C for Care

One older gentleman ended up needing my debt advice in order to enable him to still be able to afford his carer.

Mr Smith was around 85 years old, and, whilst he still lived at home, he hired a regular carer who travelled over from the local care home every day to feed him and make sure he was coping alone. He lived in a one-room bedsit and struggled to look after himself. Unfortunately the amount Mr Smith was receiving from his pension just wasn’t enough to allow him to continue paying the care home from whom he’ d hired the carer and he began to fall behind on his payments when they fell due.

The reason Mr Smith was finding it so difficult to pay his outgoings stemmed back to credit card payments from years ago. Rather than paying off all his debts at once he had got into the habit of only making the minimum repayments – which meant he had more to pay over a longer term. Whilst he had been earning he had just about managed to break even, but as his pension was so slim and the amount he owed was £450 per month he was unable to manage his debts and, because he couldn’t pay the care home, his carer just stopped turning up.

I managed to speak to his creditors and get the minimum monthly payment down to a manageable £120, which meant that Mr Smith could actually pay back the council and still had enough money left over to get his carer back.