New and need your help and advice

hellodolly

Hello,I have used this site many times for money saving tips,now I need some advice on my debts.

Myself and my OH have 60,000 of debts made up from 3 loans and 10 credit cards.My income has reduced dramatically due to alterations in my working pattern.I have a few questions for you good people.

1.I/we believe a DMP is needed to sort out our finances.My question is can we have a joint DMP.The 3 loans are joint but we have 5 cards each that are in sole names.

2.My mortgage is with Natwest, I also have a loan and overdraft with then.My question is can natwest make things difficult for us i.e. throwing us off our mortgage deal.We have never missed our mortgage payments in the last 10 years.Our current deal ends next year and understand they may not give us a good deal then.My fear is sorting a DMP out then they throw us off or mortgage deal.A friend has told us as long as we always pay our mortgage ETC they cant throw us off just because they are miffed our loan is going onto a DMP.

3.We have only missed payments on 1 credit card.Do we keep paying all the cards and loans,or send token payments.We have not spoken to CCCS yet we are going to tomorrow.We will post a SOA as soon as we get all the info together.

4.We have had a lot of bank charges in the past on cards also,if we do a DMP and get accepted by creditors,would claiming charges back upset them and ruin the DMP.

Thats all for now,thanks in advance for any comments we receive.
P.S.
Just like to say I feel like such a failure,we have beautiful children who are doing so well at school,they are high achievers and get glowing reports.I just feel like we have let them down and are going to let them down even more on a tight budget.

Thankyou

tamara2000

Would just like to say from one mum to another in debt please don't feel like a failure. You will get it sorted. xxxx

rubydoiwannabee

[Just like to say I feel like such a failure,we have beautiful children who are doing so well at school,they are high achievers and get glowing reports.I just feel like we have let them down and are going to let them down even more on a tight budget.

Thankyou[/quote]

Hi and welcome,
Try and think of it this way... by making positive steps now to deal with your debts and start living within your means, you will be setting a really good influence for your children on how to manage money. My children have adapted really well to 'value' goods and less treats and in fact now that the treats are less frequent they seem to appreciate them more.

You are good parents and this is the right way to go.

Best of luck and keep posting.

supergrand

:A please dont think you are a failure, you can work it out, it may not be today it may not be tomorrow, but hey is that a light i can see up yonder tunnel?:j xxxx

Mupeteer

You are not a failure. We all make mistakes and the important thing is that you are looking to sort this out. So don't be too hard on yourself. You will get this sorted and you'll make sure you never end up in this situation again.
I'm afraid that I don't know much about DMPs so can't help you out there but there are plenty of people who post that will be able to.
Good luck with the CCCS tomorrow.

SouthernSoftie

hellodolly wrote: »

Hello,I have used this site many times for money saving tips,now I need some advice on my debts.

Myself and my OH have 60,000 of debts made up from 3 loans and 10 credit cards.My income has reduced dramatically due to alterations in my working pattern.I have a few questions for you good people.

1.I/we believe a DMP is needed to sort out our finances.My question is can we have a joint DMP.The 3 loans are joint but we have 5 cards each that are in sole names.Yes, all my debts are in my name but ours is a joint DMP as I am taking his income into account when doing the SOA.

2.My mortgage is with Natwest, I also have a loan and overdraft with then.My question is can natwest make things difficult for us i.e. throwing us off our mortgage deal.We have never missed our mortgage payments in the last 10 years.Our current deal ends next year and understand they may not give us a good deal then.My fear is sorting a DMP out then they throw us off or mortgage deal.A friend has told us as long as we always pay our mortgage ETC they cant throw us off just because they are miffed our loan is going onto a DMP.Depends if any of the debt is secured. Mine isn't and was told it will not affect the mortgage at all, being on a DMP pay mean that you don't get such a good rate when you remortage.

3.We have only missed payments on 1 credit card.Do we keep paying all the cards and loans,or send token payments.We have not spoken to CCCS yet we are going to tomorrow.We will post a SOA as soon as we get all the info together.CCCS will advise you on this. You usually have one month when you send a token payment with your letter to all creditors explaining that you are now on a DMP with CCCS.

4.We have had a lot of bank charges in the past on cards also,if we do a DMP and get accepted by creditors,would claiming charges back upset them and ruin the DMP. Don't see why not, maybe get the DMP accepted first. After all any money you get back can go towards your debt.

Thats all for now,thanks in advance for any comments we receive.
P.S.
Just like to say I feel like such a failure,we have beautiful children who are doing so well at school,they are high achievers and get glowing reports.I just feel like we have let them down and are going to let them down even more on a tight budget.

Thankyou

Hello Dolly, you are asking the same questions I was asking a few weeks ago. I'll put the answers, or rather what i was told, up in red.
It is hard when you have children and they ask why they can't have something they may have always had, but they'll get there. You're not letting them down at all, sitting back and not doing anything would be letting them down.

Do your SOA, do a spending diary, get on the old style money saving boards etc. You'll get there in the end.:T

Yummy-mummy

Hi there hellodolly

Me and the DH have about the same amount of debt. We have a joint loan and o/d, DH has a loan in his sole name and we both have separate credit card debts and have a joint DMP with Payplan.

We are also in a similar situation as we have our mortgage with RBS and our biggest loan is also with RBS together with an o/d. We have been told that the mortgage is completely separate and as long as we have not defaulted on the payments (which we haven't) then there is no reason why we cannot carry on as we have been. It is only the loan and o/d that are included in the DMP. However, we probably won't get such a good deal on the mortgage when this one runs out next year.

We had never missed a payment to any of our creditors before our LBM but when we contacted Payplan they advised that we make token payments until the DMP was set up which we have been doing.

Can't comment on the charges as we've only started incurring them ourselves so will be looking out for advice on that ourselves!!

Please don't feel a failure - we have two lovely children and, yes, it is hard to say no to them when they want something but they are learning that they can't have everything that they want when they want it. You will find that they will start to appriecate things more when they don't get them all the time.

Good luck with CCCS.

YM x

hellodolly

Just had an initial phone interview with Payplan.They are going to ring me on Wed for a full interview.I feel slightly better for ringing them.I didnt get any concrete advice,he just said wait until wednesday and the expert will go through everything.

There budjet etc is very high,they say 400 for food.We are very good with food and have never spent anywere near that(we easily feed 4 very well on 200).Im just a bit worried I will go over budget and be refused a DMP.

32 pounds for haircuts,we dont go to hairdressers/barbers we never have.We use dubbers etc and over counter hair dyes if needed.

This debt thing has been creeping up for years now,I wish I had found this site years ago.Saying that I found it 18 months ago and have just lurked around.

Thanks for reading will update on wednesday.

fermi

I've moved your "update" on the newer thread to this one, so all you posts and replies are together in the one thread.

dancingfairy

The reason they give such high budgets is because I think it has to cover most circumstances so everyone can feed themselves on that amount. I think it depends on whether you have access to cheap shops etc but not everyone can drive to get to a cheap shop etc. ANyway at least you will not have to panic about having enough money for food. If prices go up you still should be o.k. If after living with the budget for a year and you have some spare than you could look at paying your creditors that back.

Don't forget that you are no longer allowed credit so having some slack in your food budget could come in handy if for example your washing machine blows up or your cooker etc. I don't think there are categories for this and it's sod's law this would happen.

Also you need to give yourself the odd treat now and again and obviously your creditors are not going to let yourself have that in the budget but if you were to spend less on your food budget for example you could use it to find a small treat for a birthday etc.

Anyway I hope some of this waffle made sense to you. I am sure Payplan will go through it all with you. Don't forget if you can't get it sorted with Payplan there is nothing to stop you trying CCCS or CAB. I think they all have slightly different budget requirements etc so don't panic.

welshpaula

hiya firstly dont feel like a failure as your not alone most of us on here are in the same boat ! my OH has just started his DMP with CCCS he owes approx 27k on credit cards ! to be honest it has been a real life saver for him as he works very long hours and was worrying me as he was getting very depressed about it all ! we can now see light at the end of the tunnel (ok at the moment its 9 years away) but at least its there ! he had overdrafts with barclays so CCCS advised us to open a basic co op account he has just done all that and can now just get on with paying off the debt and having no further credit ! good luck paula x