Our current financial situation at BS3 rings a parallel with my own financial crisis about 15 years ago.
I've built up a (very small) property portfolio over the years. As the property stock increases in value (longer term) it seemed like a safe thing to do. I borrowed as much as I could in order to invest in a market which for the most part was gathering capital year after year.
A bit like Ashton did, playing the Player market before COVID.
Then, in 2007, I hit the 'perfect storm'.
2 of my 3 buy-to-lets had been trashed by some scumbag tenants and they both needed work done to bring them back 'market-ready'. Without hesitation I commissioned a builder to undertake the renovations, as every month without a tenant was costing me money. At the same time I was having an extension built on my own home. As I had plenty of equity in ALL my properties, I felt confident that the renovation costs were covered.
Wrong.
The Credit Crunch hit
(a bit Like COVID hit the Player market) and I found myself unable to remortgage ANY of my houses. I still owed the builders for their work but I couldn't raise a loan or any other capital. The ONLY option I had was to put everything onto Credit Card. I ended up with £60k
YES - SIXTY THOUSAND POUNDS on various credit cards. Unsurprisingly this was an absolute nightmare and every penny that I earned was thrown at trying to pay the interest.
In desperation I sold one of my houses - but in fact this only improved things slightly for 1 year, because during the Credit Crunch houses were not selling and property prices had dipped, so I had to drop the asking price in order to get a quick sale.
I reduced the CC balance down to £40k as a result of the sale, but the following year the Inland Revenue demanded £12k for Capital Gains Tax. I was still unable to raise any capital so it had to go straight back on Credit Card again - so I lost a house and I was only £8k better off. With hindsight I shouldn't have sold - but I was desperate. My 2 youngest kids were also going through Uni at the same time and despite both MRS R&W and I being on decent wages our finances were in utter meltdown.
All this reminds me of our current situation with FFP and paying Wells and Palmer, but not being able to offload them.
We bumped along like this for about 4 years - looking back it's a miracle we survived.
In 2012 I inherited some money, which wiped out the CC debt - and I've made sure that I've not had any since, but I'm watching the cost of living rises very closely - particularly the interest rates

.
A truly terrible time for me - but I'm not blaming LJ - or Warnock!!!