DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Hopelessly_Hopeful

ben80 wrote: »

eBay for herbs & spices... simple, obvious... why didn't I think of that. Great advice! I'm going try & beat TTFTM to it!

TTFTM - Who's ben10?!!!

Assume Ben10 is the kids character..... Rather that than steptoe Ben

HHx

Hopelessly_Hopeful

lizzy23 wrote: »

just another tip, i don't know where you are in the country, but if you have any asian supermarkets use them for herbs, spices, rice etc often much cheaper than the supermarkets because you can buy in bulk i work in Bradford so use several

Thanks Lizzy

I do use asian grocers but again it's back to the price per unit thing.
Postage is often free or still more economical. Even more so if you buy things ftom the same retailer.

Since DMP I try to make every single penny work for me.



Hope that helps

HHx

Grand_Benders

sickasachip13 wrote: »

Hey Grand Benders,

Following on from HH's good advice. I would say prepare yourself by maybe getting a concertina file / similar to start filing stuff in from this point onwards - ... Also, some creditors will stop sending you monthly statements, those that do this, I ring every month or so for a balance which I check against the CCCS system - this is to make sure they're not up to anything behind our backs!

I also (a bit obsessive) for the first few months, marked on a spreadsheet, when I'd sent a letter, to which creditor, if I'd had contact back, written or verbal, and the gist of it. It helped keep track for us as we had 19 creditors....!

SAAC

I have a lever arch file with dividers all set up and ready to go. Am just about to file the latest cc statements and all the stuff we're sending to CCCS to get things started. One section per creditor, one for CCCS. After reading the last 20 pages of this thread last night, I've realised I need to have full ownership of our DMP even though CCCS will be running it, so thanks to all the great posts here I'm already working on the basis that I will be checking all statements/balances against CCCS every month and if anyone stops sending me regular monthly statements, I'll be calling to check, and also writing to ask them to resume sending them.

I am a bit of a spreadsheet queen, so will be keeping a correspondence tracker too. We have 11 debts with 7 creditors, so not as much as you had to track, but enough that I need to keep a note of who, what and when.

We have all our 'lightbulb' stuff on google docs so we can share it between us (me and the OH) and access it at home, work or any mobile device.

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

We always keep our own spreadsheet and check every bill against online CCCS figures then update both spreadsheet and CCCS debt figures.

Will be adding this to the monthly task list too

I don't know if I've said this before but this thread is fab. Full of wonderful advice from fantastic people. My new best pals! :T

Tigsmom

Hello everyone (and thank you Time to face the music for redirecting me).

OK, so quick recap.
6 years ago had good full-time well-paid job for 7yrs, had a baby who was born with hole in her heart. Returned to work after 6mths. Asked for part-time hours and was made redundant 3 weeks later
Struggled to get by living off redundancy pay. That ran out. claimed JSA (but discovered going for interviews with a baby wasn't generally acceptable!) they stopped paying this after about 6 months because my credits? ran out (I had worked full time for 20years before then!). Got flooded in 2007. lived in a caravan, got pregnant again and moved back into house a couple of weeks before baby no.2. 6 months later got a part-time job and basic tax credits. Then came the winter of 2010. School closed beacuse heating/roof failed. Had to take days off work unpaid. Still had to pay for childcare even though not using it. In the end it just wasn't financially viable to work. In the meantime got a saturday job (which I still have but it's only min wage). April this year tax credits withdrawn. Everything else gone up except mine and hubbys wages. Now just working to pay debts which seem to be increasing. Poor quality of life. Worrying sick what to do if anything breaks down and how to afford new school uniforms in September. Finally decided that DMP may be only way out.

sickasachip13

Tigsmom wrote: »

Hello everyone (and thank you Time to face the music for redirecting me).

OK, so quick recap.
6 years ago had good full-time well-paid job for 7yrs, had a baby who was born with hole in her heart. Returned to work after 6mths. Asked for part-time hours and was made redundant 3 weeks later
Struggled to get by living off redundancy pay. That ran out. claimed JSA (but discovered going for interviews with a baby wasn't generally acceptable!) they stopped paying this after about 6 months because my credits? ran out (I had worked full time for 20years before then!). Got flooded in 2007. lived in a caravan, got pregnant again and moved back into house a couple of weeks before baby no.2. 6 months later got a part-time job and basic tax credits. Then came the winter of 2010. School closed beacuse heating/roof failed. Had to take days off work unpaid. Still had to pay for childcare even though not using it. In the end it just wasn't financially viable to work. In the meantime got a saturday job (which I still have but it's only min wage). April this year tax credits withdrawn. Everything else gone up except mine and hubbys wages. Now just working to pay debts which seem to be increasing. Poor quality of life. Worrying sick what to do if anything breaks down and how to afford new school uniforms in September. Finally decided that DMP may be only way out.

Hi again (and welcome aboard),

I hadn't realised your 'back story' when we previously 'talked' on a different thread. You've certainly had life chucking a lot of stuff at you... for us the DMP did take away the huge levels of worry and fear about the debt, and what was going to happen. I hope you find the same. The other thing I've realised is that it's only debt - yours and your loved-ones wellbeing is the most important thing and, you know, if you haven't got it then the creditors just can't flippin have it!

Onwards and Upwards

SAAC x

BluePumpkin

Hey Tigsmom. I'm not on a DMP but flicked through this thread to get general DFW advice and ideas, and I just had to say that I really feel bad reading your story and I hope things pick up for you. Got everything crossed that the DMP helps you and yours

Grand_Benders

Welcome Tigsmom. :hello:

This board is full of amazing people with excellent information and advice. It may feel now that a DMP is your 'only option' but pretty soon you'll feel that it's your BEST option and a bit of a lifesaver. It will give you back some semblance of a standard of living (not rolling in cash, but not having to worry about buying school uniforms or food).

I don't have kids, but I have suffered flooding in 2008 which meant being out of our house for 2 months (till the insurance stopped paying for accommodation) then moving back in to a building site, which lasted almost a year. Our insurance covered the flooding issues, but when floors, etc got ripped up we found rotten joists and all sorts of rot problems so we pretty much had to gut our entire ground floor and pay for lots of repairs and rebuilding ourselves (most of which went on credit cards that we're still paying). Getting house insurance is an expensive business these days. Our existing insurer maintains our policy at £650 a year but most mainstream insurers won't touch us and the odd ones that will are quoting £1100 a year!! :eek:

We're about to start our DMP and I feel like we're going to get our lives back. I hope it's not long before you feel the same way.

Tigsmom

Hey don't feel sorry for us! There are people worse off than us and we have two fantastic children. If we lose everything we will still be blessed with them.

We just want to protect them from nasty debt collectors and give them a little treat every now and again. Even if we had money we don't believe in spoiling them. We believe in rewards for hard work, good deeds and good behaviour (not because they're shouting loudly and it might shut them up, or because someone else has one!). They don't miss what they never had but we would like them to get a taste of it before they leave the nest!

If we could hang in there we could maybe clear our debts eventually. Income set to increase in 2yrs, loan off in 4. BUT - that is only if nothing goes up in the meantime, no unexpected school trips or other expenses, no appliances breakdown (and believe me thay're already halfway there!). My son starts school in another year which would free me up for more work BUT it would have to be school hours and I would have to compete with the high percentage of unemployed people in this area already (men taking what used to be womens part-time jobs). I don't think our credit rating is currently very good. We have applied to transfer credit cards and been rejected in the past so I guess we don't have much to lose. Anyway I think the fact that I have already applied and got the form from CCCS and opened a new bank account means we've pretty made up our minds which way to go. Luckily I have you lovely people on here to guide me.x

Time_to_face_the_music

ben80 wrote: »

eBay for herbs & spices... simple, obvious... why didn't I think of that. Great advice! I'm going try & beat TTFTM to it!

TTFTM - Who's ben10?!!!

Whoops! Isn't Ben 10 a little boy's TV programme? Sorry ben 80

Tigsmom

Grand_Benders wrote: »

Welcome Tigsmom. :hello:


I have suffered flooding in 2008 which meant being out of our house for 2 months (till the insurance stopped paying for accommodation) then moving back in to a building site, which lasted almost a year. Our insurance covered the flooding issues, but when floors, etc got ripped up we found rotten joists and all sorts of rot problems so we pretty much had to gut our entire ground floor and pay for lots of repairs and rebuilding ourselves (most of which went on credit cards that we're still paying). Getting house insurance is an expensive business these days. Our existing insurer maintains our policy at £650 a year but most mainstream insurers won't touch us and the odd ones that will are quoting £1100 a year!! :eek:

OMG, see I think that's worse than my problems! Luckily my father-in-law was a builder and the insurance company let him do the repairs so we got it done quickly and didn't have to pay for it ourselves. Our insurance is more than double that of people who didn't get flooded though:(. We would cancel but our mortgage says we have to be insured. Low credit rating/loss of income= can't change mortgage= forced to keep high insurance:mad:. I'm hoping our creditors will understand our dilemma.

Does anyone know, CCCS have given us a standard letter to explain to our creditors, would it help our plight to explain how we got to this and what we have tried to do before abandoning hope?