Never Give Up

cobblers_boy

Thanks to everybody for your messages, I will get around to the thanks button in due course. As ever the support from everybody is inspiring in making sure you stay on the straight and narrow.

Secretshopper75

I have prorated my payments to all of the creditors although some of them are slightly out of kilter. When any of them write to request (also read bully, harrass, other forms of intimidation) I wrote back to say you represent x.xx% of my debt and get y.yy% of my payments. These are normally around the same except for those debts nearly paid off. I then add that it would be unfair on any of my other creditors to favour them with increased payments. They normally then crawl back into their respective holes for 6 months until the computer says "write to him again".

CB :T

fossil57

Our debt was about £165,000 - all unsecured with an additional £175,000 mortgage on top. We had some stuff to show for it, but a lot of it was due to horrendous interest rates and borrowing from one card to pay another. It doesn't take too long for it to spiral out of control. Eventually we decided we had to bite the bullet and face it. We set up another bank account and then managed to set up a DMP with CCCS. We decided that we felt more comfortable trying to pay it all back rather than going for the 5 year debt free option and leaving the creditors out of pocket. We are 4 years down the line and hopefully will be debt free by end of 2017. Not an easy time, but we are getting there. I am now being treated for breast cancer and although I get full pay at present, that reduces to half pay after 6 months - hopefully I will only need to have 2 months of that and our creditors will accept a lower payment during that time.
:T

louise3965

There's a few of us with massive debts then. I didnt know there were others as stupid as us! We started with 138k unsecured credit card and loan debt and 4 years later are down to just under 50k. Will be debt free in 2 1/2 years and I cannot wait, and every day I thank CCCS and MSE. Oh and wish all the plagues in the world onto Lloyds TSB

snookey

Fantastic. Well done on sorting yourselfs out. I could not imagine trying to sort out that amount of debt .

laineygirl

We were in the same situaion,well still are.
We went on holidays, built up credit card debts and took out a loan but we could afford to pay over the basic payments without any problem and we didn't miss the loan money. Then I became ill and
My husband had to give up A VERY WELL PAID JOB to look after me and so our income dropped dramatically and we couldn't afford our loan, mortgage and 4 credit card bills ( we tried paying off as much as we could with our savings but they were fast dwindling away) We had the LBM when we worked out our finances and soon realised that if we wanted to eat we would have to make arrangements with our creditors.
WE OWED £26000.:eek:
We went to the CCCS who told us they couldn't help us, never gave a reason.So being reasonablly intelligent and hearing about all the fees that companies were charging to arrange payments to creditors I decided to tackle our creditors myself.
I filled in an income and outgoing letter (MARTIN LEWIS ONE) to show how much money WE DIDN'T HAVE and then made a nominal payment offer to them.
I wrote to them explaining why we suddenly couldn't pay and eventually,(7 months, different departments, threats, FROM THEM etc.with the TSB loan and credit card) the interest stopped.
VIRGIN were brill and stopped interest within 6 weeks and agreed to my payment offer straight away, with a 6 month review. I saw just how much we had left out off our savings and offered a payment in part that would finish our debt. I pointed out that at the present rate of repayment It would take 40 years to get anywhere near what I owed them and passing it on to a debt company would only get them between 15%-20% of what WE owed them. I first offered 20% which was turned down and then 25% which was accepted by Virgin but not TSB.
I'm on an agreed payment plan with TSB and I get a phone call every 2 weeks telling me 'THEY'VE AGREED TO UP MY PAYMENTS', kind of them but I've had to decline their kind offer because nobody has offered to UP MY INCOME yet.
I'm putting a little away each week to make our part payment offer a little larger, hoping they might see sense and accept it rather than sell it on to a DCA, which they will later this year. I'll make them another offer then.
(Better a part payment for them rather than nothing, to me it makes sense to accept part of the debt rather than sell it on for a lesser ammount but hey I'll just pay whose in charge, I have only so much to service the debts and I'll not be getting any more)
We'll keep trying. If we're lucky and they accept the upped offer then by this time next year, apart from our mortgage we will be debt free. If not then I'll be 128 years old when I can finally say...
'I'M DEBT FREE'.:beer:
I must say I slept a lot easier when I had the LBM and although things will never be back to normal at least I'm not in fear of the knock at the door and we can live, modestly, without the Credit cards.
Credit Cards are one of the worst aspects of the 20th century because spending on them was never real money, you didn't have to think, you just bought. I WANT, I CAN HAVE because I have a credit card.
It would have been a lot better if we could have learned to live like our parents did and just used cash, when it was gone that was it until next pay day and if you wanted things you saved. Things were alot more appreciated because they had to be saved for.
Anyhow good on you and dont give up you will get there:T

Jules28

OP, what a great post - I needed a wee boost to give me encouragement to keep going, thanks for the inspiration and well done!