Full & Final Settlements

ffs

I have unsecured personal debt (predominantly credit cards) of one and a half times my gross annual income. Fortunately I also have shares worth about half of what I owe. I am intending to use this to fund full & final settlement offers to ten creditors. I have done a search but only found one thread mentioning FFSs.

I used an !!!!!! to deal with a relatively small debt many years ago, however in this instance the bank had made a series of adminstrative errors which strengthened my case. This time the ability to source the absolute cheapest credit followed by a change of circumstances has lead me to my present predicament.

I would be very interested in hearing any advice or experiences. Please note that I am not overly concerned about maintaining a spotless credit record any more. Hitherto my refusal to ever countenance missing a single repayment has being one of the factors that has enabled me to become so heavily in debt.

Thanks in advance

Robert_Sterling_3

Hitherto my refusal to ever countenance missing a single repayment has being one of the factors that has enabled me to become so heavily in debt.

I find this a bit hard to follow.

I think a big ingredient in arriving at your present situation was to borrow on credit cards when you could have used your savings.

Martinslovechild

I find this a bit hard to follow.

A bit hard to swallow more like!!.

This board seems to be evolving into some kind of 'Help me - I've spent far more than I could possibly ever pay back. Anybody know anything about filing for bankcrupcy??' type board.

Am I one of the only remaining people who follows the motto 'live within your means' ??

Robert_Sterling_3

Crikey.  Are Martins's love child and bouncebackinabilty one and the same or are they just siblings?

ffs

I put my hands up to living beyond my means, if you mean I made sure mortgage payments were made when my wife was made redundant. I also made sure all her financial responsibilies were met during the twelve months she was out of work. We are now divorced and I am living in rented accommodation.

The point I was making though was that the better you are at ensuring you never ever fall in arrears, the more likely you are to be given the opportunity to exend your borrowing even more. The temptation to use these credit facilities when circumstances change dramatically, combined with "clever" use of very low interest rate deals, means my debts are more than double what I had planned.

"I think a big ingredient in arriving at your present situation was to borrow on credit cards when you could have used your savings." - The savings were in the form of share options, which didn't mature until recently, and which had no significant value had I terminated the sharesave schemes early.

With 20:20 hindsight I should simply have defaulted on every credit facility I had so that no more credit would have been extended. I should have dealt with priority creditors sensibly, but made offers of nominal payments to everyone else. Instead I made sure nothing fell in arrears by continually borrowing, hoping the situation would get better, instead it got worse.

I honestly believe that the way the credit industry works ensures that a large proportion of customers "max out" and a proportion of those will eventually default when divorce, reduncancy or childbirth occur. That is what they expect, that is what they factor in to their revenue forecasts, therefore I have no moral qualms whatsoever about trying to get out of this in the most painless way possible.

Robert_Sterling_3

After reading the above explanation I can now see where you are coming from.

Martinslovechild

And I apologise for jumping down your throat! :-X

Unfortunately, I can offer no advice other than check out some of the other threads on offer here.

Particularly this one .

The other suggestion is why not visit your local Citizen's Advice Bureau or call National Debtline on 0808 808 4000 (website at http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/)?

ffs

Thank you, I did indeed read that thread before posting my own. I contacted the CCCS nearly two years ago and decided to continue to try to deal with the debts by myself. I used a very significant one off bonus in order to stand still. My debts are exactly the same as they were 24 months ago. Had I used a Debt Management Plan organised by the CCCS I would now be much closer to paying off my debts. All I did was delay the inevitable, waste a bonus, and sell half my possesions on ebay in the process.

I feel dumb.

I have now asked the CCCS to put together a DMP for me. So far I have found them to be extremely helpful and professional. Even so I'm not looking forward to the correspondence, calls, and CCJs I'm going to have to deal with.

Martinslovechild

I don't ever expect that dealing with debt is going to be easy in a consumer society where every conceivable magazine and TV channel is littered with adverts for 'must haves'. I don't know who decides what's in and what's out but the public certainly fall for it over and over again.

I'm really glad that you've taken the initial steps that you've mentioned and really wish you the best of luck in managing this programme going forward. Although I cannot speak from experience, what I will say is that a problem shared is a problem halved - talking to people is often a way of obtaining advice from sometimes the most improbable sources. Not all advice is good advice but you never know what may turn up along the way.

By the way - is there any way that you could press for a promotion? Are you mentoring other employees or have you taken on additional responsibilities that you've never really been paid any extra for? If so, it could be time to have a chat with your boss. Emphasise that you're doing a whole lot more now than you were xxx time ago and you alone now bring xxx and yyy to the company (e.g. revenue generation, stopped a customer leaving, improved production etc). He just may offer you a salary upgrade. If he can't do anything straight away, ask for all these things to be taken into consideration during the next annual payrise. Plant the seed now - it's often too late once the pay awards have gone out!

Best of Luck,

MLC.

King_David_2

Crikey.  Are Martins's love child and bouncebackinabilty one and the same or are they just siblings?

I even appear when I haven't appeared.

Well done that man.