Raquela's debt journey...

oriana

hi raquela,

seems like you've had a bit of an ear-bashing!! im glad you're considering the book thing, the only reason i suggested it is that loads of people advised me to do it and i really, REALLY wish i had, as i actually spent more than 200/yr!! and realistically you cant sell many of them, as you know.

anyway, good luck with it all, you are on the right track, i wish i had sought more help on my debts while i was still at uni.

x

loubie_lou

Hey I was on Raquela's side here!!!

Raquela

hey loubie_lou, yes I know don't worry :-)

Everyone's on my side really, I guess some people just go about it a little differently than others!

I've *finally* just received by email my self help pack from the CCCS, and am shortly going to go off and read it. But I just wanted to post that I did some sums last night, and although if I didn't have my overdraft to fall back on I would totally and utterly buggered, completely excluding all payments to creditors, I am still well in the black by the time my next access to learning payment comes in March. Therefore, provided I'm terribly terribly overwhelmingly sensible, I think I'm ok until April at least, and can pay creditors the minimum payments. I'm going to do sums properly and budget using the CCCS stuff today, will post revised SoA on here later if necessary. I'm also going to phone cahoot and make sure they've cancelled my direct debit from their own current account with no funds, and arrange to pay them by cheque or one-off payments from my student account. I know it's not ideal to be permanently living in an overdraft, but in reality it's no different from a lot of students at my time in their degree, it's just most of them have spent there's on booze, lol! I've also found a possible job lead on my student jobboard which I'm going to ring about this morning, and am confident I can work for two weeks during the Easter vacation, even though it will cut into revision time, but would bring in around £500, more if I can provide my ex employers to give me a couple of weeks work. I'm also contacting a few places that I could work in with my CV etc. I also have a spare bank account that is currently in limbo; I haven't cancelled it as it's an account I've used and used well since 1994, and that bank have always looked after me. I was thinking that I could, once I've done my sums properly, transfer money into this account the amount of money I need to live on every month so that I can't possibly tap into my bill paying student account.

Sorry it's a bit rambling, just that I was doing a lot of thinking last night! BTW, to whoever mentioned my year abroad; I'd rather not mention which country I'm going to, as it would be really clear indication of which uni I'm studying at, and I'd rather be as anonymous as possible!

Raquela x

PS. My Natwest Mastercard now stands at sub £300 :-).

Yorkielass

Raquela wrote:

hey loubie_lou, yes I know don't worry :-)

Everyone's on my side really, I guess some people just go about it a little differently than others!

I've *finally* just received by email my self help pack from the CCCS, and am shortly going to go off and read it. But I just wanted to post that I did some sums last night, and although if I didn't have my overdraft to fall back on I would totally and utterly buggered, completely excluding all payments to creditors, I am still well in the black by the time my next access to learning payment comes in March. Therefore, provided I'm terribly terribly overwhelmingly sensible, I think I'm ok until April at least, and can pay creditors the minimum payments. I'm going to do sums properly and budget using the CCCS stuff today, will post revised SoA on here later if necessary. I'm also going to phone cahoot and make sure they've cancelled my direct debit from their own current account with no funds, and arrange to pay them by cheque or one-off payments from my student account. I know it's not ideal to be permanently living in an overdraft, but in reality it's no different from a lot of students at my time in their degree, it's just most of them have spent there's on booze, lol! I've also found a possible job lead on my student jobboard which I'm going to ring about this morning, and am confident I can work for two weeks during the Easter vacation, even though it will cut into revision time, but would bring in around £500, more if I can provide my ex employers to give me a couple of weeks work. I'm also contacting a few places that I could work in with my CV etc. I also have a spare bank account that is currently in limbo; I haven't cancelled it as it's an account I've used and used well since 1994, and that bank have always looked after me. I was thinking that I could, once I've done my sums properly, transfer money into this account the amount of money I need to live on every month so that I can't possibly tap into my bill paying student account.

Sorry it's a bit rambling, just that I was doing a lot of thinking last night! BTW, to whoever mentioned my year abroad; I'd rather not mention which country I'm going to, as it would be really clear indication of which uni I'm studying at, and I'd rather be as anonymous as possible!

Raquela x

PS. My Natwest Mastercard now stands at sub £300 :-).

Hi,

Glad to hear you're getting things sorted - good luck with the job hunting.

It was me who mentioned the going abroad bit - but only because I assumed that meant you studied another language and could therefore do some translation work - wasn't trying to interrogate you!

Conor_3

I am on your side. What I don't do is !!!!!foot around people in case I might upset them. Alot of the trouble people get themselves into is due to people doing exactly that and telling them everything will be OK instead of facing them with the grim reality which might actually shock them into taking action.

I know it sounds daft but do you think it's actually possible that you're OVERDOING the studying?

Sometimes if you've been staring at the same thing for hours on end, you can't see the wood for the trees and instead of improving, you end up confusing yourself even more.

Try cutting down on the studying by 10 hours for just a week and see if it makes any difference. I think you may be surprised. Studying hard is one hell of a mental drain. Maybe you should give yourself a well deserved break.

Conor_3

Conor wrote:

I am on your side. What I don't do is !!!!!foot around people in case I might upset them.

Err, I actually didn't swear there. I used a common alternative name for a cat beginning in P, ending in Y and havving USS in the middle.

Raquela

am shocked, not by my debt, but at swearing filters getting rid of WORDS IN ACTUAL USE.

OK... on Friday I got my CCCS stuff, and by the end of Friday, I'd worked out much better offers for Cahoot, sent the letters off to them, written to the tax office to see if I'm owed any more tax from before I came to Uni, written to companies I worked at in America to get my tax back from them (or start that process - I did Work America this summer; didn't help my debt admittedly, but something I would not have missed for the world), wrote to my solicitors about my car crash claim and enquired about a job. I felt very relaxed after i had physically posted all these letters.

I was taken away this weekend, which was very stressbusting, but today am back to reality! ugh! I've now got two jobs which I'm in the process of applying for. My offers of payment to Cahoot are, in reality, not a lot less than the minimums, so i'm hoping this will go in my favour. If I'm successful in holding down a job (one of these I could do standing on my head, and would enjoy as is campus bookshop, but they want a certain amount of hours, and that really scares me. It would however leave me with weekends free. It's easier to think about at the moment since I haven't started work again yet.

Sorry, this is starting to sound like a diary entry! OK, I have a specific question that maybe somebody has experience with. Cahoot are being very unhelpful in one specific area - my direct debit to them for the loan payment. It is paid from my Cahoot Account, which I do not want to fund. I noticed it doesn't appear in my list of direct debits on that account, so I wondered if they had cancelled it at their end when I originally wrote to them. So I emailed them, and got a very unsatisfactory reply, telling me in essence that I can't cancel it. I've of course written to them again to say that doesn't answer my question, are you taking payment (they don't appear to have done), and yes, under the terms of the Direct Debit Guarantee I can cancel it. I'm assuming he means (he quoted T&C's), that a direct debit must be in existence to have the loan, but obviously I don't want to set up a mandate until I know if they have accepted my new offer to them. I don't understand why they are being so unhelpful; at this stage I'm only trying to ascertain if they are going to take this months payment or not. It should have been taken today, which would mean it's coming out of the overdraft they gave me.

If they continue being unhelpful, am I best off trying to clear the overdraft so I can close that account with them? Any advice, as always, gratefully appreciated.

PS. Conor, you might be right; I'm feeling a lot more confident about my studies at the moment, but then I'm not really having to study until the new semester starts, so time will tell! I'm hoping Academic Support will come up with some strategies for the problems I have in reading.

Raquela

Been a good few days since I've updated this, so I thought I should bring you all up to speed.

Firstly, I got a phone call today from Cahoot to say that they have accepted my offers of payment, and there will be no bank charges, and interest is now frozen. They are calling it a debt management plan, and I have to set standing orders up (didn't realise til I got off the phone that I don't have the information I need to set up standing orders since I can't get into my accounts on their website anymore so will have to phone them tomorrow). This means I can breathe slightly, but only slightly.

As I posted elsewhere, I had a job interview the other day, but they needed me to do 30 hours which was impossible... no weekend work. Bizarre; why they were looking for students is beyond me. Still, she really liked me and has recommended me to other branches on different campuses. So you never know, something might turn up. If it does I have to tell Cahoot. I don't really want to have to go back to my old job at Easter (I'd have to go to my parents; travel costs, they have to get me to and from the train station, but it's better money than I'd get temping here), but I might have to; always assuming they want me for a couple of weeks of course! But the good news is, I might max out my overdraft, but i won't starve.

Not much else to report!

Raquela

Hello! Really just updating this to show off my new signature :-)

No job news; Blackwells can only take me in September.. when I'll be abroad. :-(. On the plus side, my insurance claim will go to court in June or July, before I have to go, hopefully, and whilst that money won't pay my debts off, it will help enormously, and I won't have to worry whilst I'm abroad. *phew*. Am hoping to get work in the easter vacation; I want to have my natwest overdraft at zero, along with the other two, by the time I go to America. I still don't know how much funding I get from my LEA for my year abroad as they "haven't come to a decision" yet, but I definitely get a £500 grant from the University, and hopefully I'll be accepted for hardship funding as well.
Really looking forward to getting out of my Vodaphone contract; it's the cheapest one, but well, I just hate them! lol!I'm also going to cancel both my orange contracts (Virgin tariffs so I pay nothing for them), then when I come back from abroad, I'll get an orange student deal if they are still the best.

In good news, I've earnt 16 quid in Amazon vouchers for doing student surveys; I can't have them til I've earnt 25, but still, quids in! I haven't spent any money at all for two days (although boyf bought me teabags and soap from lush today lol).

Right, that's it :-) Just also wanted to say that even if I don't reply to other threads on here, I read this forum every day, it keeps me going on my fight.

R x