DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 6)

mozzyc

With regards to the budgeting, i'm really hoping that winter will be a bit easier to budget. In summer, with everyone having bbq's, its hard to keep turning people down because having one more than once a month can be costly.

But i must admit, i do luv a good bbq

yellowpinky

Hello everyone, hope you are well. I had my Payplan phone interview today and all went fine - I am due to start payment from the 8th September. I was (stupidly) building this up into some sort of horror and of course it was fine. I had to have it first thing at nine before starting work so found a secluded seat outside and had my free coffee from Pret (courtesy of the offer mentioned on here! :money:) with it. I decided tonight to get together my latest balances and add everything up so I know where I am and the grand total is currently £40,026.00 (has gone up by over a thousand already because I've stopped minimum payments, argh!) over seven credit cards and an overdraft, and I'm paying £374 a month. This means I'm on a DMP for almost nine years at the moment! Oh well. I know it's really just the beginning and there's loads that could still happen but already I feel like a weight has gone, and I feel safer and "armed", if that makes any sense. Already started phoning creditors to update them and give them my PP reference.

My case officer mentioned among other things, cancelling PPI if I have it (I think I have with most if not all). Firstly, is "Card Payment Protector" the same thing (the Egg site was typically uninformative) ? And what's the best way to go about this?

And secondly, PP offered me Payment Cover and Life Cover, for free, but I wasn't quite with it and also pushed for time as I had to get to work so asked them to call me back about it. There's no fees apparently. Is anyone else doing this and what do they think?

And thirdly (just decided to add!), I'd be curious to know about Smcshane's interest question too, as I think that might be the next thing to do when I get going. (Congrats Smc on your promotion, btw! :j)

Also while I was on the Egg site getting my balance, noticed my postal order had been credited, and I was delighted! Simple things please simple folk . .

Oh, and would it be OK to have a number please?

Kudox

Hi yellowpinky,
Well done on sorting everything and good luck with it all, hope it all goes well for you.
Just on your point about PPI, have a think about reclaiming that, often it can be missold, and loads of poeple have had success in reclaiming it.
Toffee Penny who often posts on here is one,have a search through for her posts.
Martin himself has been very vocal on the subject, and if you get it refunded it's more money to chuck at the debts.
Anyway just a thought.

Hi symesd, not sure about your question really,without being too negative, would tend to think Brittania would want to renegotiate the whole thing which may not be so good given the DMP etc. Before I started the DMP I approached one of my loan providers to ask for an extension to the loan(this was before I had missed any payments etc) and the answer was a flat out no, because they just treated the request as a whole new transaction.
It may be worth a try to approach the branch direct, but they've still got to go through head office or whoever.
Good luck though.

ianmak

yellowpinky wrote: »

And secondly, PP offered me Payment Cover and Life Cover, for free, but I wasn't quite with it and also pushed for time as I had to get to work so asked them to call me back about it. There's no fees apparently. Is anyone else doing this and what do they think?


Oh, and would it be OK to have a number please?

I wouldn't say this was free, they just take it out of your payments.... Unless they've given you a special offer, which I don't think they have? See excerpt below taken from the Protect my Life summary on their Justabank website... It cost's £5 a month, btw, which isn't bad I guess.

If you're thinking about becoming a member, we can simply add the cost to your income and expenditure, so you won't have to pay anything extra. We simply reduce the amount we pay to your creditors.

I'll sort out a number for you in a bit...

ianmak

Here you go YP.

yellowpinky 336

Moany_Money

Hi all,

Hope your DMP's are going better than mine!! After a rotten day at work, and trains and buses being cancelled/delayed, I come back home to find a letter from Halifax saying that my overdraft has now been withdrawn and I have to pay all in full or incur a 28 pound fee every month. (Which well exceeds what I'm paying through CCCS)
Really crushed by this as I only used this account for a part time job (Which I lost last Xmas) and don't have any direct debits at all. Never paid any interest on this account and the debt was coming down nicely. Now its gonna go the other way just like my Natwest ones.

snowymalone

ianmak wrote: »

Here you go YP.

yellowpinky 336

Here Ian, where's mine ?

Just coming to the end of the second month of our DMP. It's taken a lot of adjustment, we're trying hard to be disciplined about it, and we always knew August would be tough (kids home, etc) but we've managed OK. We've got £70 to last a week for everything, so we're auditing the freezer later on, and we're going to see if we can get through just buying fresh bread and milk and veg for seven days. Then, on the day before pay-day, we'll go out without whatever's left (minus a tenner in case of emergency.) And whatever's left from that will go in the sealed pot.

Tell you what, though, it's all worth it for the weight lifted from your shoulders. Nasty letters have dried up, no more stomach-turning few seconds at the till not knowing if the card will be accepted or declined, but most of all we know precisely where we are, and that's a nice feeling.

Daffykjs

mozzyc wrote: »

We always struggle to budget. We think we have, then the end of the month comes and its suddenly, where did the money go???

So now we've done a new budget, a weekly one this time. No more monthly budgets. We have put aside a certain amount that has to do us Friday till the following Friday. Plus our fridge/freezer isn't big enough to store a months worth of food in anyway, so it makes sense for us. Let's hope it works!!

That's exactly what happens to us! i was doing a spend diary but haven't done it for ages and actually not sure if it helped anyway coz all i was doing was writing down what i spent, not changing anything depending on what i spent/wrote.

I think i might try your way of weekly budgeting (altho technically that's what we already have) and am going to start actually taking cash out rather than using debit card.

Difficulty for me is that every week is not always the same as hubs works away and when he's away everything is paid for him and i just save his spending money for when he gets back (again technically, not been doing a very good job at this either) and then when he's back obviously the budget needs to be more! makes life a lot more complicated! and altho it in theory should make it cheaper coz he's not always here, it doesn't seem to work like that!

Daffykjs

ianmak wrote: »

I wouldn't say this was free, they just take it out of your payments.... Unless they've given you a special offer, which I don't think they have? See excerpt below taken from the Protect my Life summary on their Justabank website... It cost's £5 a month, btw, which isn't bad I guess.

If you're thinking about becoming a member, we can simply add the cost to your income and expenditure, so you won't have to pay anything extra. We simply reduce the amount we pay to your creditors.

I'll sort out a number for you in a bit...

yeah we have it and it's not free. the covermylife one is good at only £5 but the covermypayment is about £40 (there's 2 of us tho). I keep thinking about cancelling the payment one coz that's quite a lot and i feel bad it's not going to the debts. BUT, with hubby's job is so up in the air at the moment I'm reluctant to until he gets a new job and i know where we are! so for now it can stay!

bigmommamuppet

mozzyc wrote: »

We always struggle to budget. We think we have, then the end of the month comes and its suddenly, where did the money go???

So now we've done a new budget, a weekly one this time. No more monthly budgets. We have put aside a certain amount that has to do us Friday till the following Friday. Plus our fridge/freezer isn't big enough to store a months worth of food in anyway, so it makes sense for us. Let's hope it works!!

Hi Mozzy

I'm also struggling a bit with budgeting got off to a great start in the beginning but the last couple of months has been a nightmare. Even had to use Tesco Clubcard Voucher (£10) to put petrol in my car on Monday as I didn't get paid until today and didn't have enough to get to work.

So I'm doing the opposite of you I'm going to work to a monthly budget and a jar system.

I have a Tesco shop (£226 :eek:) arriving shortly. Note to self I need to hide the treats etc and only put 1 weeks supply in the cupboard at a time. And then I'm off to withdraw the rest of my cash and put in jars. £30 Birthdays, £50 Entertaiment etc. Hope this works as I really don't want a month like last one where I had £40 to live on for 3 weeks.... Not a good feeling.

Becks

P.S Things ticking along nicely on the old DMP front no calls or letters for months. No one loves me:D