hanging my head in shame

worried_jim

Posted off a cheque for £560 to the flat managing agent to cover this half's maintenance charge, this still leaves the £550 from March which bounced and I only discovered yesterday. Hopefully I will be able to pay that at the beginning of June but it will leave me desperately poor for the month. After my post purge yesterday I have just logged into Payplan's "justabank" which is pretty impressive and contains all my details, I have checked to see that everything is going well and I have found the breakdown of what each individual creditor is receiving. Since starting the plan I have reduced my debts by £502.50 and have £25118 to go which at my current rate will be paid by July 2032, no jokes please I couldn't face them this week.
I have received a small bonus this month of £113- as usual it is spent already, although there is some joy as I have bought a Lily Allen ticket for a gig in December. Payplan have asked me if I would be willing to talk to the media as they regularly receive requests from the media who are looking for 'case studies' to feature in articles about real people in debt. I think I could fill some column inches.

Really want some chips.

miggy

Hi Jim, I just wanted to say well done for calling the post's bluff and taking a good look at the state of things.
As you don't have to make any decisions straight away, I'd suggest you 'sleep on it' and see whether it looks any clearer in the morning. As for living off bread and scrape for a month, I know you already do a very good and economical job catering for yourself and I don't expect you have any really significant economies left to make, but it might be worth reviewing your SOA just in case anything has changed. I also get the impression you work pretty long hours, but do you have room for any more work? Walk dogs, become bar staff, mow people's lawns etc.
Just a though, and having said it, don't take on more than you can manage.
Chips, now - mmmmm... !

worried_jim

This has cheered me up -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8058221.stm

MrsPorridge

Ahhh - what a lovely man!

Thanks for cheering me up too Jim!

worried_jim

Just has a call from MBNA ( and I took it ) . spoke with a really helpful and informative lady called Vicky who called to advise me that the money I was paying thru Payplan was reaching them ok but the amount is a bit to little for them to work with- I must point out this was not a pressure call asking me for more money or in anyway threatening. Vicky informed me that my account would default with them this week, but I could stop that from happening by paying just £1, this will then put me at the back of there default queue for about 3 months ( this is because I am paying about £28pm too little for them to work with) and if in 3 months time I can pay about £50 again I would again go to the back of their queue. I made the £1 payment straight away and have taken on board what she told me. I am happy to do this until November when I get to renegotiate my mortgage rate which will free up additional funds to go towards increasing my dmp payments, also I thought that I had already defaulted with MBNA and am thrilled to hear that this is not the case.

paybacktime2008

Haven't stopped by for ages!

Take the media offer but charge fairly for your time!

Keep your chin up

worried_jim

I have just seen the semi final of Britain's got talent and I am left confused- why, as a grown man of 35 am I reduced to tears listening to Susan Boyle sing ? I sat watching it thinking when her record comes out (and it will) that I'll get it, I have complete collections by the Clash and Metallica. I have every Queen album and a framed picture of Bob Marley on the wall in the hall alongside Mick Jagger and Jonny Rotten, why does Susan Boyle move me so much. Am I going soft? And poor Natalie Okri, I was welling up. This has to stop so I am off to dig out some Megadeth and pretend that I have tattoo's.

paybacktime2008

The 'cry me a river' on youtube had me blubbing too!

worried_jim

Well everything seems to have settled down back to normality since my purge/panic of the post the other week. I am still behind £560 in this half's maintenance charge but hope to pay it beginning of June and it looks like for the first time ever I won't be going into my overdraft this month, that hasn't happened for 10 years.
My car is on its last legs (although has been that way for a year) and I am saving like mad to get a new banger by the end of the summer. The diet. mmmm. Harder than I thought it would be, I have fell off the wagon more times than Oprah Winfrey but have been in my current stint for over 2 weeks and feel good. I am confident that this time it will work, previously I had started eating junk again as I was feeling so low but I must confess getting the unopened mail out the way and looking at my payplan account to see what progress I have made put me in a much better place so I can devote some effort to other areas now. With out sounding to negative I fear that now everything is coming together something bad is bound to happen at work, redundancies/nobhead management, either one will ruin my frame of mind.

GeorgeUK

Jim, you're looking at this totally the wrong way.

something [STRIKE]bad[/STRIKE] is bound to happen at work, redundancies/nobhead management

Just think of where you were 3 months ago.
Look at what you've accomplished since then.

Okay, you miscalculated by about £50.
Get the firing squad out.

You are doing really well and are looking at all the right things. You know what to keep an eye on and what you are doing. There's no way you should be feeling low. Now get a big silly grin on your face before someone gives you an earful!!