Long Haul or Do Up House??

Herewego

Hope everything went ok today, thinking of you

HWG x

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Thanks HWG, it was all quite surreal, we went in thinking we would be starting the DAS scheme, Scottish version of a DMP but safe and protected, they can't touch your house etc. This was the advice of the CAB guy i saw a couple of weeks ago.
However it was all change as the scale of the debt would make the payback period too long.
So the suggestion was DH goes BR , now he has less debt in his name than i do but the idea being that if he is paying the Trustee a monthly contribution then it will be less than he currently pays ccs and as the housing market is so poor i can buy out his interest in the house for £500.
She went through it all so fast, even though we were in with her for an hour, that we didn't get the chance to take in the info and question it. However i feel that she was just so sharp on the options, or perhaps lack of options that she knew what we had to do.

Sooo Dh is checking with his professional body and his work contract to see if he can go BR and she is writing out to all my creditors to ask them to hold charges etc. I have to make a token payment to each cc and this can probably last until DH has done his three years of BR payments and by that time we won't have nursery costs and i can go into a DAS myself with a greater monthly surplus than we have to offer at the moment.

I hope that makes sense, we're still in a bit of a daze and just praying that this will work.
The crazy thing is i just called Santander to explain what was happening but they can't speak to me until i go into arrears :mad::mad:

Right, need to work out a new sig, the good thing about this way is i can use the surplus from only paying the ccs £1 to start paying back the in-laws and again if i can manage £500 a month to them then in two years time they will be fully paid back and they need never know about the stupid situation we have got ourselves into.

The slog continues:D

lifewaiting

Hi PollyWD

I just popped in to see how you were getting on and post a link showing improvements to DAS but it seems I am behind the times !

It sounds like you are getting good advice. Did the money advisor say your DAS would take too long or did you feel you wanted a quicker solution ? I am just curious because my own DAS was agreed with a term longer than 10 years (which used to be the limit I believe). I was not keen on going down the bankruptcy route as I was worried about losing my home but from what you have been told, I might have been able to avoid this.
Do you mind me asking if you have equity in your home ?
Hope it all works out for you, sounds like the CAB have a cunning plan.:)

Herewego

Glad you have had some good advice hope it all now sorts itself out so you can relax a little and start living life again.

Cialilerin

You now have a plan so at least you know where you stand and what you can/can't do (or you will when you've had time to let it all sink in!) Well done on having the courage to get the help you needed. We'll be with you every step of the way xx

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Thanks Cee, i certainly need the support, that's what's so good about these boards:):)

Hi Lifewaiting, i don't think we have any equity in the house, at the moment i can't get a straight valuation from estate agents and i can't afford to pay for a valuation survey. However not only do we have a hefty mortgage but we have a secured loan too, so if there was any equity it wouldn't be enough to make much of a dent in the ccs, so no-one would benefit.

Today bought a new washing line £1.97, dog chew £2.05:eek: and the inevitable 4 wispas for £1, flipping Tesco!!

Two 'phone us now' letters from Halifax & BoS, so will do that when DH is back and i can get peace to speak:D

Other than that all quiet on the western front.

PWDxx

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

TFI Friday and then some, this has been a heck of a week!

Not a lot planned for the w/end but i will try and do the ultimate spreadsheet as we both get paid next week.:j:j

Think with the new a/c i'm going to leave the money in there for the DDs and the token payments but withdraw everything that we need for food, school, petrol and diesel and a bit for housekeeping (not sure what that really includes but sounds nice and Nigella-ish!) and any balance will be moved to the savings a/c for the annual stuff we need to budget for, car servicing, insurances, birthdays etc. May even have a sacrificial cutting up of the credit cards that we still have:D:D BIG STEP!!

Sold a couple of old watches on ebay so need to list a couple more things to keep that going, at least now any profit can go into a savings a/c rather than be lost in the black hole that was the OD - this needs to be addressed but CAB will add that to our list of creditors for a DMP.

What i'm going to do now is send £5 to the in-laws online and see if it works and get them to check and then after payday i can try and figure out what we can manage to repay then for the month.

PWD xx

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Oh dear getting very impatient, phoned F-in-L last night to say that i'd paid £5 over to his a/c to make sure i had the right details or did he have any other a/cs he'd rather i paid into. Well bless, he doesn't have a computer, fair enough he's in his 70s but he doesn't use the hole in the wall either, so he won't be able to check if the £5 has reached him until he gets his paper statement through the post.
Just makes me realise how new technology has made us so impatient and immediate in our demands for information!

So for once i have to step away and wait for him to get his statement. Poor old soul was being very nice and saying that he didn't want us struggling to pay him back etc, bless if only he knew:eek: i had to make the call as DH couldn't bring himself to discuss it with his own Dad?? Thing is there was nothing to discuss as DH doesn't want them to know what's happening, so lets just hope we can keep drip feeding them the money back and don't have too many hicups along the way.

PWD xx

Polly_Wolly_Doodle

Hi All,

Interesting day, had notice that a gas line is to be put through the village, and if we sign up then it's free connection to your property, so a no brainer i suppose.
Don't know how long our oil boiler will live for but (touch wood) it's pretty maintenance free but gas is so much cheaper than oil, so when it goes it would be good to switch if we could manage the cost of a gas boiler! Anyway another form to fill in

Spending, umm a coffee at work, a scone and a kitkat £2.85 and then three Fredo Frogs for the children 17p each.
Sold some bits on ebay, so a good £30 after fees, £26 of it needs to go to DDs laptop fund as she agreed to selling some b'day presents and putting the money in her savings a/c.
Wish i could crack this chocolate thing suppose it's cheaper than drink but:o

Think i have my budget worked out for April, £4k in, £1,700 stays in bank to pay DD/SOs and £1 token pmts and th planned £500 to in-laws. Going to take out about £1,010 and divide into envelopes, £80 breakfast club, £60 school lunches, £200 for diesel, £200 for petrol, £70 DH rail ticket, £400 for food. Then £570 to savings a/c all split into 'pots' on spreadsheet for car tax, insurance, oil etc. And that leaves a notional £100 for clothes / shoes / school uniform and a bit of surplus that will be taken up with DH's fee if he goes BR and my DMP with my ccs when we get that settled.
Just realised school is on holiday for two weeks, so that should leave a float:j and i'm not thinking we'll use all the fuel money either, so if there is a surplus there it will go with the car money to add to the mot / servicing / replacement pot.
Still need to fine tune this but think i'm getting there:D of course still needs to be agreed with CAB etc.

PWD xx

Herewego

Wow look at you go, havent you been busy and so organised. When I started out i found it was the planning that took all the time and after a few tweaks sorting the money became easier.
Keep up the good work look how far you have come already.

HWG x