DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Time_to_face_the_music

Hopelessly_Hopeful wrote: »

Your friends - OMG:D

I couldn't possibly get into it for fear of injury. I only have £1 emergency allowance in my budget. I doubt it would but the cable ties nor the soothing cream

HHx

Decisions, decisions. Is it clamps, cable ties or baby oil from Poundland? :rotfl:

speshfesh

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Decisions, decisions. Is it clamps, cable ties or baby oil from Poundland? :rotfl:

I'd like to think that as a man in his late 40's, I'm fairly experienced in the ways of the world but frankly......
I'm feeling a bit scared at the turn this thread is taking!

Time_to_face_the_music

lemoncheesecake wrote: »

Hi, I hope nobody minds me joining this thread.

We've been with payplan for 3 years and its all been fine - budget ok etc. However, HSBC credit card haven't been helpful. I've buried my head a bit tbh, greatful of the break from creditors ringing and just made sure we made the payments to payplan.

we owed about £4200 to them and I was horrified to see after 3 years we still owe £3700 and have been paying them £63 a mth. I've had a look into this and it seems they haven't defaulted us but are marking us as LP. Also they hiked the interest rate up when payplan wrote to them to make our reduced offer payment.....right up to 24% apr. For some reason the last statement we got sent says 6.5% apr so most of our £63 started to make a dent in the balance. Is there anything we can do about the 24% apr all these years? Paypla shows the outstanding should be £1700 if interest had been suspended so its a huge difference.

Really desperate for some advice - also how will this affect our credit file?

Thanks

Hi lemoncheesecake :wave:

How often have HSBC been sending you statements? Only £500 paid off in 3 years is appalling, especially when compared to Payplan's estimate of £2500 paid.

HH is correct, you need to write to HSBC and then contact the FOS if you get no satisfaction. :wall:

Good luck and please let us know how you get on

Time_to_face_the_music

speshfesh wrote: »

I'd like to think that as a man in his late 40's, I'm fairly experienced in the ways of the world but frankly......
I'm feeling a bit scared at the turn this thread is taking!

I blame HH but I will stop it now. Would hate to scare you away speshfesh

Sorry to anyone I offended :silenced:

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

I blame HH but I will stop it now. Would hate to scare you away speshfesh

Sorry to anyone I offended :silenced:

Me too

Wanders off to naughty corner with my geeky MSE mate!

HHx

Time_to_face_the_music

freedomfromdebt wrote: »

Hi,
Would appreciate some advice. I am 3 years into DMP with Payplan and approx 3 years left to go. I need some repairs doing to house which will cost about £2500-£3000 - leaking roof, penetrating damp etc etc. Repairs have been needed for quite some time and now the situation is getting serious as the longer it gets left, the more damage is being done and the more it will then cost to repair. Quotes are from a reliable builder. All this rain is certainly not helping!!!
I have just spoken to Payplan and only advice they can give is to reduce dmp for 3 mths. However this would only generate £900 (which won't even cover cost of scaffolding) and also creditors likely to start charging interest again after a long battle to get some of them to freeze, so not really an option.
I would really appreciate if any has any ideas or advice. Don't have anyone I can borrow the money from.

Hi FFD :wave:

Where do you live? Would you class yourself as being on a low income? Do you receive any benefits or have anyone disabled living in your home?

Sorry for all the questions but there are grants available for essential work, though they all seem dependent on your location and circumstances.

speshfesh

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

I blame HH but I will stop it now. Would hate to scare you away speshfesh

Sorry to anyone I offended :silenced:

Oh I think, considering the nature of why we're all here, it'd be a very sad thing if we couldn't have a laugh once in a while

My OH is doing the shades of grey thing also (even scarier!):eek:

ben80

Someone from work said she put it down after an hour because the standard of writing was so poor, she would have turned it down if one of her children wrote something of similar quality - she's an English specialist teaching 11 year olds!

...Doesn't stop me being curious though! (I only teach 4-6 year olds, I won't notice the terrible standard of writing!)

Growurown

nfollows1982 wrote: »

Do you go out once a month? Twice a month? What do you spend?

I went to Wetherspoons and ordered a soda water and they said it was free:j Bit boring I know but when you are driving home and trying to shed a few pounds its an option.

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Re Fifty Shades of Grey, you are as smutty as HH and rdchick. All three of you are very rude and naughty

Am beginning to think I am the only person here who hasn't read it :rotfl:

I haven't read it either! Would I be shocked?

emmiloam

londonfraggle wrote: »

Hi all - thought I'd pop in and write something instead of just lurking...I do read the thread every day and it's great to see some of the old faces still here chugging away at this and hello :wave::wave: to all the new names!

So I took the plunge and left my DMP company to self manage it. And it was the best thing I've done. I feel much more in control (had constant problems with the DMP pay date as I have a tricky situation with work and lots of travel - but having to pay it all up front myself and then claim it all back).

I was worried that some of the predators would hike the interest up (not least as I am paying all of them well over the minimum contractual payment now) but in fact it's been completely fine. Every single one (I have 8 left - started with 15!) has stuck to the arrangement I had with them through the DMP company - and I have simply set up standing orders to all of them for the same amounts on the 1st of every month. I update my "dreadsheet" every month with the new balances and tick them off when I've checked that they've all received the payments (do it approx 4 days after the payment has left my bank account so it has had time to show up on theirs).

A few of them are about to be paid off and once that has happened I will then plough that money into the next smallest debt to pay that one off and so on. I have worked out that I should be debt free by November - woooo hooo - going to be an amazing feeling.

So it's taken me nearly 3 years to get here - but am feeling pretty proud of myself for having paid off over £45k already and am now on the home run. Going to be pretty odd having that extra money - but I'm getting married and off on honeymoon in December so that is my massive incentive so make sure I clear the decks so can start my married life debt free (and of course have money to spend on my honeymoon - yay!).

So I just wanted to hopefully encourage others to keep at it - a DMP was the best thing I have ever done - as was deciding to self manage it now. I know that's not for everyone - and I certainly couldn't have done it on my own at the beginning without all the support I had.

Hope you all have a very happy Thursday!
Fraggle x

Hi Fraggle

Well done on clearing so much so quickly. :T

We're in a very similar situation to you and I think we started around the same time (I remember your name from when I started). Like you, we've now decided to go on our own, and all 4 of our creditors have been absolutely fantastic agreeing to everything we asked for.

When we started out on our DMP journey with CCCS we were told it would take approximately 13 years to clear our debt. So far it's been just over 3 and I reckon we'll have the rest cleared in less than a year.

The CCCS have been brilliant all the way through our DMP, but we've decided to take it over ourselves so that we can clear the smaller ones quickly and plough the extra money in to the next one (just like snowballing).

Anyway, fingers crossed for you (and everyone else) that the rest of your journey is as sucessful, and best wishes for your wedding.

E
x