How did it get to this?

red10_3

Am feeling very scared right now! I was made redundant earlier in the year and have found a new job but am now earning a lot less than before. I sat down recently and realised that once my outgoings have gone out I have only £190 to pay my debts when in fact they total £853! Help!!!!:eek: I've had a look at the National Debtline website and it looks like a DMP would be the best option for me. Does anyone have any experience of this method of paying debt off? I'm going to phone them on Tuesday to discuss my options. Hopefully my financial situation will improve next year but at the moment I am restricted by time because I am about to start a 3 month intensive college course which is 3 evenings a week and Saturdays, when I'm not at work or at college I will be doing prep for college. Once college is finished I can look at either finding a better paid job or a second job to earn some extra cash. If I phone my creditors do you think I'd be able to negotiate some sort of payment plan as a temporary measure until my financial situation improves? Has anyone else had any experience of doing something similar? I'm so afraid of the creditors getting nasty and ending up with baliffs knocking at the door, especially as I have a housemate who doesn't know the extent of my debts. I feel so very foolish for getting myself into this situation with my debts and hate the fact that my life is governed purely by this horrible situation.

My debts are as follows:
Barclaycard £3356
Virgin credit card £7753
M&S credit card £3751
Egg loan £6715
Northern Rock loan £17000
A&L o/d £900

Any advice is welcome,

Thanks red10

urg123

Hi Red10

Didn't want to read and run.

It may be better to post your query on the main DEbt Free Wannabe page rather than the diaries page - you may get more relevant feedback.

Good luck

urg x x

penguin83

Hi Red, welcome to MSE. Sorry to hear about your redundancy but congrats on the new job and hope the college course goes well for you.

Have you done a full SOA for peeps to have a nosey at - there is one here with a format for MSE, it may help you to see where you can cut back.

Speak to one of the debt charities as well (such as CCCS) to see what they suggest for you.

Lots of people are in DMP's here either self managed or with one of the debt charities, steer clear of the ones that charge you as they can't do anything more than the charities can do. There is a long running support thread here

In the meantime keep posting, have a nose round for anything that you can Ebay in the house that you no longer want/need/use and have a read through the boards for some ideas.

x x x x

hypno06

Definitely take a peek through the DMP supporters thread - whatever you need to know, they will have been there and done it already so can reassure you, empathise, rant along with you, or whatever you need!

Also, visit the "up your income" board for ideas on making more money, and join in the "make £10 a day challenge" - not everyone does £10 a day, some aim for £5, but even that extra would make a good difference to your budgets!

Fire_Fox

The first thing to say is that don't even think about consolidating your debts. I've looked back at your earlier thread and the Northern Rock loan is new - was this a consolidation? You won't be the first or last to run up debts again if so.

Secondly try not to see your outgoings/ direct debits as written in stone. Everything you spend is negotiable - rent or mortgage (move or take in a lodger), utilities (switch supplier and cut back use), food (cook from scratch, grow your own), telecoms (cancel or reduce package on everything), transport (public transport, cycle, walk) etc. :T

red10_3

Thanks guys there's a lot of useful stuff there and kind words. I phoned National Debtline today who were helpful too, they recommended pro-rata payments to my creditors and talked me through the process. Feeling a bit better now knowing that I've got some support both from you knowledgable people here and Debtline although I'm very aware that I have a MASSIVE and VERY STEEP mountain to climb (and I'm still a bit scared about how my creditors are going to react). I wanted to keep a diary on here even if my first posting didn't sound very diary like because 1. it will help with my sanity when I feel like it's all getting too much 2. you'll all understand my rants and raves better than anyone else 3. there's lots of good advice to share here. Will keep you posted as to how I get on.