In Debt? When Should You Talk to an Insolvency Trustee?

Dave and Doug Hoyes discuss why fear and shame often stop people from getting help with debt early.

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I think a lot of people are waiting too long to talk to people like you, especially in the last few years. And the reason I say that is we’re seeing so often now with younger people in particular, they’re in trouble and they’re layering debt on top of debt to try to serve the first one.

And it’s just getting worse instead of better. They’re never going to be able to escape it with this approach. And then by the time they get to you, they’re in a much worse position than when they started a year, two and three years ago, up against the eight ball. Am I wrong there?

No, you’re, you’re right because compounding is great when you got money in the bank and it goes, it’s exactly the wrong thing when you don’t. And so what I would encourage everyone to do is math, and you don’t have to do it yourself. Go on the internet. There’s all sorts of places that do math for you.

But if you’ve got a credit card and the interest rate is 22%. Your minimum payment is only covering the interest and maybe a tiny bit of principle. I mean, it says right on your credit card statement, it’s gonna take you 47 years to pay this off. Okay, well probably the sooner you address the situation the better.

It’s exactly like a medical issue. If you’ve got a toothache, do you go see the dentist now or do you wait six months? Um, probably better to see them now. The, the sooner you get started on the solutions, the better. And part of it is fear. Like, I don’t know, am I gonna lose everything? Am I never gonna be able to work again?

What’s gonna happen? And part of it is just I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. So yes, I agree. The sooner you reach out, the better. And most of the people who contact us, more than half, we say, you know what? You don’t actually need my. Solution. Um, maybe what you need to do is follow, you know, the wealthy barber and do a spending summary and see where your money’s going and make some adjustments and pick up a second job and you’ll be able to work your way outta that.

Fantastic. Maybe you sell your assets, sell your house, whatever. We will walk you through all those options. But if a formal insolvency is the option, then yeah. The sooner we get going on it, the better. ’cause the sooner you start, the sooner it’s done.

Well I’m gonna pay you a compliment here. I mean, I think one of the other things that holds people back is shame.

That a lot of times, even though you’re a stranger to them, they’re very, very guarded about exposing the troubles they’ve got themselves into. Whether it’s their fault or whether it’s bad luck, whatever. It’s often bad luck. As you know, you know, the people I’ve known, who’ve spoken to you personally, even in some instances have said there’s a sense of relief.

When you finally get it off your chest and you show somebody the math and they walk you through the potential solutions, and in you, in your case, you were saying, sometimes you say no, you can do this on your own. But I think for a lot of people, again, jumping in, talking to an expert early, makes sense.