If you are still using available credit lines and would find it difficult not to rely on them, you might want to see if you can turn your financial problems around. This is especially important to consider where you have bank loans and overdrafts because once these are defaulted, your credit will be throttled, and even withdrawn.

Repayment Holidays

Some consumer credit lenders will agree short repayment holidays to help you get back on track. Make sure you confirm whether your credit score and credit limits will be impacted before agreeing to this.

Impact on Credit Score

When you stop paying contractual repayments, your credit score will be affected and you'll find it difficult to get credit in the future.

If you really can't get on top of an overdraft and or bank loans, you must set up a basic bank account with another bank that you don't have debt with. You can then divert your income and essential expenses to the new bank account.

Take a look at your outstanding credit borrowing and priority debts, get the total, then compare to what spare money you have to repay your creditors? Consider your working life and your age. Do you have a real prospect of repaying the debt back? Can you manage contractual repayments? If the answer is yes, then you probably don't need a debt solution right now. However, you may benefit from understanding your debt options and getting help to maximise your budget and income.

If your answer was No, it's important to take the next step of getting debt advice.

Just because you're struggling, it doesn't always mean that you need a debt solution. With appropriate and available interventions (other options not including debt solutions) your financial problems might be turned around. Some interventions are things to try, but they might not be successful, an example would be a grant application. You cannot guarantee these will be successful as they are assessed on the grant maker's criteria, with your individual circumstances.