On the day she turned 18, Alyce Hanman, from Gloucester, applied for a credit card to pay for a ticket to Reading Festival.
Within less than two years, her debt had snowballed to £14,000, leaving her struggling to see a way out.
‘I struggled to sleep and felt like a ton of bricks was crushing me from the minute I woke up every morning,’ Alyce tells Metro.
‘There were times when I didn’t really want to be here, and the only reason I didn’t do anything about that was because I couldn’t afford to pay for my own funeral.’
As well as being the one in 10 under-24s who have experienced suicidal thoughts due to worrying about repayments, Alyce is among the 77% of her age group who have borrowed money to smooth out a gap in their incomes, according to a report from MoneySuperMarket and CALM.
Initially, she was paying off the full balance of the card every month, but this led to her being offered a credit limit increase. And when her retail wages wouldn’t cover day-to-day expenses like transport, things began to spiral.
A car finance plan, overdraft, and a high-interest £4,000 loan followed, to the point where she was so wracked with worry she began isolating herself from friends and family.
‘It’s really hard to pinpoint where things went wrong, but it just became a big mess,’ says Alyce. ‘There were days when I would be paid, and after all of my repayments had gone out, I’d be left with 30p for the whole month.’
Like 38% of young people in debt, she also felt ‘too ashamed’ to confide in her parents about her situation.
The business administrator recalls: ‘My mood was so low that in 2019 my mum – who had no idea what was wrong despite us being close – told me to go to the doctor, who prescribed me antidepressants. They helped, but my debts were still there.’
Eventually, she decided to bite the bullet, and laid out what was happening in a long text message to her mum.
‘I was so scared about how she would react,’ Alyce adds. ‘I really felt I had let my parents down.’
Her fears were unwarranted and her mum wasn’t angry at all. If anything, she just wished she’d known sooner so she could have supported her daughter.
After going through various options, Alyce entered into an IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement) through StepChange, where she was able to repay the debt gradually and have some written off. But although this was settled early in 2023, she wasn’t out of the woods yet.
The terms of her IVA allowed her to keep hold of a credit card for emergencies – and since she was earning even less than before having started an apprenticeship, all it took was an expensive car breakdown to get her back into the cycle of unmanageable debt.
‘Before I knew it, it was this stupid amount again,’ says Alyce. ‘It wasn’t that I hadn’t learned my lesson the first time, because I’d worked so hard to pay it off – it was just a combination of low wages and everything going wrong when I hadn’t had a chance to build it up. But I felt really annoyed at myself again.’
Now 25, Alyce has finished her apprenticeship – boosting her income – and has managed to chip away at what she owes. More importantly however, she’s taken control of her financial future instead of burying her head in the sand.
‘I’ve never had a good relationship with money since I’ve been an adult,’ she says. ‘I had to shift my whole mindset.’
Alongside sticking to a strict budget, Alyce started a TikTok in December where she documents her journey to help her stay accountable. Since then, she has gone from £9,302 to £4,485 in debt, with hopes to clear the lot by the end of 2025 and eventually buy a home with her boyfriend.
And to try to help others who feel like she did, she’s now working with MoneySuperMarket and CALM as part of their Money Talks campaign to break the taboo of talking about money worries.
‘Credit is a slippery slope,’ says Alyce. ‘If you’re educated enough and you keep on top of your payments, then there’s nothing wrong with it. But if you feel yourself slipping, or you’re under unnecessary pressure, you need to speak up and talk to someone.
She adds: ‘If I had known how much support was available, I probably would have reached out sooner, before it snowballed into really bad debt.’
Need support?
Find resources and expert tips through MoneySuperMarket’s Money Talks page, or visit the CALM Money Talks hub for advice around the mental health side of money issues.
If you’re a young person, or concerned about a young person, you can also contact PAPYRUS, the Prevention of Young Suicide UK.
Their HOPELINE247 is open every day of the year, 24 hours a day – call 0800 068 4141, text 88247 or email: pat@papyrus-uk.org.
Or, for more general emotional support, you can call the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org, visit a Samaritans branch in person or go to the Samaritans website.
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