DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Time_to_face_the_music

positivethinker1981 wrote: »

Hi all, new here and must say that I already feel better about my situ (I'll try not to go on too much)

Basically to cut a very very long story short, I am in £11,000 worth of debt due to helping out my stupid ex boyfriend a few years ago - I took out credit cards to pay for home improvements and stupidly took out a loan in my name to pay off his debts. He was paying the loan until the inevitable happened and we split up leaving me drowning in debt.

For a few years I have buried my head in the sand however I've had enough and this morning completed a Debt Remedy form on the CCCS site. The monthly payments they have suggested are great for me and my current circumstances and means I will be debt free in (at max) 4 years

I just have a few questions:
Am I doing the right thing?
Will any of my creditors say no?
What happens if my loan debt gets sold on (again!!) it was with Moorcroft, now with Buchanan Clark and Wells

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.

Hi positivethinker :hello:

I definitely think you are doing the right thing. I won't pretend it's always easy but we have never regretted starting our DMP.

Your creditors probably won't say no, they will all be used to dealing with CCCS and they know they will get a regular payment.

It's very easy on CCCS website to change over creditors, you can do it yourself as soon as you get online access to your account or you can ask CCCS to change them over for you.

Well done on starting your journey to debt freedom. Our DFD was 4 years when we started our DMP too and the first 6 months are already done and dusted :T

positivethinker1981

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Hi positivethinker :hello:

I definitely think you are doing the right thing. I won't pretend it's always easy but we have never regretted starting our DMP.

Your creditors probably won't say no, they will all be used to dealing with CCCS and they know they will get a regular payment.

It's very easy on CCCS website to change over creditors, you can do it yourself as soon as you get online access to your account or you can ask CCCS to change them over for you.

Well done on starting your journey to debt freedom. Our DFD was 4 years when we started our DMP too and the first 6 months are already done and dusted :T

Fingers crossed the only one I'm worried about is MBNA, I've heard they can be a right pain in the a**

pheebs

Bah, grumble grumble moan...

Letter from DWP means our child tax credits have gone down by £300 and some a month, making our current DMP budget untenable.

Mr Pheebs has called CCCS and they've amended things accordingly but this adds 2 and a half years to our debt free date, and I'm just feeling really despondant about things. We've only been on the bloomin' DMP for two months and already things are going mammaries skywards! I know this doesn't affect our monthly expenditure, but the thought of having to scrimp and live on this (to me) v restrictive budget for 6 and a half years to come just saps all my optimism and usual cheeriness.

Has anyone else had a setback in their budget but managed to chin up and carry on ? All inspiring stories welcome

Time_to_face_the_music

positivethinker1981 wrote: »

Fingers crossed the only one I'm worried about is MBNA, I've heard they can be a right pain in the a**

MBNA were actually the easiest for us, but have heard so many varied stories about how different creditors treat individuals, it's hard to know what any of them is going to do :mad:

Time_to_face_the_music

pheebs wrote: »

Bah, grumble grumble moan...

Letter from DWP means our child tax credits have gone down by £300 and some a month, making our current DMP budget untenable.

Mr Pheebs has called CCCS and they've amended things accordingly but this adds 2 and a half years to our debt free date, and I'm just feeling really despondant about things. We've only been on the bloomin' DMP for two months and already things are going mammaries skywards! I know this doesn't affect our monthly expenditure, but the thought of having to scrimp and live on this (to me) v restrictive budget for 6 and a half years to come just saps all my optimism and usual cheeriness.

Has anyone else had a setback in their budget but managed to chin up and carry on ? All inspiring stories welcome

I don't blame you one little bit for moaning about that Pheebs, £300 a month is a lot of money to lose

Do you do stuff to try and boost your income? We are now dedicated ebayers, survey do-ers and are always looking for ways to make a bit more money to pay off debts. We have found that our clutter and rubbish is definitely someone else's treasure :T

By the way, your mammaries skywards comment really made me smile

Tigsmom

Well my last token payment for last month was cashed today. I'm sending this months tokens tomorrow. Some of them are a little early but as they are the last ones I'm sending before the start of our DMP on 1st Sept I want to allow our creditors time for the penny to drop. I'm hoping that CCCS have already written to them. So far it's been fairly quiet. A £12 late fee from Barclaycard with mention of default and a nice letter from Tesco with a form to fill in (reasons/ budget/ other creditors & payments). We're not filling it in because CCCS will be sending that to them but I did put a brief explanation in my letter with the next token.

Fortunately the weather has been dryish (and sometimes sunny!) so we have got away with taking the kids to various parks and bike rides with picnic. Apart from the odd ice cream we haven't spent much and they don't seem to mind so far. I'm hoping that I can stretch an extra weeks meals out of what we already have in the cupboard and freezer, maybe with the odd bought extra. If I can do that then we might manage a day out as a special treat.

Once they are back at school & preschool I'm going to get busy on ebay, see if I can raise some money for Santa!

Tigsmom

pheebs wrote: »

Bah, grumble grumble moan...

Letter from DWP means our child tax credits have gone down by £300 and some a month, making our current DMP budget untenable.

Mr Pheebs has called CCCS and they've amended things accordingly but this adds 2 and a half years to our debt free date, and I'm just feeling really despondant about things. We've only been on the bloomin' DMP for two months and already things are going mammaries skywards! I know this doesn't affect our monthly expenditure, but the thought of having to scrimp and live on this (to me) v restrictive budget for 6 and a half years to come just saps all my optimism and usual cheeriness.

Has anyone else had a setback in their budget but managed to chin up and carry on ? All inspiring stories welcome

Hi Pheebs,

We had our tax credits withdrawn altogether. That was the reason we couldn't manage anymore and had to start our DMP.:(

I would just say try not to think too much about your debt free date. Just as your luck has taken a downward turn right now it could also take an upward one in the future and you might find your debts reduce again. I just think of things like this as a blip and then shrug them off. As long as you can manage as you are for now then that's what counts.

bertman

Got home tonight to find two statements from Barclaycard, it took a while for things to get right in my mind... The statements had a really low repayment and ....... No interest or charges, I checked the amount that CCCS were planning on paying and it was the same amount, so Barclaycard have agreed to the CCCS payments without any other letters....
So far MBNA and Barlaycard have agreed to the CCCS payments, Halifax are thinking about it and Santander and Natwest haven't done anything....
So far soooo good!!!

Growurown

positivethinker1981 wrote: »

Fingers crossed the only one I'm worried about is MBNA, I've heard they can be a right pain in the a**

We didn't have any trouble with MBNA. They stopped interest straight away. Both OH and myself had cc's with them. Mine was passed onto a DCA but not OH's. Not sure why because the cards had very similar amounts owing.

pheebs wrote: »

Bah, grumble grumble moan...

Letter from DWP means our child tax credits have gone down by £300 and some a month, making our current DMP budget untenable.

Really sorry to hear that pheebs. I think you have every right to have a moan. Lots of people ebay to raise some extra cash or do car boot sales. We've had some good bargains in the charity shops and people give stuff away on freecycle. My friend got a washing machine and fridge/freezer only a year old from the freecycle website and they didn't cost a penny.

Tigsmom

I hope Barclaycard are that good to us! So far all we've had is a £12 fee! I just put that down to automatic letters and right hand not speaking to left...

Good News Bertman.