Citizens Advice: feeling the financial pinch?

Citizens Advice can help you with your debt problems. Photograph: Lemon Jenny

Citizens Advice Bureaux dealt with 2.3 million debt problems in 2010/11 – almost a third of total enquiries – and provide free, independent and confidential advice on dealing with debt problems.

Here at the CAB, we often find that feelings of shame or embarrassment have prevented people from coming forward for help with their debt problems.  In many cases, debts have started to become a problem at a time of unforeseen life change.

Addressing difficulties early on, getting in touch with creditors and seeking independent advice can make all the difference to resolving a debt problem. Courts and creditors will listen to you when you’re having difficulties, and it really helps to set out a personal budget to show how your circumstances have changed.

You can find an example of a personal budget at nationaldebtline.co.uk together with advice on how to fill it in.  If you’re finding it difficult to talk to your creditors on your own, there is help out there.

At Hackney CAB we offer appointments with advisers who can help with negotiating with creditors to make more affordable repayments, delaying court action and in some cases freezing interest charges.

Help from a CAB is free, unlike many private debt management companies, who add their own charges to your debt repayments, which may then take longer to pay off.

It’s important to prioritise any debts that may put your home at risk, or threaten your liberty/gas/electricity supply – and anything else that has an impact of this kind.  By talking to these creditors first and foremost you can look for arrangements to address these debts.

If you have credit debts which are not secured on your home, it may be possible to make arrangements to repay the debt at a more affordable rate over a longer period of time and even to avoid court action by the creditor.

More information:  Hackney CAB
236 – 238 Mare Street E8 1HE
Tel: 020 8525 6350.

Hackney CAB is one of four bureaux managed by East End Citizens Advice.