alison is a 34-year-old mother of four with a part-time job. Since separating from her partner, she found it a bit of a struggle to make ends meet and turned to credit to plug the gap.

When she approached the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, she owed over £24,000 to five different creditors, which meant she needed to pay about £500 a month just to meet her obligations to her lenders.

To improve matters Alison just needed a bit of help with her budgeting. A counsellor showed her how to manage her money better through drawing up a monthly budget to take care of all the essentials: rent, food, heating, light, fares to school and clothes, etc.

By making allowances for bills which may be charged quarterly or annually such as utilities or the television licence, Alison found that she had enough money for her and her children to live on and repay her creditors - without borrowing more.

Often some simple budgeting tips are all that are needed.

Supplied by Credit Action
www.creditaction.org.uk