‘I borrowed for basics, not to live the high life’

MATT Skeen, 26, became trapped in a spiral of debt after he borrowed £4,000 from HSBC to rent and furnish a house.

He was just 20 and only earning £7.50 an hour, working 21 hours a week for the coffee-shop chain Costa Coffee.

His repayments were £80 a month and he was soon unable to afford them on top of the rent and other bills he had to pay.

He felt the only way out was to borrow more money, this time from payday companies such as Wonga, Everyday Loans and QuickQuid, sometimes paying interest rates as high as 1,000 per cent.

Because the repayments were so high he could not pay his energy bill at the shared house and found himself owing £2,000 to supplier NPower and £900 to his water company.

He fell six months behind with his rent and could barely afford to eat.

“I just couldn’t cope,” he said. “My dad helped me out with a loan, but I couldn’t afford to pay him back without borrowing more.

Ashamed

“I tried all the time to increase my hours but wasn’t always successful.

“I felt ashamed and embarrassed and I wasn’t in a good place mentally.

“The rot set in when my flatmate moved out and I had to pay double the bills and all the rent.

“I finally told my mum and she helped ne get in touch with [debt charity] StepChange and there’s finally light at the end of the tunnel.”

Mr Skeen, from Newcastle upon Tyne, is now engaged to Meg Green, 24, and works full-time on a basic salary of £17,000 a year as a customer service representative in a call centre.

He will be eligible for overtime in the New Year and plans to work as much as possible to clear his debts.

“The advisers at StepChange helped me to sort things out and come up with a repayment plan of £120 a month with no huge interest charges,” he said.

“I was constantly worried before. I didn’t borrow to live the high life, I just couldn’t afford the basics.”