Concerning tax payments , I would recommend to contact your tax office as they are sometimes able to offer a postponement or payment in installations

Once you've got your breath back, and worked out a plan to clear your debts, can you accelerate your repayments by

Finding ways to Increase your Income

Selling items
What do you own, that you could sell? It is poor economy to sell now what you will later need and then not be able to afford to replace. Even so, there may be items you don't use and don't need that you could put on tutti or ricardo.

Buy or find items, specifically to sell
Sometimes one can buy in good bargains at flea-markets, or better still find them on the sidewalk for free, take them home, clean them up properly, repair them, and resell them for more. This, especially if your ads are detailed and fair, including several tasteful photos.

Ask for a salary increase
Yeah, yeah, covid and all, but if your employer a) values you can b) knows a bit about your difficulties, they might consider increasing your salary, even if just slightly.

Apply for a promotion
If you qualify, if there's the space with your current employer.

Get another job
If your health permits, could you take on an extra part-time job?

• Could you take up training children or adults a sport?
• Could you be a waiter?
• Could you register to be one of those informal online language teachers, for an hour of converataion in your mother tongue?
• Could you put up ads, online or in local shops, to take on handyman or cleaning jobs?
• Could you pet-sit (depending on your existing knowledge, and on the legally required qualifications in your canton)?
• Could you try selling photos online?

Many such types of work are found by word-of-mouth. Ask in all the little shops in your area, or in each small or medium-sized business. Walk around your area, and in the nearest shopping and business spaces, to see if there are any ads in the windows.

Ask your friends for ideas
If they know about your situation, and care about you, and if you make it clear that you're not to proud and are prepared to do almost anything to earn a little on the side, your friends might pass on small, paid jobs to you, for which they would otherwise have paid someone else, such as mowing their lawn, or babysitting, or cleaning, or cooking for their party, or helping them clear our their cellar. If this kind of work becomes regular, they are by law obliged to pay for your accident insurance, which costs Fr. 100 a year (for casual employees).

Keep an eye open for posts on the Jobs Offered section of this forum
Can you housesit?
Can you help someone form their accent in English?
and so on.



Even a small, thin trickle of irregular income from some work which may be at a lower level than your qualifications is better than nothing, as long as doing the extra work doesn't damage your health.

Each few Francs extra you can generate, plough it into the debt.

How're things going, OP? Has Caritas agreed to help you work on solving this?


Here's a collection of links, in English, about the effects your debt could have
https://www.ch.ch/en/debts-what-effects/
and what one can do
https://www.ch.ch/en/debt-enforcement-bankruptcy/.

For anyone else besides OP, who may be reading this: in addition to the links in Posts 2 and 8, above, of advice centres for help when dealing with debts, here's another list:
http://www.schulden.ch/dynasite.cfm?dsmid=76304

With all advice centres, do not be intimidated by your possible lack of the local language. Just call, and ask whether anyone there speaks a language that you know. It may be that you're told to call back another time, when someone else with the right language set is on duty.

In any case, if you find that the first time you call they're not very helpful, don't be put off. Remember that there are likely to be several people working there, and they will vary in quality and manner. Just phone again the next day, possibly at a different time of the day, and you will most likely be put in touch with a different advisor, and that might work better.

Since fixing your debt situation is going to take a while, always make a note of the name of the person - if you can't remember it, ask them to spell it for you - and the date and time you called. Ask them for their direct phone number and whether you may mail them. Knowing with whom you're dealing will streamline things next call/mail.

You can see how this lady did it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...rmat=1&depth=1

no need to buy the book, you can read for free part of it to get a flavour.

For anyone wishing to live beyond their means, always think before splashing out.

True , but easier said than done .