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I recently came across a discussion on the mumsnet.com forums about a woman who was secretly poor.

From the outside it looked like she was well off enough, with a “a lovely house filled with expensive furniture and nice clothes in the wardrobe” but the truth was she and her family were struggling to pay their bills and her property was in negative equity. The post received a lot of replies from seemingly middle-class people in similar situations, all trying to keep up the appearance that all was well, and secretly battling to manage their finances and debts.

As a company in the debt industry we’ve seen a reluctance in people to talk openly about their debts with others. Perhaps it’s the idea that irresponsible spending has caused the debts. Whilst this may be the case for some (such as Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones) most ordinary people are struggling with debt because of redundancies, unemployment and other economic factors.

A recent report showed individual UK debt is on the increase, so it’s not surprising that debt is affecting all kinds of people, whether they appear to be in a well-paid profession, or have a nice looking house.

If you’re one of the “secretly poor” people, ClearDebt have set up their online community to offer advice and answer any questions you may have about debt. You can post a question under an anonymous username and one of our expert debt advisors will reply back with an answer. Visit the ClearDebt Community now, or complete our online contact form and we will call you back.