DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

talisker78

Hello everyone,

Hope you had a nice bank holiday weekend. We scraped together some petrol money and went to the beach with the kids....in the rain....and the howling gales...... only in England.

Anyway, it was very nice and we all had a good laugh trying to build sandcastles. Probably everyone thought we were nuts. It was great.

On the DMP front - one creditor has DEFINITELY stopped all charges and frozen interest. Thats the smallest debtor though! The others I have no idea about yet. The only downside is that Barclaycard have refused my payment plan - they are the only ones. Payplan said it was very common for Barclaycard to refuse first time. Hopefully they will come round in their won time....

Ticking along apart from that. Made £55 on ebay over the weekend. Thats holiday fund money. Also, a friend has agreed to buy our double buggy from us for £150, so things are looking up this month.....

Possible small pay rise in October on the horizon. Would be equivalent to about £40 a month after tax. Still, it all adds up.

For now, everythings good. I'm sure it will all go horribly wrong sooner or later!!:rotfl:

Tigsmom

talisker78 wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Hope you had a nice bank holiday weekend. We scraped together some petrol money and went to the beach with the kids....in the rain....and the howling gales...... only in England.

Anyway, it was very nice and we all had a good laugh trying to build sandcastles. Probably everyone thought we were nuts. It was great.

Oh it's so nice to hear you're still able to have some fun with the kids. Don't you find that it's often the cheapest days out that are the most enjoyable? After initially panicking we have spent 3/4 of the school holidays picnicing in the park and the kids have thoroughly enjoyed it. We've only had 3 days 'out' mostly funded by grandparents, bless em.

On the DMP front - one creditor has DEFINITELY stopped all charges and frozen interest. Thats the smallest debtor though! The others I have no idea about yet. The only downside is that Barclaycard have refused my payment plan - they are the only ones. Payplan said it was very common for Barclaycard to refuse first time. Hopefully they will come round in their won time....

3 days to our 1st DMP payment and only heard from 50% of our creditors. Luckily the two we have heard from have accepted our payments. Keep at Barclaycard, they've accepted ours, reduced interest but not stopped it. I've just written to them asking them to reconsider.

Ticking along apart from that. Made £55 on ebay over the weekend. Thats holiday fund money. Also, a friend has agreed to buy our double buggy from us for £150, so things are looking up this month..... Well Done! I really must get sorted and get rid of mine. Got a garage full of prams!:rotfl:

Possible small pay rise in October on the horizon. Would be equivalent to about £40 a month after tax. Still, it all adds up.

For now, everythings good. I'm sure it will all go horribly wrong sooner or later!!:rotfl:

Fingers crossed it doesn't eh? But for now - enjoy.

Growurown

jonesy1973 wrote: »

Basicaly the cccs recommended i reduce my 199 a month payment to 64 a month. My question is, does anyone have any experience of this and is there any risk of ever getting a knock on the door from a debt collector.

:wave:Hi Jonesy. We had to reduce a payment for a month only to cover a big car repair bill. We got some letters and phone calls but it got sorted out very easily. As HH said there will be some upset but it will be OK if you make sure you keep your creditors and CCCS informed.

talisker78 wrote: »

For now, everythings good. I'm sure it will all go horribly wrong sooner or later!!:rotfl:

:hello: Helloo Talisker. We did have a good bank holiday thank you.:) Yes the weather was atrocious but glad you had a good time despite the rain and gales, and very pleased to hear that all is going well with your DMP and things are looking up for you:D

Time_to_face_the_music

talisker78 wrote: »

For now, everythings good. I'm sure it will all go horribly wrong sooner or later!!:rotfl:

We spent weeks thinking that and basically waiting for all hell to break loose! 7 months in, it hasn't happened yet. Think I can stop holding my breath yet?

You sound like you are doing really well, keep going with the ebay sales, they work wonders on paying back extra bits for us :T

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

We spent weeks thinking that and basically waiting for all hell to break loose! 7 months in, it hasn't happened yet. Think I can stop holding my breath yet?

You sound like you are doing really well, keep going with the ebay sales, they work wonders on paying back extra bits for us :T

Stand easy my geek twin. Try to worry about things when they happen. They can have your money but not your life.

HHx

Time_to_face_the_music

Hopelessly_Hopeful wrote: »

Stand easy my geek twin. Try to worry about things when they happen. They can have your money but not your life.

HHx

You are so correct .... as always

When I feel like that next time, I will just start up a new spreadsheet and work out how many seconds to our DFD and how this would be influenced by ....... OK I will stop now :rotfl:

talisker78

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

We spent weeks thinking that and basically waiting for all hell to break loose! 7 months in, it hasn't happened yet. Think I can stop holding my breath yet?

When you stop I'll stop!

I must say I haven't found starting a DMP as stressful as I ever imagined it would be. The credit companies have more or less rolled over. Thats when I get worried cause I think there must be a catch! Guess I should learn to relax more.

Hello to everyone. Thank you for all your ongoing support. I'm pleased I'm not the only one with good news as well, its nice to see that a lot of people are settling into their DMPs.

So far my biggest success has been Bank of Scotland. They have agreed to freeze interest and charges. They are my biggest debt and (stupidly) I was trying to pay them the minimum, deluding myself that I was making a difference, however small. The problem was I was paying £110 a month minimum and they were charging £107 interest! £3 a month was my contribution. At that rate it would have taken me 300 years (yes, years) to pay it off! Mad.....

Tigsmom

Arrrggghhh! Moan alert!

Got a statement from Santander today. 2 days before first dmp payment. 2 months after first letter sent explaining circumstances and token sent (another letter/payment sent last month too). They've cashed tokens, ignored letters and on the statement it says we have 'failed to make the minimum payment which could result in legal action, fees, bad credit etc'. I feel like writing to them again saying 'you have FAILED to take notice of my letters and dmp!'. DH says to ignore it, make dmp payment and wait for the letter from another department. I know he's right but it really gets my blood boiling. As it it's not hard enough worrying how you are going to feed your family without these companies dismissing our letters yet still cashing the cheques. I wouldn't mind but this is our smallest debt at £360. Such a small amount for all the grief.

OK, rant over! Sorry people, just had to get it off my chest!

Time_to_face_the_music

talisker78 wrote: »

The problem was I was paying £110 a month minimum and they were charging £107 interest! £3 a month was my contribution. At that rate it would have taken me 300 years (yes, years) to pay it off! Mad.....

We had a few debts like that, the payment made no difference at all to the balance, month after month. In fact, we think M&S are still trying to do that to us now :mad:

But on the whole the balance goes down every month and will continue to do so. In the meantime, we will do everything we can to stop interest, and if we can't do that, to negate it by extra payments. Are you listening M&S, NatWest and Lloyds TSB? We will win and you can't get to us any more and you will never have one penny of our business ever again! :j

Tigsmom wrote: »

Arrrggghhh! Moan alert!

Got a statement from Santander today. 2 days before first dmp payment. 2 months after first letter sent explaining circumstances and token sent (another letter/payment sent last month too). They've cashed tokens, ignored letters and on the statement it says we have 'failed to make the minimum payment which could result in legal action, fees, bad credit etc'. I feel like writing to them again saying 'you have FAILED to take notice of my letters and dmp!'. DH says to ignore it, make dmp payment and wait for the letter from another department. I know he's right but it really gets my blood boiling. As it it's not hard enough worrying how you are going to feed your family without these companies dismissing our letters yet still cashing the cheques. I wouldn't mind but this is our smallest debt at £360. Such a small amount for all the grief.

OK, rant over! Sorry people, just had to get it off my chest!

Take a deep breath ..................

and ignore them! Yes they are a pain, yes they don't read letters, they don't communicate between departments, they don't care and they really wind us all up but they are just banks and we are beating them. Day by day, the money we owe them goes down and down and their greedy profits and banker's bonuses won't benefit from us any more.

Imagine the pleasure you will have when you pay back the last pennies of that £360 and tell Santander to stick their account where the sun don't shine :rotfl:

And of course, we are all here so we can rant and whinge and support each other, so any time you feel the need, you just rant away and we will listen even if the banks don't :T

Grand_Benders

Tigsmom wrote: »

Arrrggghhh! Moan alert!

Got a statement from Santander today. 2 days before first dmp payment. 2 months after first letter sent explaining circumstances and token sent (another letter/payment sent last month too). They've cashed tokens, ignored letters and on the statement it says we have 'failed to make the minimum payment which could result in legal action, fees, bad credit etc'. I feel like writing to them again saying 'you have FAILED to take notice of my letters and dmp!'. DH says to ignore it, make dmp payment and wait for the letter from another department. I know he's right but it really gets my blood boiling. As it it's not hard enough worrying how you are going to feed your family without these companies dismissing our letters yet still cashing the cheques. I wouldn't mind but this is our smallest debt at £360. Such a small amount for all the grief.

OK, rant over! Sorry people, just had to get it off my chest!

Your S4ntander is our LTSB. The good news is, we've finally had the letters confirming everything is sorted, they have my letter and agree our reduced payments. I'm sure it will settle down soon.

Breeeeeathe!