Help!! Financial Plan Help

DavidDaft

Can anyone please offer me some advice, I have been unemployed for 6months and my situation has get worse so I have relocated due to better employment opportunities and got a new job ( in my 3rd week, 2nd pay on Friday). I am trying to sort my debts reviewing them n weekly basis to see where I can free £.

Debt
Littlewoods Credit Card £3256
Halifax One Card £2592
Halifax Overdraft £733

Total £6581

With the Little woods Card I am paying £40 a month with interest froze at 0%.

Both the Halifax One card and Student Overdraft are being dealt with by the Retail Banks Collections Agency and are in arrears.

The Halifax One Card is £192 in arrears and needs a payment of £100 this month to avoid charges next month, I cant afford the full payment as yet and am desperate to get the arrears clear ASAP but every time I don’t pay the full monthly amount I incur a late fee £25 and Over limit Fee £25 also with £26 interest. I have contacted them asking for a 0% interest and asking them to suspend the fines for two months so I can get the payments together to get the arrears cleared, but they said that the account isn’t bad enough to warrant this.

With the Overdraft at first they wanted £105 a month with £5 being interest, they another phone call they said they would accept £65 a month £5 being the interest. I told them I was getting in touch with pay plan and would call them back.

I called pay plan and received some great advice from them but unfortunately they couldn’t help me because you have to be over £8000 in debt (which fortunately I aint). So I called the Retail Bank Collections back to try and sort a weekly payment agreement, when the advisor advised me to give Gregory Pennington (A Debt Management Agency) a call. When I’ve tried to ring the CCCS or National Debt Help line I’ve been unable to get through.

I called Gregory Pennington and they went through my budget with me and have asked me to pay £130 a month (starting this Friday) to them and they will make the payments on my behalf and notigate my debts with my creditors. In this £130 a month is a £25 fee to Gregory Pennington and this option (if remained at £130 a month) would take 66months 5 and a half years to pay off my debt of £6581.

I would prefer to pay sort my own debts and put the £25 fee to better use and try to get the debts down as quick as possible.

My Weekly Budget ( Has you will see my parents are listed, this is because they lent me some £ towards my house deposit and has to be paid but is only till Nov 18th paying £50 per wk.

Incomings
Wages £247.12 (after tax)

Outgoings

Rent £108 (includes council tax).
Travel to work £25 a week cheapest option)
Shopping £25
Parents £ 50 (till Nov 18th)
Little woods £10
Halifax One £10 (Need to pay more)
Halifax OD £10
Contact Lens £3 (Three months pair £36 plus solution £8 a month)
Bills
BT £15.50 per month = £3 a week
AOL £18 per month = 4.50 a week
Gas???????
Electric??????? All Quarterly (Going to put monthly direct debits in place by weekend)
Water???????
TV license £11 per month, £3 a week.


My outgoings are £238 at the moment, once I get to 18th Nov I would of paid my parents and I will be £60 per week better off so will be Outgoings of £178per week (That’s not taking care of the Gas, Electric and water).
Thinking of paying £5 a week gas and Electric direct debit then don’t get stung every 3months, which would make outgoings of £193 per month. Don’t know too much about the water bills yet.

This would give me £54 extra per week bearing in mind I don’t want to live like a Nun and need some £ for leisure.

From my budget what would you recommend, I have the relevant sample letters to write to creditors to ask for a 0% freeze, do you think I am in a position to make such a request.

How badly in debt am I? Would you recommend sorting the debt myself all through a Debt plan? Any help is appreciated I’m young but need to look to the future and the sooner I tackle this the easy and better my life will become!

Many Thanks

Northernbird_2

This is just a quick reply as I'm at work, but do keep trying to get through to the CCCS. They're free, a registered charity, fantastic and they're funded by the banks and financial companies, the very people we owe money to and I think that makes a difference when it comes to negotiating with creditors.

Perhaps you could send them a fax giving your contact details and asking them to ring you?

ceegee

Just quickly.......there is so much free help available such as CCCS, National Debtline (links at top of page) and the CAB, that you don't need to be paying anyone to help you. Persist with trying to get through to them.

charley24

Please Don't go woth Gregory Pennington, they take most of the debt and it goes to them NOT the creditors !

Ring National Debt Line and CCCS, only CCCS and Payplan take NO fees.

Don't go with a company that is just taking your money and not giving you the best advice !

Sparklemonkey

Exactly-never pay for services that are free!

Been there, done it, was paying Baines and Ernst £81 a month!!!!! soon wised up to that complete waste of cash and they were really useless!