The future is bright for 3Dogs and it's about time too

3Dogs

So, the story so far - part six:

So where were we? ......... Ah Yes – May 2008 – in our new little bungalow and joining the slimming club, and still in so much debt.

The difference for me was that Mr 3Dogs was at home all the time now. That made hiding the debts so much more difficult. At least we weren’t getting too many phone calls at that point. But the persistent one was for the car – the actual loan period had finished in February 2008, and the insurance company, who had been covering our payments, did not pay the last due payment as it was for 29 days when they only pay out for periods of 30 days :mad: And of course, we had some payments which had been added to the end of the term still to pay. But there was no way we could pay them, so we ignored them. When they rang we told them that we just could not meet the payments due to the income we had now, consisting of Incapacity Benefit for both of us plus my Civil Service Pension. But they just kept ringing and sending letters (of course).

At the end of March, we decided to take the car off the road and our friend sold us their small white van, which we were to pay for as and when we could. As well as anything, the van was much more economical as it was diesel, so we got twice as many miles per gallon, but also the road tax was much less, as the PT Cruiser was one of those cars on which road tax was vastly increasing. This meant that the car was just sitting there in our resident parking, not being used.

By this time, Mr 3Dogs was much more laid back about everything due in part to the cancer giving him a different perspective of life, but also due to the meds he was now on. He kept saying ‘well if we ain’t got it, they can’t have it, can they? Let them take the bl***y car back”, which of course was right. Eventually we settled on paying them £10 per month as this was all we could afford. Then after several phone calls and being told lots of conflicting information, we decided to sell the car. The lender, Bl*ck H*rse said we could sell it but it would show up on an HPI check, which would not be a problem if potential buyer rang them at the time, and they would confirm that any shortfall would still be down to us, not the buyer. By this time, the debt had been passed to an outside company, who sent demands and when I spoke to the guy dealing with it and explained what we planned to do, he said “you can’t do that, the car doesn’t belong to you”. He did, however, recommend ‘voluntary surrender’ of the vehicle and he arranged to visit us to sort this out. We just wanted rid of the car by now. He came in June and we signed the car over for the voluntary surrender, with him telling us that the car would be collected, put to auction, with the amount coming off the balance and we would then come to an arrangement over any balance outstanding. He said it was better for us to have dealt with them rather than Bl*ck H*rse as it would mean less charges being added to the balance. So it was arranged that the car would be collected and that we would then be informed of the balance then due. They came to collect the car on 15th July 2008 – I know the date because it was my birthday

I need to point something out here. Although Mr 3Dogs had agreed to all this, he would not deal with the letters, calls or this visit himself. I had to deal with it all, as he could not face it or them himself. The debt was in his name but early on I had put a letter in to the company authorising me to deal on his behalf, and had dealt with everything concerning it, including the insurance and surrender.

And so we waited and waited for news from them. The next thing we knew was a demand for over £2,100, when we had only owed 5 late payment of £216 making £1580, and they had sold the car. Statements showed massive amounts of charges and a credit of only £600 for the car, so even though we had lost the car, we owed them more than we had beforehand. It was at this point that Mr 3Dogs actually saw the full extent of what we owed to them, as up to then he only thought we owed about £600, but he accepted it well, repeating what his best mate is always saying “what it is, is what it is”. He understood that times had been hard and it was not surprising that we owed that much. So far so good then.

Slimming was going well. We had weighed in at 20 stone 4 ½ lbs for Mr 3Dogs and exactly 19 stones for me :eek: the heaviest either of us had ever been, so it was not surprising that our health had suffered, was it? However, by the end of that year Mr 3Dogs had lost 5 ½ stones and I had lost 2 stone 9 lbs. My lack of mobility restricted my losses, and I seemed to achieve about half what Mr 3Dogs did all the way through, which was quite maddening at times as I followed the plan exactly and he cheated with cakes and things when I wasn’t looking!! :mad:

And in February 2009, Mr 3Dogs and I won the class title of Mr & Mrs of the Year having lost 9 stone between us. Mr 3Dogs had done the best (as men tend to do) with a loss of 6 stone, and I had lost 3 stone, so we were well pleased, and looking forward to more losses to come. And we were in the local papers too.

So to summarise the debt position at that time, as far as Mr 3Dogs was aware, we owed Bl*ck H*rse Finance £2,100, Mr 3Dogs’ Jacamo catalogue about £500 and Capit*l One about £600 on his credit card. He also knew that I owed an amount to my Shoe Tailor catalogue and that we had got behind a bit on our rent after some robbing Peter to pay Paul. What he did not know about was my credit card balance, and outstanding overdrafts on 2 closed accounts :eek: Plus he thought that I had cleared an old Empire Stores catalogue debt and an HP account on our TV (Mr 3Dogs just had to have a 32” LCD TV when they first came out – I should have said no, but .............. ). With or income being what it was, I had struggled to pay everything, but ended up payin very little, doing it all on my own. Thing were coming to a head ............................................



....................... to be continued

Money_Fritter

savingwannabe wrote: »

hello Angel. Flu jab. Yuk i had better go for mine. Well done in going. How are you sweetie? we are all waiting for our next fix of 3Dogs' story.

Right on the 22nd Jan we will celebrate with you.

Drinks anyone?


Money what would you like as these are a bit girly?

Well I like beer and wine, but I do like the odd red bull and vodka, and a tequila slammer

savingwannabe

Oh Susan you have been through so much. I am so glad i have met you. I think you are wonderful.

savingwannabe

Money_Fritter wrote: »

Well I like beer and wine, but I do like the odd red bull and vodka, and a tequila slammer

3Dogs

Are you all busy reading then?

Sorry about my generalisation earlier - but it really does depend on where you live. SW I am sure that your students are respectful and wonderful, but they are not from the 'wrong side of town' are they? Can I say that? I hope you know what I mean. And I agree that the 'bad' ones are the minority but they are the ones who affect peoples lives and make them a misery - speaking from personal experience here

savingwannabe

3Dogs how did you cope on the bleakest days?

So_Sad_Angel

Money_Fritter wrote: »

Well I like beer and wine, but I do like the odd red bull and vodka, and a tequila slammer

what?...all in the same glass? !!:eek::eek: ...oh to be young again & be able to take my drink...LOL I can only just about manage a Red Bull on its own these days:rotfl::rotfl:

savingwannabe

3Dogs wrote: »

Are you all busy reading then?

Sorry about my generalisation earlier - but it really does depend on where you live. SW I am sure that your students are respectful and wonderful, but they are not from the 'wrong side of town' are they? Can I ay that? I hope you know what I mean. And I agree that the 'bad' ones are the minority but they are the ones who affect peoples lives and make them a misery - speaking from personal experience here

You are right they are terribly middleclass and most are vvv bright. I lived next to some ASBO people so i do know about the bad ones. They can make life unbearable i know. I had forgotten sorry.

Money_Fritter

So_Sad_Angel wrote: »

what?...all in the same glass? !!:eek::eek: ...oh to be young again & be able to take my drink...LOL I can only just about manage a Red Bull on its own these days:rotfl::rotfl:

LOL, I am sure you are being modest

3dogs love the latest update

beanielou

Was reading 3Dogs.
Great losses both of you