Debtdawg says enough is enough debt diary

BlueCrayon

Congratulations on the £ key!

One of the biggest problem when receiving certain benefits is not knowing what you're going to get and when you are going to get it. It makes planning ahead bloody difficult. It looks like £303 is disregarded for travel and £390 for books etc. I think you also get a £10 a week income disregard but I'm not sure. If your council has an advice centre could you not pop in and ask them what you'd get? Maybe get them to hurry along the claim? Or maybe look on entitledto?

Take a deep breath and do some worse case scenario calculations and get a plan in place, anything you get extra will be a bonus. You've overspent but things like a working laptop are essential if you're going to be a student.

Are you keeping the old laptop for surfing or getting rid? I sold an old broken one a few years ago, wouldn't load and had a cracked screen, started at 99p and got £75 for it!

You'll be fine, you've made a lot of changes recently so it's normal to feel overwhelmed.

Hope that MOT went well!

BC xx

debtdawg

We are going to keep the old laptop for now as it has all our pics on it, literally every one from the children being babies right through to now. And guess who didn't back up??!

MOT went well! Just need to sort out the petrol cap and a registration plate light? That was a massive relief
I've wangled my modules at uni so I am only down one day a week until January so with driving down now instead of catching the train, it will make things far more easier financially.

I'm going to give HB a call on Monday to see what's happening. I got a letter from tax credits today, apparently they overpaid me by £54.03 in Aug 2011 so they'd like it back now, joy of joys

debtdawg

Well the budget has gone to pot slightly of late, back on the wagon from tomorrow!

debtdawg

Urgh, well what a month (just over!).

Student finance finally got sorted and paid. DH lost his job and is unlikely to find another based on the fact that he also provides childcare for baby DS so is looking for work that fits around the days that I am at Uni. Any money that we do earn is automatically cancels our entitlement to HB and CTB so we aren't actually any better off anyway. He started his OU course, so student finance decided that we weren't actually entitled to an adults dependents grant and cancelled that off my finance, so they've shaved nearly £3000 off of what they were going to pay me in Jan and April as apparently they've overpaid me. I've had letters from debt collectors about a previous 'overpayment' of student grants and what was affordable and we could repay has now spiralled out of control and we can't
Sooooo, this week I sent off our DMP to CCCS and cancelled our payments to creditors It's a massive decision, we've never missed a payment before and companies are still throwing credit at us (I did a basic tot up the other day and we have over £40k of available credit and are £26k in debt). I'm waiting to hear from CCCS and for the deluge of phonecalls to start from the creditors, not good.

It's not been a good financial year really. The lack of available credit in the future actually fills me with relief (and slight fear!) and there will be no going back from starting up a DMP. I just want it done and organised so we can move on with our lives! I feel like we have sunk lower and lower and have finally hit rock bottom.

I guess the only way is up from here?

brizzledfw

Just popping in as just read your diary from the start. You'll be fine..the only way is up as you say and the DMP sounds like the best thing to do. First step of the journey is always the hardest and all that..

Best of luck hun

Brizzle

debtdawg

Thanks Brizzle

I am trying to focus on the positives now, I depress myself reading my posts so god help everyone else We rent a nice warm house and have a good landlord, the children go to a lovely friendly school and we live in a happy little community. Both DH and I have the opportunity to improve ourselves through education so we can get better paid jobs and eventually show a good example to the little uns, so really what more do we need?

PMA PMA PMA

debtdawg

First letter received from my bank regarding cancelling the Lloyds loan direct debit, eeek, not looking forward to the flood of others to come!

Tried Aldi today for shopping, it's a bit of a drive and is the furthest supermarket from here but it's so much better than Lidls! We'd easily be able to do our full weeks shop there and it's so much cheaper than Asda, Tesco etc.

Finished my first essay too which is a relief. On to the next two that are due in this month!

debtdawg

It's been an emotional few days, but hopefully things will start getting settled now.

The SLC were threatening to take back all of my grants for this year due to a previous overpayment, but thankfully they've backed off now and are leaving the paltry amount I have left alone. Which means I have hopefully given CCCS (SC) all the info they need to set up the DMP. We're on target for a 1/12 start date and I just need to sort out token payments for the November installments, squeaky pants time

Onwards and upwards

debtdawg

Well it's a bit of a grim day in the Debtdawg household as we have the norovirus. But hey at least that means a couple of no spend days And it's done wonder for the food budget..... However baby DS is in disposables until the lovely nappies finish which means we've been through dozens the past couple of days.

I finally got to cancel my vodafone account with no extra charges and have changed to a good deal with o2 for £16.50 a month, with £50 cashback from quidco, so that's saving me £20 a month.

I can't wait til we can change our home phone/broadband with BT though that won't be for 6 months. It's costing us between £50-60 a month, which is the most I have ever paid for broadband and a landline. I used to pay less than that with Virgin a couple of years ago and I had the full tv package then as well. BT are a royal ripoff, I don't know why I didn't realise this when we signed up!

debtdawg

So far so good on the DMP front. Two of our credit card companies have written back to say they accept our offer and won't change any interests or charges. Fingers crossed for the rest!

Have been a bit spendy the past few days as it was DS's birthday and we had a day out and a meal, but we're back on the wagon again. Still shopping at Aldi and loving all the bargains

Can't wait to start 2013 with a controlled DMP in place and a proper manageable budget!