How much are you paying per month to your DMP? We make sure that we save up a fund to repair the car as it cost 2k last year (a few things went wrong) so whilst paying the DMP we've been building up a car repair fund

Hi DebtMagnet


No easy answer but you should definitely discuss this with Stepchange (who I understand from your posting history are handling your DMP). It won't be the first time one of their clients has found themselves in your predicament midway through a DMP. Here are some questions to ask yourself before you discuss this with them:


How much cash are you likely to need to buy a car sufficiently robust to do what you need of it, taking into account mileage, frequency of use, type of journey i.e. urban / extraurban / motorway?


How much are you paying into the DMP each month? If these payments were put on hold, how long would it take you to accumulate the figure you need?


How different (if at all) are insurance/tax/fuel costs likely to be on the new(er) car from your existing one?


What, if any, plans do you have in the very immediate short term while you are without wheels? Any family/friends available to help with school runs as a stop gap?


If you were, for argument's sake, to borrow money from family in order to buy a car, what sort of repayment terms are they likely to seek? Is there any likelihood they would defer payment for the foreseeable future?


Dennis
@natdebtline

Thanks both for the replies.

Abby - thanks, I guess we didn't build in enough reserve for things like this. Its a difficult thing to judge between getting the debts paid off as soon as possible by putting spare cash in the DMP, and leaving yourself some spare to be able to deal with this sort of situation.

To be fair we did leave a spare fund but its always used by unexpected events like a tyre blowing or the exhaust falling off etc so never gets to build up to a sum that could be used in a situation like this.

Dennis - I appreciate you taking time to respond in so much detail and the questions you have noted are very useful in helping me focus on what I actually need to do from here so thanks for that.

As for plans right now, none that are any good is the answer. I am getting by with lifts etc but its already impacting on my hours in work so its not sustainable and hence me needing to take some action.

I'll see what Stepchange can recommend in the first instance.

Cheers
DM

Hi,

OP, I dont know which part of the country you are in, but there are certain garages that do a kind of car finance where there is no credit check, you have a little electronic gizmo installed in the vehicle which, once you have made your monthly payment, allows you to drive for another month, and so on, as long as payments are maintained.

Now this particular garage i saw advertised was in Grimsby, but i`m certain there will be others, maybe worth looking into ?