A BBC star has opened up about an 'embarrassing' £20,000 debt after his cashpoint card was swallowed. Kevin Duala revealed how a few small loans spiralled into a significant financial burden.
Kevin Duala's Debt Spiral
Speaking on BBC Morning Live, Kevin admitted: 'Little bits of work was coming in but not enough to balance the books… I then borrowed a little bit more money. Then I maxed out on my overdraft, I was just ending up in this horrible, vicious circle, robbing Peter to pay Paul.'
He continued: 'I just thought I'll ignore it, it'll go away. I just buried my head in the sand but as we know it doesn't go away. I didn't want to tell anybody it was embarrassing. I felt ashamed. I was a grown man, we were bringing our kids up, I had bills to pay.'
The Pressure Mounts
'The pressure started to mount and it's horrible when you go through that situation because you can't tell anyone or you don't want to tell anyone, you feel embarrassed,' he told hosts Helen Skelton and Rav Wilding. 'The industry that we're in, our job is to go out and pretend and everything's okay. And I just couldn't do that.'
Kevin recalled: 'I remember going for an audition and I just thought to myself; if you get this job, I'll be back in the game, no one needs to know, I can hide it all.'
The Cashpoint Incident
'One day I went to the cashpoint, to get some money out and it took my card and it said, contact your bank. I had no access to money. So, I went home and I just thought my goodness, what am I gonna do? I just started crying, not out of pity just out of annoyance that I got myself in that situation.'
Advice for Others
Kevin offered practical steps: 'Know what you owe and then that will see you in the right direction because then you can attack it. Start by going through your bank statements line by line, a great way to do this as well is to get a free credit report.'
'Make a budget. Make what's your incoming? What's your outgoings? Get your plan all in order. What's at the top of the list that you need to pay? Is it your rent? Is it your council tax? Make sure you've got enough money for all of those.'
'This may help some people but if you can, just put a couple of quid away or a pound away, just to get you in that mindset of saving money.'
He concluded: 'I promise you, the relief you will get from taking that first step far outweighs the financial stress living with debt. I remember talking to the debt charity, the organisation I said: When will I get to the end? And they said: When you get to the end, don't put a time limit on it.'
