Considering a DMP

andreweduk

Thanks again for the advice

Another thought I had, was how does a DMP work out how much you owe on an overdraft? Obviously the balance changes on a daily basis. If I've just been paid, the balance is around £-500, but if it's at the end of the month it's more like £-1600?

Andy

mummum2

I also have the NatWest Step Account and have for the past year! absolutely no problems with it at all. You know to the last penny what you have in your account, no overdraft, credit card, just solo card which is widely used everwhere, even used it in Turkey this year to withdraw some cash.

Good luck and your in the right place for great support and advice.

Ames

andreweduk wrote: »

Thanks again for the advice

Another thought I had, was how does a DMP work out how much you owe on an overdraft? Obviously the balance changes on a daily basis. If I've just been paid, the balance is around £-500, but if it's at the end of the month it's more like £-1600?

Andy

If you're on a dmp you should have changed your bank account to one that doesn't have an overdraft. Then the dmp provider will see your old overdraft as another debt and make payments to it like all the others. You're not allowed to use credit in a dmp so you're not allowed an overdraft.

RAS

andreweduk wrote: »

Monthly Income Details
Monthly income after tax................ 1067
Partners monthly income after tax....... 0
Benefits................................ 0
Other income............................ 0
Total monthly income.................... 1067

Can you get a second job - even for a few weeks?

Monthly Expense Details
Mortgage................................ 0
Secured loan repayments................. 0
Rent.................................... 250
Management charge (leasehold property).. 0
Council tax............................. 50
Electricity............................. 20
Gas..................................... 20
Oil..................................... 0
Water rates............................. 15
Telephone (land line)................... 10
Mobile phone............................ 35 - reduce this and go PAYG when your contract ends
TV Licence.............................. 12 - why are you apying the whole amount?
Satellite/Cable TV...................... 10
Internet Services....................... 10
Groceries etc. ......................... 130 - you and OH can cut this and it will help both of you.
Clothing................................ 20 - underwear only in the short-term
Petrol/diesel........................... 0
Road tax................................ 0
Car Insurance........................... 0
Car maintenance (including MOT)......... 0
Car parking............................. 0
Other travel............................ 75
Childcare/nursery....................... 0
Other child related expenses............ 0
Medical (prescriptions, dentist etc).... 0
Pet insurance/vet bills................. 10
Buildings insurance..................... 0
Contents insurance...................... 12 - if this is half a joint one, it seems expensive. Check and swap via ww.quidco.com if necessary.
Life assurance ......................... 0
Other insurance......................... 0
Presents (birthday, christmas etc)...... 12
Haircuts................................ 10 - cut to every other month
Entertainment........................... 40 - needs to go. head over to the freebies board and get sign up for free trials etc.
Holiday................................. 15 - towards debt
Emergency fund.......................... 10 - ditto
Total monthly expenses.................. 769

Assets
Cash.................................... 0
House value (Gross)..................... 0
Shares and bonds........................ 0
Car(s).................................. 0
Other assets............................ 0
Total Assets............................ 0

No Secured Debt

Unsecured Debts
Description....................Debt......Monthly...APR
HSBC Credit Card...............4400......125.......18
Beneficial Credit Car..........1700......35........25
HMV Card (Style)...............250.......15........30 - this needs to be paid off first
HSBC Loan......................4000......125.......9
HSBC Overdraft.................1600......0.........10
GE Money Store Card............200.......8.........30 - and this
Total unsecured debts..........12150.....308.......-

Monthly Budget Summary
Total monthly income.................... 1,067
Expenses (including secured debts)....... 769
Available for debt repayments........... 298
Monthly UNsecured debt repayments....... 308
Surplus(deficit if negative)............ -10

Personal Balance Sheet Summary
Total assets (things you own)........... 0
Total Secured debt...................... -0
Total Unsecured debt.................... -12,150
Net Assets.............................. -12,150

Created using the SOA calculator at www.makesenseofcards.com.
Reproduced on Moneysavingexpert with permission.

======== Enter any other useful information below ========
2 Adults in the house, me and my OH. I owe her around £600 so am paying her that back at around £100 p/m at the moment, as she needs her money back.

Frankly, you do not need a DMP, you need to learn to budget, and live within your means.

Move to a new bank account anyway.

Cancel or reduce those unnecessary spends and both of you have a look at the Money saving Old style forum. Do a store cupboard challenge and you should be able to get to the end of the month without further debt.

Go round the place and find all the things that you have not used in ages and start on e-bay, amAZOON OR DO A car boot sale. You will probably be able to clear one of those cards immediately.

Start the bank charge reclaim process immediately. Any charges on the other cards - get claiming.

What is the agreed OD limit on your existing account?

You should be able to get your expenditure down to the level that allows you to start making inroads on your debt within a month or two and if you can add a few extras like money from slaes of stuff or a second job, you will have this knocked on the head without damaging your credit record.

andreweduk

RAS wrote: »

Frankly, you do not need a DMP, you need to learn to budget, and live within your means.

Move to a new bank account anyway.

Cancel or reduce those unnecessary spends and both of you have a look at the Money saving Old style forum. Do a store cupboard challenge and you should be able to get to the end of the month without further debt.

Go round the place and find all the things that you have not used in ages and start on e-bay, amAZOON OR DO A car boot sale. You will probably be able to clear one of those cards immediately.

Start the bank charge reclaim process immediately. Any charges on the other cards - get claiming.

What is the agreed OD limit on your existing account?

You should be able to get your expenditure down to the level that allows you to start making inroads on your debt within a month or two and if you can add a few extras like money from slaes of stuff or a second job, you will have this knocked on the head without damaging your credit record.

My OD limit is £1500 and I'm regularly charged over £75 a month. I don't spent anything hardly, I haven't had a drink in over 2 months and I've spent £30 on groceries in the last 2 weeks. If I don't withdraw £1 from my bank, the balance at the end of the month seems to be worse than at the previous month. I can hardly afford minimum payments and my debt isn't reducing, despite paying every month.

rayday2

If you are going a DMP route there is a big support thread for DMPers nearly 250 of us!

The advice I would give with budgets differs greatly to what DFW is about really. You need entertainment (not OTT) and to budget for clothes, shoes, birthdays and Christmas because you will have no credit to live on. Also because you are in it for the long shot life has to be comfortable if you have a family etc you still need days out.

Overdrafts can be included in a DMP but you must make sure you choose a bank account not related to any of your creditors.

Sometimes it looks like on paper you can cope but not everyone can live down to the last penny I couldn't and don't really. It took a DMP to make me pull my socks up and gave me some life back to be honest.

RAS

Hi

It sounds like you need to revise you Statement of Affairs to represent what is really happening. Add in the OH situation as well.

It looks like the absolute priority is getting that OD below £1500.

It is now even more important that you cancel things like the entertainment stuff - use the freebies.

I would still suggest seeing what you could do with store cupboard challenge and selling stuff. And try and get a second job.

On the other hand there are a number of things on the SOA that represent full payments rather than shared payments. Is this discretionary stuff that you have chosen to pay? Is OH making similiar payments from her income?

debtmuncher

you can ask for your overdraft to be stopped...transfer over to their basic acc and agree to pay back 10 pds on the overdraft. the other 65pd you could put towards one of your higher interest accs doing the snowball method.

andreweduk

rayday2 wrote: »

If you are going a DMP route there is a big support thread for DMPers nearly 250 of us!

The advice I would give with budgets differs greatly to what DFW is about really. You need entertainment (not OTT) and to budget for clothes, shoes, birthdays and Christmas because you will have no credit to live on. Also because you are in it for the long shot life has to be comfortable if you have a family etc you still need days out.

Overdrafts can be included in a DMP but you must make sure you choose a bank account not related to any of your creditors.

Sometimes it looks like on paper you can cope but not everyone can live down to the last penny I couldn't and don't really. It took a DMP to make me pull my socks up and gave me some life back to be honest.

I tried to be realistic in my SOA, which is why some things may appear to be slightly high. I DO want to save and I DO want to get out of debt as quickly as possible, but I don't want to lie to myself and say I'll never go to the cinema, or use a mobile phone, but I know I will and I've tried to make my SOA reflect this.

I owe my OH around £700 still and I've been paying most of the household bills, rather than her pay me for them, then me give her the money straight back again and I'm knocking off what I've paid in bills from what I owe her.

Hope this answers a few queries! I'll try and do a new SOA in a bit!

rayday2

Have you tried the online debt remedy on the CCCS website that will usually give you a good idea of whether you can cope paying your debts off without a solution like DMP etc and they do help you think about things to budget for too.

I think your honesty was good in your SOA. You know yourself what your priorities are and where your spending is.