Real Solutions Series: Dealing With Bad Debt – by Wale Balogun

After my ‘Give It A Try’ post, my friend immediately told me that I had to write a follow-up to it; I jokingly pushed back saying there were too many issues that could come up and it would be hard to choose the issues to tackle in the follow up posts.

So I challenged him to write one of the follow-up posts. This week’s post is from my friend from Uni days – Wale Balogun. He’s my first guest blogger, so kudos to him for saying yes to a rare opportunity.

Please share the post with others. Thanks for reading and see you next week when we continue the series. For now enjoy Wale’s post on bad debt – a debilitating issue that turns people into unwilling prisoners in their own homes.

Dealing With Bad Debt: Wale Balogun

After reading Yemi’s “Give It A Try’ (Give It A Try – Purposeful Me) post a couple of weeks back, even before getting to her assignment of “… peeling off the layers and getting to the root of your decisions…”, I knew there had to be a follow-up!

One couldn’t allow the blog to be ‘a feel good’ or “that’s so true” moment!

The write-up called for action, contemplation and some digging into the soil of ‘self’ in order to start taking those steps and eventual strides towards success, rebuilding of relationships, overcoming challenges etc.

One area that we sometimes don’t have the courage to ‘peel back the layers’ on is dealing with what I’d call “Bad Debt”.

In this instance I don’t mean mortgages or managed personal or business loans. It’s amazing how we can allow debt to build up or get out of hand.

In some instances, as we can’t see a way out, we mistakenly conclude that debt has to be part of one’s everyday life.

Getting into bad debt can happen to anyone, it’s happened to me several times in the past! A late or non-payment on credit card/s, an unpaid fine etc. When these are not dealt with, they often increase to large unmanageable amounts over time and can cause all sorts of problems!

The key as Yemi’s “Fighting Back’ (Fighting Back – Purposeful Me) post highlighted is facing bad debt head on, one step and day at a time, knowing that it may take a while but can be, definitely, overcome! and yes I am a living testament to the fact!

What can we do? Here are a few but not exhaustive suggestions:

Honesty with self (and perhaps spouse, family etc.) and God if you have a faith. Coming to this truth can in itself be liberating, I know friends who have said it was as if a weight had been lifted off their shoulders when they came clean and owned up to bad debt not being a good place to be. This also, at times, enables one to think, plan and act clearly

Take time to get a full picture of one’s bad debt! remember honesty has to become “our best policy”, know what and to whom you owe!

Get help. From professional, knowledgeable friends, organisations such as Citizens Advice Bureau and certain charities offer free, relevant or good referral advice on such matters, don’t allow the past mistakes or your predicament to stop you from doing so!

Seek to consolidate the bad debt (with care and caution though). This often makes it more manageable, cheaper on the long run and removes a lot of the stress of dealing with so many different debtors

Talk and negotiate with your creditors. You will be surprised at how accommodating some debtors are. Most of them want to see your commitment to agreed plans.

There have been instances when some or all of particular bad debts have been reduced, amended or even written off! My motto is ‘if you don’t ask you don’t get”. Key to this is being honest and to act with integrity to the set agreements.

Be willing to let go of non-essentials; make the coffee, lunch or snack from home!. The amount of savings that can come from forgoing the daily spend on many things can go a long way in levelling that bad debt mountain!

Do all of these with discipline, dedication and purpose knowing that some knocks and setback might try to come but will not derail you from coming out of BD. You can do it!