DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Growurown

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi,
Little update from me, pre dmp and apologies currently on holiday paid for in cash mind and booked last September...
The saying fail to prepare, prepare to fail is one I am following. I have read all of thread 9, fantastic advice and information and I am currently on page 100 of thread 8. I am keeping note of page/thread numbers of useful standard letters ready for my return to the real world.
The plan....
As I have a joint bank account with oh and the debts are mine the job for him whilst I am away is to pay off the overdraft on the account. I also currently bank with them (overdraft, loan and cc) so hope not to raise any suspicion until I have everything in place!
So..end August I will be changing my wages over to the new account I have set up (no debts with only mortgage - no arrears), I will be cancelling and switching dd' s during the month and closing joint account as soon as the last dd has come out. I will for the first time be unable to cover my minimum cc payments for September so will have standard letters and token payments ready to go. I am still adjusting cccs debt remedy and will get that in place to coincide with the closing of the joint account.
The remaining creditors will then get my standard letter and token payments for September.
Then...
Fingers crossed wages go into new account and the cccs start the process. I am thinking I will send token payments again in October and start the plan from 1st November if cccs will allow this,so that I can build up that well known and necessary emergency fund.
So that's the plan so far, I would welcome any comments or advice you lovely people can offer!

Sounds like you have got it all covered Puzzcat. It's a good idea to do two months token payments to build up a little bit of an emergency fund. If your wages don't get changed into your new account (this happened to us, OH's admin dept. rubbish) get down to the bank asap and draw it out in cash and pay into your new account. Good luck:)

Growurown

inflationiscoming wrote: »

my brother is about to enter a DMP with Step Change. Does anyone know what the payment methods are? He has opened a cash account with metro bank as a new account, but it does not allow direct debits. Are there alternatives?

Not sure what payment types SC will take, we use direct debit. They might accept standing order if metro bank do this, or what about an online transfer? Your brother will have to email or phone them to see what the other options are.

fermi

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Find_The_Real

Hello All

I just wanted to say welcome to any newbies and good luck with your DMP journey if I have missed anyone.

I also wanted to say good luck for those who are thinking of going it alone. I know SC are a really good place to start when debt is becoming too much but I have also found that the payment allocation is a little strange. My biggest debt is being managed by myself at the moment as I couldn't include it in my DMP and as long as they get the money they seem to be happy that it is from me direct.

andrar

Just found this thread and very happy I did too! Started my DMP with Payplan end of last year and find it annoying sometimes that each time I overpay I have to remind them to pay the extra to my creditors or it just sits there.

Other than that so far so good, how'd everyone else getting along??

Growurown

andrar wrote: »

Just found this thread and very happy I did too! Started my DMP with Payplan end of last year and find it annoying sometimes that each time I overpay I have to remind them to pay the extra to my creditors or it just sits there.

Other than that so far so good, how'd everyone else getting along??

Hi Andrar, welcome to the thread. My DMP is with Stepchange and on the whole been pretty happy with them but we have one Halifax CC who won't play ball so I am thinking of self managing. I am going to get in contact with SC this week to see what they say. The Halifax CC is in my OH's name so I am going to look at self managing his debts and keeping mine with SC. Not sure that plan will work or will actually just be more trouble that self managing the whole lot. That's what I am going to be looking into this week:)

poohbear59

We are still only making token payments of £1 to our debts Hopefully we will have a little extra by October to start making actual payments to them.

Hopelessly_Hopeful

poohbear59 wrote: »

We are still only making token payments of £1 to our debts Hopefully we will have a little extra by October to start making actual payments to them.

You can't give them what you don't have.

Are they giving you any hassle?

HHx

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Growurown wrote: »

Hi Andrar, welcome to the thread. My DMP is with Stepchange and on the whole been pretty happy with them but we have one Halifax CC who won't play ball so I am thinking of self managing. I am going to get in contact with SC this week to see what they say. The Halifax CC is in my OH's name so I am going to look at self managing his debts and keeping mine with SC. Not sure that plan will work or will actually just be more trouble that self managing the whole lot. That's what I am going to be looking into this week:)

Good luck with it GUO. You know you can do it

HHx

maybedmp

Hi all
Not been on for ages sorry as we've been away camping but thanks for the welcomes and advice earlier in the thread. Being away gave me a chance to try and forget that for the first time in my life I'd not met a minimum payment

Letters and and a token payment were sent to Barclaycard and Tesco Credit cards as the payment for these were due the 1st of the month.

Our Sainsburys loan and Next Directory payment aren't due until the 25th so I'm writing to them this week with token payments.

Stepchange all ready to go as soon as I send them my latest payslip which is due this week. It's my first pay after returning to work following maternity leave hence why we had to wait as the budget is based on my new salary.

So far we've had a letter from Barclaycard saying they've frozen charges and interest while we set up our plan with SC so at least they've had our letter and are seemingly being understanding so far. We or SC need to get in touch with them again by 6th Sept so I'll need to keep on top of that but will make a token payment again at the beginning of September in any case.

Standard late / missed payment charge letter from Tesco but no acknowledgement of our letter yet.

So, apart from me having random panics about them all placing charging orders on the house it's not too bad (yet!)