DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Hopelessly_Hopeful

cleokat wrote: »

AM really interesting in holding off my CCCS start date for a month and having a bit of an emergency fund but surprise surprise am stressing about it! I get paid on 15th of the month and most of my DDs come out around this time. If I made token payements for August then paid CCCS on 1st October with my September pay then it means my creditors would have nothing but token payments for two months. Would this be ok? Has anyone else done this?

Would it be better to just start in September and forget the emergency fund? Sorry for all the stressing. It's just that I've never missed a payment before and I don't know what will happen.

You will get some hassle but would be worth it my my opinion. I think most of us would defer the start for a month or two of we had our time again.

HHx

cleokat

Hopelessly_Hopeful wrote: »

You will get some hassle but would be worth it my my opinion. I think most of us would defer the start for a month or two of we had our time again.

HHx

How much hassle? What could they actually do to me? I am such a wimp- I so hate breaking the rules! Would it impact on my DMP if I paid some of the minimum payments but gave others a token payment? Can't shake the feeling that I should pay my loan until DMP is set up.

Thanks for your advice HH - it's so useful to get advice from people who have been there and done it. xx

Grand_Benders

cleokat wrote: »

How much hassle? What could they actually do to me? I am such a wimp- I so hate breaking the rules! Would it impact on my DMP if I paid some of the minimum payments but gave others a token payment? Can't shake the feeling that I should pay my loan until DMP is set up.

Thanks for your advice HH - it's so useful to get advice from people who have been there and done it. xx

I felt like that too, cleokat, but they won't appreciate that you're giving them anything special. You're going to default and that's the bottom line. I would say send the letters telling them you're in financial difficulty and currently speaking to CCCS about starting a DMP, and in the meantime you'd still like to show willing and pay them something. Then send them a cheque for £1. It's enough to not classify as a missed payment. They won't thank you for leaving yourself stuck to pay them any more. You're an account number to them, that's all. Any customer loyalty you felt to them should be left at the door now.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's true. Read back on this thread and you'll see a combination of people saying exactly that, and others confirming what HH has said; that they wished they taken a month to get set up and build a fund. I had been thinking about two months but then became a victim of my own organisation and felt like, since I had everything in place, I should just get it sorted, but to be honest, having lost most of our cushion to car repairs, I sort of wish we HAD waited another month.

Only you can decide what to do. But if you're thinking you will gain any favour from any of your creditors by giving them a larger payment than anyone else, you won't.

Look after you and your family first.

x

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Grand_Benders wrote: »

I felt like that too, cleokat, but they won't appreciate that you're giving them anything special. You're going to default and that's the bottom line. I would say send the letters telling them you're in financial difficulty and currently speaking to CCCS about starting a DMP, and in the meantime you'd still like to show willing and pay them something. Then send them a cheque for £1. It's enough to not classify as a missed payment. They won't thank you for leaving yourself stuck to pay them any more. You're an account number to them, that's all. Any customer loyalty you felt to them should be left at the door now.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's true. Read back on this thread and you'll see a combination of people saying exactly that, and others confirming what HH has said; that they wished they taken a month to get set up and build a fund. I had been thinking about two months but then became a victim of my own organisation and felt like, since I had everything in place, I should just get it sorted, but to be honest, having lost most of our cushion to car repairs, I sort of wish we HAD waited another month.

Only you can decide what to do. But if you're thinking you will gain any favour from any of your creditors by giving them a larger payment than anyone else, you won't.

Look after you and your family first.

x

Agree entirely

HHx

Rochdale_Guy

My sig says it all....

ikkle87

Hugs Rochdale Guy - I was reading your thread earlier, hope things start to look up for you xx

ikkle87

I'm just jumping in for a quick opinion guys, hope you don't mind.

As you know we've just set up our DMP recently. Now, when we set it up we had some arrears on essentials like council tax etc.

They were:
Council Tax 1 arrears of £374 - this is now £448 due to court fee's and we allocated payment of £49.50 a month for them.
Council Tax 2 arrears of £49 which we allocated we would pay our normal £50 a month and then an extra £7.50 to clear arrears.
Water arrears of £52 where we allocated the normal monthly payment of £26 plus £12 towards arrears.

Now this morning we received a letter from Council Tax 2 so I rang them and they explained that I can actually just extend my direct debit plan with them for another month as we only had it on 10 months. This means now instead of paying them £50 a month plus £7.50 we just pay £48 a month - so this is an extra £9.50 a month in the pot.

The water board also contacted us as they bill quarterly and we haven't used as much as predicted so they have knocked £46 off the bill for the quarter which has eradicated the arrears as I made an over payment last month for the arrears so the monthly payment would be back to £26 a month. So another £12 a month in the pot.

This is where I am trying to decide what is best to do. Is it worth contacting CCCS and asking them to redo the budget or would you use the £21.50 to pay off a bit extra on Council Tax 1 to try and clear it quicker so that once that's clear then we can edit the budget?

Ellieseleven

Rochdale_Guy wrote: »

My sig says it all....

Just wanted to say hang on in there Rochdale Guy... I've been made redundant twice since starting my DMP but I'm still here and each time I've managed to find a job:o

It's scary when it happens and panic does set in but try to stay positive and determined and remember you can always come on this forum for support

Sending hugs xx

Ellie

Ellieseleven

We've just reached our 2 year anniversary of our DMP which equates to a quarter of our debt being paid off! Each month is a mini milestone for me and seeing the figures coming down spurs me on knowing that our debt free date is on the horizon.

We have had and continue to have ups and downs on the DMP, I've been made redundant twice, OH's business isn't doing great but we're managing and without credit which feels fantastic:)

For all those about to or just embarking on a DMP, all I can say is that it has been our saviour. We were drowning in debt and I cut back everything just to make minimum payments only to find myself deeper and deeper in debt:(

Nowadays, we don't have much spare but we can sleep at night and can see that one day we will be free of debt and won't be leaving a huge great burden to our children when we have gone. My worry was always that we would still have mountains of debt once we reached retirement but now we will be debt free in our mid-fifties which feels great:)

Take care all

Ellie xx

jasperconran

hi guys, not posted for a while but really do with some advice.

Basic recap, went on self managing our dmp at the beginning of the year, lasted 5 months got fed up with being harrassed so went back to CCCS. have been sending token payments of £5 for 2 months as were victims of fraud and then car broke down:(

Due to start with CCCS properly this month however the payments are not going to work. Our combined wages every month has drastically reduced from (including child benefit) £3981.20 to £3081.20:eek: so we cannot afford the CCCS's recommended monthly payment of £660. I re-did the debt remedy out of curiosity, and it said with our surplus of £118 it would be take 40 years to pay off the debt:eek::eek: 11 years if we could find extra money!!!!!

We have sat down and worked out our own budget and we can comfortably afford £350 per calendar month. So what do we do???? CCCS have already threatened to cancel our dmp if we reduce our payment for a 3rd month in a row, but its not our fault. so unfair. I have emailed them and I am dreading the response I will get. I know I should ring them, but I dont feel up to it today.:(

We just want regular payments going out so the creditors will settle down. HSBC over OH's CC have been a nightmare as they have now involved D & G solicitors who are threatening us with court regularly. And I am getting harrassed daily by Metropolitan over my smallest debt of £900. All the other creditors dont seem to be bothered so long as they are getting something, but HSBC/Metropolitan etc are pigs!:eek::eek:

Can anybody give me some advice?? I would self manage again, but the bank have deleted all the standing order details I had set up and I just can cope emotionally with all that again.

help anyone?