Here we go then - My Diary/Story

Walaboobah

Had the lightbulb moment around 6 weeks ago. I had run up debt on a credit card of around £11k, mainly down to Mrs Wab being made redundant and waiting an age to get registered as a Childminder.

Mrs Wab didn't know about the credit card debt and whilst sorting through some papers came across a statement and was a tad shocked shall we say!

I said it was fine, once the loans with Barclays are paid we'll take out another loan to clear the card said I.....

However, I then decided to do a calculation of how much we owed on loans, cards and overdrafts and was totally gobsmacked when I saw it was in excess of £27k.

Ah, I know what we'll do I cried, we'll take out a consolidation loan (again) and pay it all off so it's in one monthly sum!

Completed an application online and awaited the phonecall, when the phonecall came, it was not good news, no chance of a loan with the amount of credit you already owe :eek:

The company were Gopher Money, who said that what I should be looking at is a Debt Management Plan, I then got put through to some chap who talked me through it and it sounded like the ideal solution, even though the first two months payments would go in their fees, I thought what choice do we have to get out of this mess? :mad:

We were paying around £700 a month on cards, loans and overdraft fees and the Halifax CC was only covering the interest and wasn't being reduced at all, and would have taken around 50 years to pay off.

So, sign up with Gopeher Money I thought, they said the creditors would freeze interest, accept reduced payments and it would leave us debt free in the middle of 2017 :T

Too good to be true I thought, so I came online and did some research into DMPs and lo and behold, there are charities that will set up the DMP etc for free. I contacted payplan but there was a delay as I would need to speak to one of their assessors. I booked an appointment with them for the following week (it was a Thursday evening and the appointment was made for 10pm on Tuesday)

In the meantime I looked at other options and saw the CCCS Debt remedy tool, completed the details, they recommended a DMP, applied online and got the papers in the post the following day, signed them, contacted the creditors informing them of this and awaited the phonecalls/letters from creditiors!

To date, I have to say that most have been very good about it, I have not received one phonecall, even though they have not been paid, whether not having previously missed a payment with any of them has anything to do with this I don't know, I actually thought that might go against them accepting a DMP.

MBNA have accepted reduced offer and have reduced interest to 0.00% :beer:
Barclays have done likewise on two loans and the overdraft :beer:

I had a letter from Halifax Current account saying they will accept the offer of £31 a month but they would continue to issue charges on the account and reduce the overdraft accordingly each month, up until a period in March when the overdraft will be reduced to 0 and anything outstanding on the account will have to be paid! :mad:

In fairness though, no charges have been made on the account and it still sits there £1341 overdrawn.

I have heard not a jot from them about the credit card, although they have marked the account as a Default on my credit file, not that I'm bothered about that as I'll not be taking out credit again, my days of living on credit are over!

It is now 6 days until payday and currently my new current account is £343.00 in the black :eek:

I am now wondering if I've made a mistake going down the DMP route as the DMP payment is £463 and I am wondering if we could have managed the additional £240 to cover the payments as Mrs Wab's Childminding business now appears to be ticking over nicely and we are pretty much living off what she brings in around £700 a month for food shopping, Christmas fund and occasional treats.

That said, we had no savings for Christmas prior to signing up to the DMP whereas now, at least we will be able to treat the kids, I have set up a regular savings payment into a new savings account and will be putting any surplus into that at the end of the month as next month we have the tax due on my car at the end (although technically that will be out of Novembers pay) but we have a trip around Anfield stadium that has already been purchased prior to this so we have to fund a trip to Liverpool which will cost a bit, although the night away in the hotel is paid out of Priority Points so it will just be petrol and food.

Well that's my story, I'll add bits to it as our journey develops,be nice.....

Walaboobah

Blimey, I've just seen how long that was, sorry about that!!

Walaboobah

I think the reason we now have money left at the end of the month is that we are now in control of our finances rather than our finances being in control of us.

I will feel happier once the CCCS have made the first payment though....

BlushingRose

Well done on starting a DMP.

Just give it a few months to 'bed in' and see what happens re: finances. You can bump up your payment to CCCS if you want to, or save your 'spare' cash for a full & Final settlement later on perhaps.
Remember to try and have an emergency fund as well, if you can, as you'll not have credit for those lump sums that we sometimes need.

Walaboobah

Thanks BR, yes definitely going to be starting an emergency fund. Kind of in limbo at the moment, the first payment to CCCS has gone out but waiting for them to pay the creditors next week.

If we do get anything left at the end of this month (which we should do at the current rate) will all be going into the savings account for a rainy day.

To be honest with you, we haven't really had any credit for the last year or so anyway, I haven't used the MBNA card in a long time, hence the reason there was around £2k worth of credit on the card, I had another one with MBNA also with £3700 worth of credit on it and nothing at all, I closed that account before setting up the DMP though, although had I opened the letter with the new card in, instead of chucking it in my filing box a couple of years ago I suspect we'd be in an even worse mess!

We have been living from month to month on the overdraft, as my salary just about covered that but recently when my salary went in we were in the red before a payment had left.

then the LBM and here we are...

BlushingRose

Our DMP is for three credit cards, a bank loan and an over-draft.
We tried to consolidate to sort out the cards but then realised that we didn't have any money to live on, so we ended up having to live off the OD and cards, stupid but hey.

What we haven't been able to get used to is not having lump sums when we need them, and no means to get them. So we need a new fence, a new sofa, and the car is playing up *again*.....

Walaboobah

yes know what you mean that's exactly what we were doing, yes the big thing is going to be when something is needed, we are lucky to have a supporting family, although they have no idea how much debt we are in and we have no intention of telling them either but they will help us out when we need it.

My mum said this morning, how are you doing for money now as they knew we were struggling when Mrs Wal was setting up the Childminding business and gave us £1000 to tide us over one month (not a loan they would not accept any money back), also the in-laws have paid for us to have a new perimeter fence in the garden, which must have cost around £600 and FiL put the fence up himself (wish I was as handy as that I must say)

I know exactly what you mean about the car though, I really need to change mine but that's not going to happen, again we are lucky as one of Mrs Wal's friend's hubby is a mechanic so he will do stuff for us at cost price, although we do give him something so he's not out of pocket.

The car helped trigger my LBM though as it needed 4 new brakes pads and 4 new brake discs, normally I would have put this on my credit card but as the friend did it, I couldn't do that so had to get cash out which left us with nothing in the account as £250 basically cleaned us out for the month!

That Emergency fund needs to be big, if only I didn't need the car for work!

Walaboobah

Just had a very pleasant surprise, in addition to the £343 still in the new current account, Mrs Wal has just told me she still has £100 left over from her childminding this week and she should be earning around £200 over half-term week also so that can go into the Christmas fund!

Luckily she won't earn enough this year, as she didn't start minding until June, to have to pay tax just NI so we won't be lumbered with a big tax bill next year but have to put something aside in the next tax year just in case she does go over the threshold!

Walaboobah

Darn it had to spend £27 on a washing line today, as the old one is totally wrecked! Had hoped for a retractable one but it's too dangerous apparently for the children that the OH minds!

Thought things were going too well!

Walaboobah

:mad:I'll never open my mouth again, the Washing Machine has just burnt out (literally) so that's this months surplus gone for a burton! Definitely need an emergency fund! :mad::mad:

[Deleted User]

Hiya,

Just breezing in to say hello.

Well done on the DMP, sorry your washer has just blown up Keep plodding on you're doing really well.

Pm02 xx