long month! worried

cantstopshopping

Hello!

I am new to the forums but have been reading lots of posts for a couple of weeks and i have been doing myself some budgets which seem ok...

one problem...

this month i was paid before christmas and i have stupidly overspent, i am not paid again until the 5th of February and i can just about pay most of my bills except for my next directory account.. i have missed a few payments (!!!) and now i owe them £190 there is no way i can pay this and i dont know what to do.

They have been ringing me and i have ignored it but i know i need to call them but i am worried! does anybody have any experience of missing payments with next directory??

I am also basically leaving myself with no money for food or anything!! does anybody have any good ideas of making money fast to get me through the month? I am planning on selling what i can on ebay!

any advice would be appreciated thanks xxx

raq

cantstopshopping wrote:

Hello!

I am new to the forums but have been reading lots of posts for a couple of weeks and i have been doing myself some budgets which seem ok...

one problem...

this month i was paid before christmas and i have stupidly overspent, i am not paid again until the 5th of February and i can just about pay most of my bills except for my next directory account.. i have missed a few payments (!!!) and now i owe them £190 there is no way i can pay this and i dont know what to do.

They have been ringing me and i have ignored it but i know i need to call them but i am worried! does anybody have any experience of missing payments with next directory??

I am also basically leaving myself with no money for food or anything!! does anybody have any good ideas of making money fast to get me through the month? I am planning on selling what i can on ebay!

any advice would be appreciated thanks xxx

If you read many thread on here one of the problems are with Next.

They are a nightmare. I had a dmp set up 5 years ago and only had £152.00 outstanding. they where always ringing me and wouldn't except £5.00 a month. I had bigger fish to fry but they where having none of it. I finally paid them off two years ago and couldn't be more happier.

Good luck what ever you decide.

immoral_angeluk

Call you other creditors and ask if you could hold off paying them for a month so you at least have some money for food. Looking after yourself needs to be priority and if you can't afford to feed yourself how can you be expected to pay your creditors?

Verbatim

Hi there,

Welcome to MSE.

Few suggestions,
Can you ask your employer for an advance on your next salary. It seems a bit rough to expect you to have a 6 week period between salaries. Also if you're paid on 5/2 Feb is a short month so will your next pay after that be 5/3? If so only 4 weeks (I think). I mean as a bargining tool to point out the difference between how long salaries have to stretch.

Other suggestion is to take stock of what you have in the store cupboard and freezer and to be inventive with meal planning.

And do you have any accounts which are dormant but might have a few quid in? If so close them and use the cash on essentials. Failing that can you borrow £20 from family or friends for food till payday?

cantstopshopping

hello,

thanks for your replies!

I am not too worried about the lack of money i will have for food etc, I live with my boyfriend who although he is even worse with money, he should be able to help me a bit.

I am dieting and not drinking for the month so I basically only need to have enough money for absolute basics.

my big concern is Next, i have just paid some of it with a credit card which had some money left on it, but I had also been trying to pay that off!

It seems like i feel like getting a hold of my finances is always one month away but there is always a reason this month why I cant manage it.

I have sent a letter to first direct claiming my bank charges which total £1235 so im hoping if i get those back then i can just pay off my next account completely.

I will ask my boss if I could be paid a little early, they are quite flexible so fingers crossed it wont be a huge problem!

Thankyou xx

justruth

Ok post your SOA and we can sort out the long term issues, as for the short term, the good news is that first direct tend to come in fairly quickly with an offer of about 75% so you could have about £1000 to play with before the month's out, which would pay next off completely.

If Next get arsey and you decide to hold out for the full amount from first direct, send them a letter, tell them that you are only willing to communicate through post, and enclose a cheque for £20, explain that you are struggling to pay for essentials and until you can sort out your finances thats all you can afford to pay them. They don't have much choice, no matter how much they ring and whinge at you, however they will try to add charges etc (you can claim those back too). It's only a temp solution, but once you have sorted money out, you can get rid of them as I suspect they are one of your priority debts anyway, with 29.9% APR!

cantstopshopping

wow i have just looked up my APRs for all of my debts and I am amazed at some of them!! I am going to do my SOA, will post soon. thankyou xx

~evanesco~

Next are fine with missed payments. Give then a ring and expail the situation. I got put on a payment plan when I missed a payment. They may be able to reduce your payments for a while.

Evans. xox

cantstopshopping

hi,

I have posted my SOA

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=341897

id really appreciate any suggestions, i think i just need to get organised as i shouldnt be missing payments. i am going to call next tonight and see what they say xx