Financially ruined? Can we fix this? - I will try to keep this as short as I can.

40yr female and partner is 39.
Husband works full time earning approx 90k
I’m part time earning 25k plus caring for our son who will be in school in 2 years time.

We both grew up in social housing, no real work ethic or any real idea of how to handle money. Please note. This is not an excuse just setting the scene.

From the age of about 25 we have made terrible financial choices due to problem gambling and drug addiction.

We are now both in treatment for this and are seeking professional help. Looking to start to put together our life again.

As a result over the last 15yrs we had been taking out loans we couldn’t afford, pay day loans etc we have defaulted on many of these. Even afterpay, klarna all those buy now pay later companies.

My credit score is terrible at 300, hubbys is worse at less than 200. We don’t own a home.

Our goal is to pay off our creditors, increase our credit score (can’t even get electricity in our name) and eventually purchase a small home we can afford.

The issue is, we have moved houses so many times and changed phone numbers that we have lost track of who and how much we actually owe.

What should our next steps be?

Should we get a copy of our credit reports from all the credit reporting bodies? And one by one go through and contact the creditors to organise a payment plan? I would suspect a lot of the debt would be nearing 5 years old, but I still want to do my best to pay them back. A lot of the debt has been sold to Credit Corp.

Please hold any harsh judgments. I know we have been irresponsible and we are trying our best to rectify and make amends.

I would estimate the debt to be about 40k in unsecured loans/pay day/credit cards.

Thanks for reading this far

EDITED TO ADD - I’ve just checked my report from equifax and a considerable amount of the debt on there says ‘DATE OF DELETION DEC 23 and JAN 24’
What does this mean? Is the debt sold to someone else?