Anyone organising their own DMP?

gargrave50

Hi Jonny M, its probably best to write to them now, i'll copy and paste the letter in the next post. This gives you time to set up standing orders to commence your reduced payments straight away.

Customer Number XXXX

Since making the above agreement with you, our circumstances have changed. We can no longer afford the agreed monthly payments because at present, we are experiencing extreme financial hardship like many within the present economic climate. We have taken advice from a recognised non-profit organisation CCCS to calculate an achievable debt management programme in order to clear our debts. Regrettably, we are finding it impossible to meet the minimum monthly payment of £XXX. In conjunction with CCCS we have calculated the amount available each month to pay all of our creditors, and the amounts offered have been calculated on a pro rata basis as used by the county court.



I enclose a Personal Budget sheet which shows our total income from all sources, and our outgoings. As you can see we have only £XXX per week/month left for our creditors. The offers we have made to our creditors have been calculated on a pro-rata basis, and we have written to all our creditors asking them to accept reduced payments. In view of our circumstances, we propose a reduced offer of £XXXX per week/month. If interest or other charges are being added to the account we would be grateful if you would freeze these so that all payments made will reduce what I owe you.

Should our circumstances improve we will contact you again. In preparation I have commenced a standing order instruction to reflect this amount in order that we may commence our repayments without delay. We are paid weekly/monthly at present and have arranged a payment of £XXXX each week/month commencing XX 2009 to equate to £X a month.

I look forward to receiving your response, and thank you for your understanding in this matter to date.
Yours faithfully,


Contact CCCS it is anonymous and they can help you calculate appropriate pro rata payments. If you don't contact them, don't quote this in the letter. Instead you can visit the national debtline website - they have template letters and a pro rata payment calculator.

Send this letter (or one similar) ensuring you delete as appropriate e.g. week/month. This needs to be send with an income/expenditure list (see national debtline site for a template).

Let us know how you get on. P.S. Send it recorded delivery if you can - this lets you prove they received it!

BlueJeans_2

Hi All

After spending alot of time today researching DMPs I have decided to go it alone. I am going to draft some letters tonight and post tomorrow.

I have a couple of questions if anyone can help me out that would be great:

We have 17 creditors at the minute but a few of these are for small amounts (around £200) - do I have to include these in the DMP or can I just continue to pay them off? (should be able to clear all these in a couple of months when we our making reduced payments).

I read about setting up standing orders for the monthly payments - how do I do this and how do I get the creditors details - will they send them once I make contact?

Also, I was going to enclose a cheque with a payment that I have worked out using CCCS debt remedy plan - should I do this?

Thanks in advance for your advice.

gargrave50

Hi Blue Jeans, welcome to the club. We have all made the brave decision to "go it alone". You are in good company!:beer:

With regard to what to include in your DMP its entirely up to you.

Try checking the back of your statements they usually provide "telephone banking details" if you decide to pay by standing order. If not, when you send your initial "i'm in deep sh*t" letter request that they provide appropriate bank details in order for you to commence payments.:cool:

Don't send a cheque - some posters report their signature being mysteriously "photoshopped" onto credit agreements.........

What have you made your calculations for pro rata payments on? If you post an SOA we can help with formulating how to best clear your debt and reduce your outgoings to ensure you can pay this off asap.

Its tough to start with but gets easier. Don't forget to keep posting - we are all in the same boat:hello:

gargrave50

Whether you include them in your DMP etc really depends on whether they are worth getting rid of first e.g. APR, etc. For this reason its really important you list an SOA for the best advice

BlueJeans_2

Hi gargrave

I posted my SOA on a thread earlier but I didn't do APR's etc.

Basically we have about £288 left after essential bills/living costs are paid. I was going to send an offer and just split the £288 between them. I got this figure doing the debt remedy on CCCS.

As yet we haven't defaulted on any accounts. I worked my butt off selling stuff on ebay to pay min payments last month - this month I just can't see how I can get the extra money.

I was quite conservative with my figures on my SOA though so I might have another look at it as I don't want to leave ourselves short.

My OH hasn't been getting any overtime for nearly a year but hopefully that will change, plus I will be able to get a part-time job when my youngest starts pre-school so we can plough all the extra money into this.

We owe around £34000 unsecured:eek::eek:. So with my calculations this will take us around 10 years to pay back:eek:.

I am a bit shocked to read about what they could do with my signature if I was to send a text - omg:eek:.
Thanks for your help and sorry for the rambling but it feels good to get it off my chest and not just talking to my OH.

I'm sure I will be back with more questions:o

gargrave50

Conservative might land you in the !!!!!!, realistic budgeting should ensure you are ok.

Any extra you make from ebaying in the meantime once you have written offering your reduced payments, make sure you save into a little savings account or jar. This can be savings to make full and final settlement figures to some of your smaller creditors as and when you can afford it! Keep in touch

BlueJeans_2

I know I will definitely look at my figures again before I send it off.

Should we change our bank account as one of the creditors will be the bank we use at the minute? We have a loan with the Halifax, overdraft and Mortgage. Is it wise to stay with them or move now? We have no way of paying the overdraft off at the minute so the account would be in a negative balance should we leave?

Oh so much is going through my head at the minute

SueP19

Hi Bluejeans, i have just had a peak at your SOA on another thread. It strikes me you are being a little too conservative with some things

Presents £10 ??? with 2 children, thats only £60 each at christmas
No emergency fund £15/month but call it sundry..........haircuts etc, if asked
Clothing.£10 could up this to £20
Car maintenance would up this to £15
Your road fund licence could be rejected £50 is £600 a year??? Is this right
I would up your groceries as well say to £375/month
Do you only spend £23 /week on petrol.....again I would round to £25 a week

You see its the opposite of cutting back, you have to make sure you cover an amount for things that crop up that you don't budget for. At the end of the day any spare monies could be saved for settlements
Like Gargrave says with the smaller debts, it depends on their apr and how fast you can clear them
I would suggest you use the snowball calculator
It really is a great way to play around to get the maximum benefit of paying debts

I have a small card that is still active, I didn't include it in my creditors and I am paying small amounts off this like crazy to clear it, and its working

We were posting at the same time

Good tip as well as ebay extra money can be earned from free scratch cards and surveys

BlueJeans_2

SueP19 wrote: »

Hi Bluejeans, i have just had a peak at your SOA on another thread. It strikes me you are being a little too conservative with some things

Presents £10 ??? with 2 children, thats only £60 each at christmas
No emergency fund £15/month but call it sundry..........haircuts etc, if asked
Clothing.£10 could up this to £20
Car maintenance would up this to £15
Your road fund licence could be rejected £50 is £600 a year??? Is this right
I would up your groceries as well say to £375/month
Do you only spend £23 /week on petrol.....again I would round to £25 a week

You see its the opposite of cutting back, you have to make sure you cover an amount for things that crop up that you don't budget for. At the end of the day any spare monies could be saved for settlements
Like Gargrave says with the smaller debts, it depends on their apr and how fast you can clear them
I would suggest you use the
It really is a great way to play around to get the maximum benefit of paying debts

I have a small card that is still active, I didn't include it in my creditors and I am paying small amounts off this like crazy to clear it, and its working

We were posting at the same time

Good tip as well as ebay extra money can be earned from free scratch cards and surveys

Hi Sue

Thanks for your input.

My figures do need looking at.

I found it hard to put monthly figures down as to our spending hence why we are in this mess:o.

I will up the grocery bill and presents. I will add some more for haircuts etc. The road fund I will look at I don't know what the tax is per year for both cars as OH deals with this. It could be around the £450 mark. Petrol is probably more as well again I will have a chat with OH.

I am going to do the snowballing thing tonight as my head is so full of everything at the min I think I'm going to explode.

I do the surveys already along with the odd mystery shop, Royal Mail surveys and Tescohome panel - every little helps. What are the free stratchcards?

Thanks again for your help

BlueJeans_2

Sorry all I've got another question.

Is it best to draft my own budget sheet to send to the creditors in the likes of Excel or just send the SOA one?

Sorry to be a pain!