Is anyone doing a self-administered DMP?

Chrisblue1962

Hi All

I am looking to start a debt management plan (dmp) shortly with CCCS but I would preferrably have a self-administered one as one or two or my creditors are small (less than £500.00) whilst the other 5 are considerably larger (£2500.00+).

I've already got a payment plan with one of the small debtors (Eon / BCW - £140.00 / £5.00 per month). The other small debtor is my overdraft of £460.00 with the Co-op Bank. Ideally, I would like to clear off the small creditors with additional voluntary payments first then "snowball" the funds freed up each month into the DMP.

Unfortunately, CCCS only allow additional payments to be spread amongst all debtors, thus prolonging the time it takes to pay off the small debtors. :mad:

Any thoughts, ideas, tips or feedback on how your self-managed DMP most welcome.

speedycat

Hi Chris

We are in a self administered DMP. We've got 5 creditors. 3 are small debts of £500 each and 2 are larger - 1 credit card at £3000 and the worst one of all - a loan and overdraft combined with Barclays of £18k (Gulp)

I pay £30 a month to the small debts. £100 a month to the credit card and £350 a month to Barclays.

I never considered having help with setting up a plan. I just negotiated with each one separately and though a bit demeaning at times, it has been pretty easy. I've dealt with all the DCA's you see on here, Moorcroft, Roxburghe, 1st Credit etc and if you're polite, flexible and sound keen to pay off your debt which I always have been then I've found them all polite and friendly back.

My one regret about not having a plan in place though is that you can get the interest frozen. Barclays won't freeze the interest on our huge debt with them so it is taking an age to clear it.

DCA's do also tend to contact you either every 6 months or a year to see if you can clear the debt or pay more. The trick is not to get freaked out when they call you which my husband does but I don't, I'm always calm and responsive. I've never upped my payments with any of them apart from Barclays and I've never come up against any problems when I've told them I can't pay off the whole debt or up our monthly payments.

Hoping to be free of all of this when we sell our house next year anyway

Good luck to you

Shoe_Gal

Hi

I started a DMP with CCCS but it was too inflexible for me as I too wanted to clear some smaller debts (which I am starting to do)

I took my plan away from CCCS, let all my creditors know and continued with the same payments with no problems. Then started making extra payments to some of the smaller ones

The best of both worlds maybe?

PS - Lloyds would not freeze interest for either me or CCCS so there are no guarantees

Good luck

Chrisblue1962

Thanks Speedycat and Shoegal, may consider joining CCCS to "keep the wolves from the door" so to speak them take over the DMP to get rid of the smaller debts and start "snowballing" the rest.

Only problem is I think Barclaycard / in-house debt collection wont accept a DMP unless its through CCCS....:mad: or similiar organisation, dunno why, a payment is a payment after all...and theyre still charging interest.:mad:

Shoe_Gal

You mind find that once they start getting regular payments they are not actually bothered where they come from. When I left CCCS (after about 6 months of payments) none of my creditors had a issue with me continuing payments directly. This was approx. 12 months ago - I have never missed a payment or had any hassle from anybody

meerkat2007

I was on a self-adminstered DMP that started way back in 2002, I think. Not being any wiser, I just negotiated payments I could afford, although they weren't done on a pro rata basis, so that meant I paid off some of the smaller ones much earlier. In all cases, the interest was frozen, including Barclaycard.

Thanks to a redundancy payment last year, I was able to shift more of my debts completely, with the result that I now only have Barclays left from that time. It's a rather large debt, but I'll get there eventually.

Hope this helps.