SOA - Please be Kind!

tomterm8

The letter is very good, btw. Send them registered post:)

flis21

Ok,

There might be one problem then. The 4 companies that have been chasing us, I wrote to and offered them larger payments than we can actually afford. Are they now going to accept the smaller payments, now I can show them the SOA etc? Are they going to go to court against me for having offered something and then withdrawn it? None of them have got back to me yet and accepted the offers.

Tomterm8 - What is not 'watertight' about my SOA? I would rather manage it myself rather than do DMP with CCCS, that way if we have some extra cash can pay a bit extra in to get the smaller ones paid off quicker etc.

Toto

This may not be the best advice but I would personally offer the creditors £550 per month rather than the full £600. I would then have a DD going out directly for the other £50 into a savings account. The reason for this would be you then have either an emergency fund, so if one of life's issues comes up you can afford it (repairs etc) or if nothing comes up, every 6 months or so you would have a lump sum to pay off a debt maybe doing a full and final on a smaller debt.

You have to be good though and not see it as an extra spend fund.

tomterm8

The figures in a CCCS SOA are partly based in statistical analysis. Costs like your food bill, hairdressing bill, and telephone bill all vary enough from it so that it wouldn't be accepted by most lenders. For example, you are very unlikely to get £250 for food when the statistics show you only need £120 for a couple.

I also suspect your SOA doesn't have a lot of those minor costs that you only really know about when you keep a spending diary.

It doesn't have a contigency fund, either.

P.S. I sent you a PM that you can ignore:)

flis21

Well, not to get argumentative, but I just did the CCCS thing and its 'suggested' monthly food and toiletries amount of £230, that was without me saying how much I wanted. They also said £50 for phone and internet. The hairdressing they did say to cut down and I will. But their figures worked out that I only had £540 spare per month, whereas my figures now show £600 spare per month.

tomterm8

flis21 wrote: »

Well, not to get argumentative, but I just did the CCCS thing and its 'suggested' monthly food and toiletries amount of £230, that was without me saying how much I wanted. They also said £50 for phone and internet. The hairdressing they did say to cut down and I will. But their figures worked out that I only had £540 spare per month, whereas my figures now show £600 spare per month.

Fair enough. My figures on the food must be well out of date:T Have to remember that in future negotiations LOL.

If I were you I'd use the CCCS figures. If you have any left over, save it up for Full & Final Settlement letters.

bclark

No one seems to have mentioned that £50 a month Tobacco spend! £600 a year and a healthier life.

flis21

My Husband has tried to quit smoking a couple of times, but so far not successfully. He is going to try again when the smoking ban comes in at the beginning of July, as he won't be able to smoke at work then.

flis21

Right current plan of action. Pay of these debts at pay day end of this month:

Ace £132.00
Argos £170.57
Next £151.00
Next £145.96
Barclaycard £108.00

Total: £707.53

Might stretch us a little bit next month, but will be good to have some paid off.

Ok, also will write letter to all creditors to check exact amounts outstanding and who owns the debts now.

Then, when all letters received and info double checked, will send out offer letters, including SOA and make offers for repayments.

briona

flis21 wrote: »

Right current plan of action. Pay of these debts at pay day end of this month:

Ace £132.00
Argos £170.57
Next £151.00
Next £145.96
Barclaycard £108.00

Total: £707.53

Might stretch us a little bit next month, but will be good to have some paid off.

Ok, also will write letter to all creditors to check exact amounts outstanding and who owns the debts now.

Then, when all letters received and info double checked, will send out offer letters, including SOA and make offers for repayments.

Well done Flis! That will be a great start! :T

You will feel loads better at having gotten rid of FIVE debts! Make sure you close all of the accounts when the payments have cleared (especially Next and Argos as they have nasty high APRs of around 29%!!!).

Stay positive – you can definitely do this!

Briona