Credit payments

a_n_t

Hello,

I was hoping someone may be able to give me some advice.

A few days ago I was made redundant completely out of the blue as was my partner (worked for the same place). So in the space of a few hours we have gone from having a healthy income to nothing.

I have been to the job centre and sorted benefits etc.

I contacted all my creditors today and advised them that I have recently lost my job and wanted to know if we could come up with some sort of agreement now for the next month or so whilst I look for a new job. To my surprise all but 1 of them said that I can only make payment plans once I have defaulted on payments. To me this seems a little odd as now not only am I going to have a handful of missed payments on my credit score I will also be getting charges and surly just going to make the next payment even bigger.

My second concern is if I was to say get a new job now then we would loose things such as the housing benefits etc meaning from my wages I would be paying the rent plus bills where as my partner used to pay the rent and I would pay the bills. If that was the case then we would have no money at all to live on.

Anyone got any advice? I am really worried about the next few weeks / months and I was hoping being proactive with the credit card companies would have helped. I don’t just want to cancel the direct debits as I then risk having bailiffs etc knocking on the door.

NorthernLas

Well done for being pro-active!

You may get some advice if you re-post on the debt free wanabee board.

You need to ensure that you pay your priority debts first, like rent, council tax, electric, gas, TV licence and then deal with the other things like credit cards.

Have a look at the stickies for first time posters on the board. People will ask you to do a statement of affairs (list incomings and outgoings) and there is a standard template. This will let you see in black and white which debts you need to pay. If you can't afford payments then you can take the next step - which could be talking to one of the debt advice charities, or writing to CC and telling them what you can afford. You certainly don't need bank charges due to direct debits failing!