Aeshna - Scared but determined!

Nix143

Hey Aeshna, I just wanted to lend my support to you and wish you luck. I've hit the LBM really hard yesterday and have spent today doing my SOA - I am shocked and appalled that at age 39 I didn't realise I was paying out more than I was taking in. I would have cried if I hadn't been so sodding mad at myself and determined to change.

Anyway you go girl! You CAN do this. xx

Aeshna

Thank you so much Nix143, I can't believe the support around here, it's fantastic and so much appreciated. And well done you too! :T I understand completely as, coincidentally, I'm also 39 and can't believe that at this point in my life I've completely wasted the 21 years I've been working by ending up with debt and no savings.

I feel like I'm on the right track now though and while I totally expect some big ups and downs, surely I can only move forwards....

Big hugs for you Nix, you can do it if I can!! It's actually slightly less scary once you take the step, but the least I can do is be here for you and others who also offer their support. Have you considered your next move?

Onwards and upwards! Or something....

Aeshna x

Aeshna

Hi again all, just me waffling again!

Good news and bad news in the mail tonight when I got home - bad news is I've had a common repairs bill for work that the council tell me I probably didn't even know was needing done, but it has been done! Anyhow, my share is £130 so, well, dammit

On the flip side, I just opened a letter about my mortage rate going down - by a whole 1%!!! :T This means that my contracted monthly mortgage payment is going down by a whopping £86!!! :j I have to confess, I actually called them this evening, to check it wasn't a mistake!

Aside from the common repairs, which is a real blow (do they seriously have to do this at the time of year when everyone is tight on money??) I'm wondering about the saving I'll be making on my mortgage from next month. Would you agree that the best thing to do would be to throw this at the mortgage arrears, meaning that they would reduce quicker and then letting me review my DMP earlier since it'll initially be low start till I free up the extra I'm paying to the mortgage? Or, should I pay this to one of the payday loans? I'm assuming it'll be February before my DMP is up and running, purely with holiday shut downs over xmas and New Year, slow mail at this time of year etc.... This would hypothetically allow me to pay £172 to one of the payday loans, or split between them maybe, which might pacify them slightly. What do you think? I've had a bunch of messages on left on my mobile from Pounds Till Payday stressing that they've received my email but must speak to me on the phone. I believe, from lurking here for a while, that I don't have to have any such telephone conversation with them at all - the message was polite but firm, we want to help you blah blah 'but we can't continue to sit on this.' Sit on what? I've told them my position, they've acknowledged they've received that communication - after spending all my time ignoring debt chase-ups, I'm inclined to email them rather than call, and reiterate what I've already told them. What do you think guys n gals?

Thanks again for letting me twitter.

Aeshna

Jesthar

Personally, I'd say go with clearing the payday loans, especially if your bf is going to be covering the extra £200 for the mortgage. Those wretched things are costing you a fortune at a far higher interest rate than the mortgage, so better to be rid of them! Once they are gone, you'll be much better off!

How are you getting on with the credit card charge reclaiming process, managed to add them all up yet? Might clear your Payday loans in one go, you never know!

~Jes

Aeshna

Hey Jes!

I've sent away for my credit card charges/statements - I have no idea what they were like for charges tbh, so fingers crossed. The only thing that concerns me with that, is if I get charges back, can they insist on paying the money to the outstanding credit card balance? As you suggest, I'd prefer to get rid of the payday loans first, they're just a nightmare. My worry with that is that if I start paying them from the mortgage saving I'm making, I know that the payment they'll get will probably go down when I start the DMP, but maybe they'll be more accepting of that because I'll have made an effort to reduce them by then?

Aeshna

Aeshna

Well I've come home to a letter from another one of the payday loans, defaulting me straightaway. I know it's probably all just standard wording, but I had to laugh:

"you will find enclosed a Default notice laying out steps you MUST take in order to prevent legal action blah blah blah will be recorded with Credit Reference Agencies if not complied with. This will seriously afffect your ability to obtain credit." :rolleyes:

Anyhow, they go on to say that if I don't comply with the default notice, i.e. pay them money I don't have, they'll go straight for a CCJ without further notice etc etc.

"You will probably not be able to obtain credit following a County Court Judgment (CCJ)." Like this isn't already a problem for me??? :rolleyes:

Second last line just made me angry though - "I hope common sense prevails and take this last opportunity to rectify the situation." Aside from the obvious lack of the word 'you', this really made me flip - common sense?? If I had common sense I'd never have taken the flipping loan in the first place!!!!! :eek:

I assume that when I get the papers through regarding court, I can complete and send a copy of my CCCS budget to them to show what I can't pay and they'll pretty much have to accept the low-start DMP payments? Last thing I need is an earnings arrestment which will just throw everything I'm doing out of the window. Hoped I'd be able to avoid CCJs and just have to deal with the defaults, but hey, things were just going too well I guess.

Think I need red wine and chocolate now.

Aeshna

Jesthar

Aeshna wrote: »

Think I need red wine and chocolate now.

And probably hugs, so here's a dodgy one

:grouphug:

You may well find this is all bluster on their part, of course, as going to court costs them, and no judge is going to order you to pay an overly huge amount based on your current financial situation. Which, of course, they know (or you wouldn't have been borrowing off them in the first place), so usually they try and frighten the money out of you first - nice of them, huh? :rolleyes:

Incidentally, you mentioned you were reclaiming bank charges - have you thought to try and escalate that to a hardship case? Might get you them back now rather than later, and I'd definitely say you meet more than one of the qualifying criteria - and you only need to meet one to be considered for being a hardship case, I think. Link is her: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/oft-bank-charges#hardship - read the testimonials at the bottom, too

~Jes

Aeshna

Hey Jes, can't thank you enough for keeping me going and listening to my incessant rambling! Not sure whether I should thank you for the dodgy hug though......

I emailed these guys already, as soon I as I realised I needed to deal with it : 'Whilst I understand that the outstanding balance due to you will continue to increase the longer it remains unpaid, I am not in a position to pay part or all of the debt at this time. I have an arrangement to speak to a debt counsellor from the Consumer Credit Counselling Service early next week, as yours is not the only debt that I now find myself unable to meet. As I cannot make any offer or promises regarding my debt with you, all I can ask is that you bear with me at this point and I will update you further as my situation progresses. I do ask for your understanding, however I appreciate that this may not be granted. Finally, on the advice of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, please ensure that all communication with me regarding this matter is now only in writing, either by letter or email to this address.'

Not sure if it was the right thing to do, but I figured I may as well be upfront with them. Fingers crossed they might be bluffing, but the lightning speed with which they've defaulted me makes me think they're not.

Re the bank charges - I sat on my behind far too long after a friend telling me to get going with my claim, and of course 2 minutes after I'd put it in, everything went on hold. I sent off a financial hardship 'appeal' to them on Tuesday - spoke to an advisor at the local branch to ask where I should send it and she recommended sending it to her personally and she would ensure it went to the right person, rather than letting it float around a department for weeks on end - nice of her I thought, so fingers crossed........ if i could get the bank charges back, I'll be laughing, relatively speaking! :rolleyes:

Aeshna

Karmacat

Hi Aeshna

I've had your thread bookmarked for a couple of days to try and make a first post on it, but have had long days out of the house, so wasn't able to make time to do it. Here I am now tho - and I have to say, you've well and truly had your lightbulb moment, your determination and focus is great to read about.

I only wish I could offer you some concrete information about DMPs, but I've never been down that route myself, I just don't have a clue. One thing I *do* know about, that you may not have heard named, is the snowball principle, which Martin goes on about whenever he can, before the credit crunch, anyway. Basically, you pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first, making allowances for penalties on various accounts.

There's an article explaining it here: http://www.fool.co.uk/news/foolseyeview/2001/fev010904c.htm - basically, you're definitely on the right track when you describe paying off the payday loans first, because they have by far the highest interest. I think that the only reason you *shouldn't* do that is if you were in danger of losing your home, which obviously takes precedence - and thats the other big principle actually, the debts that really matter are the ones where default could cause you to become homeless - mortgage, council tax (I think - or you can go to prison for non-payment, something utterly dire) and secured loans. Other than that, the snowball principle takes precedence.

I hope thats not confusing, and can help a bit. Good luck to you - keep on keeping on, as the cliche goes. Once you have the dmp set up and you have a straightforward route, the other part of the DFW board is about making bits of extra money here and there - have you seen a thread called The November £10 a day challenge? (insert whatever month is relevant) - people really do make £10 a day sometimes even more - things like mystery shopping, cashback sites, surveys, weird things like free bingo, the latest craze has been posting reviews on a new site called qype - they were offering an ipod shuffle and £50 of amazon vouchers. There's always stuff like this coming up, so far anyway, and there's plenty of other boards for you to look at on here when you're sorted - discount vouchers, freebies, Old Style, greenfingered, Up Your Income, the list goes on.

Aeshna

Hi Karmacat, thanks so much for your support, with not having spoken to any family or friends about this yet, it's nice to know that I can come here and offload and gets tons of advice and handholding when I need it! I certainly feel really motivated right now, but I've had a bit of an up and down week so I'm making the most of the feeling today!

Got my welcome pack through from CCCS this morning so need to get that sorted out and back asap. Will send the letter and token payments out to the creditors on Monday when I can get to the post office for postal orders. Nice fast service from them, pushing forwards now!

I have a free day today, so I'm going to spend it signing up for all the surveys/cashback sites etc and also get all the bits I've cleared out of my wardrobe and get them listed on eBay.

I've seen mention of the snowball calculator but haven't actually looked at it yet, so I'll try that out, thanks for reminding me of the link. I'm happy enough that my mortgage arrears will sort themselves out now that my bf is giving me the money I need to cover them, so anything else will get flung at the payday loans till the DMP starts. I keep meaning to go the Ask a CCCS Advisor a Question thread to check where I stand with any extra money I make as one-offs and how to make best use of it.

The morning after my LBM I cancelled all my direct debits/standing orders and called Co-op Bank to apply for their basic account. I got my new Electron card through this morning, together with a pay-in book. So hopefully my PIN will arrive before payday so that I can be assured of getting access to my wages which can now be paid into the new account. Oh, note to self, I need to call DWP and make sure my tax credits etc go to the new account too.

Whew, it feels like it's been all go this week, but I'm pleasantly surprised with myself and how much I've got done.... not like me to be this organised!! Maybe it's the new me??

Aeshna