Struggling with debt? Ask a debt advisor a question

StepChange_James · 2 January 2014 at 11:40AM

Florida15 wrote: »

Hi, quite new to all this as well but stepchange have been great, you wont regret talking to them, wish you all the best, big hug xx

Thanks Florida15, I'm really pleased we've been able to help you.

StepChange_James · 2 January 2014 at 11:41AM

mum2one wrote: »

I buried my head in the sand for too long and stepchange were amazing, I've been with them for about 15 months and it was the best thing I ever did with my debts xx

Thanks mum2one,

I can't believe it's been 15 months already. I'm sure the rest of your DMP will rattle past just as quickly!

StepChange_James · 2 January 2014 at 11:51AM

paul.rowling wrote: »

Hi,

I have a CCJ registered against me issued by the Inland Revenue. I've only just found out that they issued the CCJ against me as I have only recently come across the paperwork. It was issued approximately 4 years ago, I think they issued it as I was moving out of my business premises and so I received the paperwork as I was moving and its been buried in a box since. I'd appreciate it if someone could confirm if its possible to vary the CCJ with an N245 form even though the CCJ was originally issued over 4 years ago as I'm unsure if there is a time limit on these things?

Any help would be kindly received.

Many Thanks

Paul

Hi Paul,

If the debt is still outstanding and has a CCJ in place then it's possible to use an N245 form to vary the payment.

There are some exceptions if you're on a low income but there'll usually be a £40 fee to submit an N245 and you'll need to fill out the form with some figures about your finances to show what you can afford to offer as a payment.

I'm probably telling you stuff you already know now, but feel free to post up any other questions you've got.

Cheers

James

StepChange_James · 2 January 2014 at 12:17PM

GSDog wrote: »

Hi,

I'm 24 years old and have become concerned at the amount of debt that I have recently accumulated.

I'm a part-time student and I work 4 days a week. I am also a homeowner (I inherited a property a few years ago) and have a joint mortgage with my brother. I pay around £500 a month on the house mortgage and bills, the rest goes on travel, food and drink.

In the last couple of months I have gone from being debt-free to currently having the following debt;

Student Account: £1,250 @ 0% (overdraft is £1,700)
Santander Credit Card: £1,100 @ 18.9%.

I have never been in debt before so I am finding this very stressful. I got the credit card just 6 weeks ago because my car insurance was due and I couldn't afford it. I chose not to pay monthly because it added about £350 a year onto the costs.

I have recently cut all unnecessary expenditure. I haven't bought anything for a long time, have cancelled my mobile phone contract along with any subscriptions, etc. However, I seem to keep being hit by huge bills recently - broken down boiler, car insurance, tax, etc.

I obviously want to clear my credit card debt first and foremost but I am not sure how to do this.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Chris.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for posting. It sounds like you've already started doing the most important thing, which is to cut back on your costs where you can. Although this has to be within reason - nobody should have to live off a diet of beans and toast seven days a week (unless they really want to).

So once you've cut your costs back it's worth planning out a budget if you've not already, to weigh up your money coming in against your money going out. If there's enough to cover the payment on the card then the best thing is to plough as much money off it as you can afford every month.

Paying just the minimums on credit cards keeps the companies off your back but it means the balances will probably hover around the same amount. If you can afford to overpay then you'll start the see progress.

If your budget shows that you've not got enough to keep up with the payments on the card then it's likely you'll need more in depth advice and maybe need to negotiate lower payments.

Our online Debt Remedy advice tool can guide you through making a budget and give you advice about the next steps. Here's the link: http://www.stepchange.org/msehelp.

Kind regards

James

StepChange_James · 2 January 2014 at 12:30PM

helencal80 wrote: »

I have around £16,000 of unsecured debt. I am just compiling a list of all creditors and amounts etc before looking into a DMP.

I am a university student, first year, so receive student finance three times a year. How will this affect the DMP? Will I need to pay all of my student finance towards the debts? Obviously I have books, travel etc to pay for as well.

Many thanks.

Hi Helen,

Student loans and grants are provided to help support your living and studying costs, so that would be the first thing they'd need to be used for.

It's usually easiest to divide the yearly amount you receive by 12 and then plan it against your monthly costs.

If you need all of your income to cover living costs then we'd not recommend any of it went towards debts and look to find solutions that didn't involve paying large amounts of money to your debts.

If there's something left to pay towards creditors then it might be possible to offer them some sort of payment, though I'd guess it's likely to be less than the full amount.

It's hard to be specific without knowing more about your current financial situation. Once you've got your list of creditors sorted out I'd recommending putting your information into our Debt Remedy tool: http://www.stepchange.org/msehelp.

If it recommends a DMP as your best option you'll then have the option to request an application pack and you'll be on your way to getting it set up with us.

I will say that we'd only recommend a DMP if it was a good solution for your circumstances, so it could be that we'd recommend some other debt solution. Maybe not, but it's worth approaching debt advice with an open mind about which solution is best.

Kind regards

James

Ruthless · 2 January 2014 at 5:30PM

jmgeofiz wrote: »

Morning all

Sitting by the phone waiting for a call back from Stepchange. Feel utterly miserable having spent 4 years trying to sort out the financial mess resulting from my husband's sudden death. Spent most of Crimbo in tears, can not start 2014 without tackling it all.....are Stepchange helpful?

thanks
j

Contacting Stepchange was the best thing that my husband and I EVER did. It has turned our world around. We started a DMP in April 2013 with around £30k of debt between us. We pay Stepchange £546 a month and they then distribute to our creditors. We have a reasonable budget to cover living expenses and we no longer lurch from payday to payday wondering how to make £20 last the 2 weeks until the next one. All of our creditors bar one were wonderful, stopped interest and charges immediately. We've just won a battle with NatWest via a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, but even that wasn't scary as we knew that we had Stepchange behind us all the way. We're getting all charges and interest refunded from NatWest (they added £1500 to a £6k debt over 6months - I think they were trying to out-do Wonga on the interest levels!).

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Stepchange to anyone with debts that are spiralling out of control, where just making minimum payments are wiping out a huge % of wages. Make the call, visit their website - it will be the best thing you ever do.

Ruthless · 2 January 2014 at 5:41PM

bix1966 wrote: »

thank you - did anyone else feel really nervous when committing to a DMP?

Not at all - we'd got to the point where we wouldn't have been able to get credit anyway, so it was a no-brainer for us to go on the DMP.

We have a boiler insurance plan in place with British Gas that covers repairs to heating system and an annual service, so you could factor something like that into your budget. We put away money each month to cover car insurance so that we can pay it as a lump sum (cheaper than paying monthly), same with car repairs under the 'sundries/emergencies' heading.

The Stepchange budget tool is actually quite generous if you go with the suggested amounts. Certainly more generous than the amounts we had left to play with once we'd paid all the min amounts on outstanding debts.

It was only the first month that was a bit daunting - you open up a basic bank account (we went with Coop cashminder as it comes with a debit card) and transfer all utility and household bills to the new account. It's at the point where Stepchange contact all your creditors (including your old bank) that you have to hold your nerve as you get a fair few letters and default notices from your creditors, but to be honest, they are all sympathetic letters in the main and Stepchange make you aware of what to expect by way of correspondence, so you feel supported all the way.

paul.rowling · 2 January 2014 at 7:46PM

Thanks James, much appreciated. I just wanted to check because the CCJ was issued so long ago. Ill get the N245 completed and will give you a shout on here if I have any questions.

Thanks again

Paul

leecthompson · 2 January 2014 at 8:47PM

leecthompson wrote: »

Hi, sorry I posted a thread on this before I read this one! I'll paste my awful predicament below...

First off, I'm an idiot. I went to StepChange a few months ago and had a massive weight lifted off my shoulders. However the weight of Christmas and some money I owed to a friend lured me, stupidly, into taking out payday loans to tide me over. It was a desperation move really because I have no way of repaying them (all of my disposable goes into my DMP!) and now in hindsight after doing some research I realise I've broken the terms of my DMP which I've only been on for 3 months. Will StepChange kick me off my DMP? What can I do? Help!!!!

As promised an update. StepChange have helped me and been so understanding and let me add this disaster to my plan. I got a deserved ticking off but seriously can't thank these guys enough. Hope you all have a great new year! What a relief.

Thanks, Lee.

HelplessH · 3 January 2014 at 3:43PM

Hi, I have recently been speaking to the lovely people at StepChange and have managed to set up a DMP to sort out my finances but I am now getting phone calls from my creditors at work who are demending to speak to me and when I refused started getting very abusive they said they would call me back after work - I don't know what to do, should I speak to them or refer them back to StepChange which is what I have already done?

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