‘It felt like we were prisoners in our own home.’

Sam: Within twelve months, materials like timber had almost doubled in price. Paul was taking on more and more jobs, working six or seven days a week. He’d arrive home and then immediately get on with pricing up other jobs, so he was often working 18-hour days. We weren’t paying ourselves a wage. Everything we had was going into keeping the business afloat.

Paul: We’d never struggled to provide for our kids before then. We’ve raised eight children – half are now grown up and have moved out to start their own families, and we have the four younger ones at home with us. Suddenly, we were struggling to afford basic things like food and bills. We had to cut back so much on things like sports and activity clubs – things that really affect a child’s life. Without them, they can’t socialise and build friendships in the same way. But we had no choice.

Paul: Money worries hit everything – our marriage, our mental health, our kids. I’d snap at them and then the guilt just added to how low I felt. One night, I opened up to Sam about how I’d been feeling. I cried, telling her that there were times when I’d seriously considered suicide. We went to the GP and I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. We didn’t realise it could get any worse – until it did. About a week later, at age 44, I had a stroke, brought on by the stress of our financial situation.

Sam: Paul was out of action for twelve weeks while he recovered, so we had no choice but to close the business. No money was coming in, but bills still needed to be paid, and within a month everything was overdue. From then on, it was relentless.

They’d bang on the door so loudly that it sounded like the police, sometimes at 7:30 in the morning. We’d keep the curtains closed and tell the kids to hide upstairs, but the bailiffs would sit outside the house for hours, and we couldn’t leave. At times it felt like we were prisoners in our own home.

Sam: We didn’t want any of this. We wanted to be able to pay our own way in life. We’d just fallen on impossibly hard times. We tried calling the enforcement company, and Paul explained that he’d had a stroke and lost the business. He made an offer to pay a small amount, but they refused to accept it. He was told we had to pay the full amount or bailiffs would come round and take things from our house to sell. Honestly, I don’t think selling everything in our house would have come close to covering the amount they were asking for, and it was terrifying because at that time we didn’t know our rights.

Paul: They wanted us to pay when we couldn’t even afford to meet our own basic needs. We were relying on food banks and borrowing money so that we could eat.

Sam: There was a lady at church called Lorna who worked for CAP, and I sent her a message. I told her about the mess we were in and the bailiffs. She encouraged us to call CAP’s free helpline to make an appointment with Jonathan, the debt coach in our area. Unfortunately, the earliest Jonathan could see us was in January (it was December at that point) and that meant we had bailiffs at the door all through Christmas. But we did have a reference number from CAP which meant that any time someone phoned or came to the door, we could tell them we were working with CAP and show that we were taking steps to sort out our debts.

Paul: Christmas was really tough. We couldn’t afford gifts for the kids, so we put together a few things they’d need anyway, like toiletries and socks, plus sentimental items like family photos. They were so grateful, but having to do that really hurt us – it felt like we’d failed to protect them from the impact of our debt situation. As a parent, you want nothing more than to protect your kids from worry.

Sam: When Jonathan finally came to visit in January, we didn’t know what to expect. We’d never needed debt help before. We showed him a drawer stuffed full with letters – some hadn’t even been opened – and I thought he’d be shocked, but he said, ​‘I’ve seen worse!’ Straight away, we started to feel like we could take a deep breath because we were starting the journey out of debt.

Paul: Jonathan reassured us that there was a solution, and that he’d be there to help us find it. It was only then that Sam and I finally believed we could get through it. We’d been in a black hole and we needed that outside perspective to give us some hope and reassurance, and for someone to show us what we needed to do to move forward. The day Jonathan visited, we had £2 left on the meter. We didn’t tell him that, but God must have been at work, because that afternoon, Jonathan sent us an emergency fuel top-up. With it being winter, it was a lifeline at a critical time. It allowed us to look beyond our most immediate needs, and gave us the reassurance that somebody was there to help carry the burden.

Sam: When Jonathan went through all the letters that had been stuffed in that drawer, he told us that most of them were duplicates, so straight away it became more manageable. CAP’s advice was for me to go through a Debt Relief Order and Paul to go through bankruptcy. It was hard to accept what needed to be done, but it was the right thing to do. The day we went debt free, I wasn’t expecting to see Jonathan but he came over to the house to congratulate us. He’d walked that journey with us and was so happy for us. We still keep in touch with Jonathan and his wife, and we’ve visited their church – we’re so grateful for his compassion and support in the darkest time of our lives.

Paul: Seeing how Jonathan and our own church community gathered around us when we were at our lowest helped Sam and I grow closer to God. Philippians 4:13 was a significant verse for me: ​‘I can do all this through him who gives me strength’. I learned that you’ve got to go through the valley to get to the mountain. Now that our finances are back on track, we want to share our story far and wide. Our hope is to see more families get connected with their local church, who can provide the practical and emotional support they urgently need.