DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Growurown

kirstylanarkshire wrote: »

Ive just phoned the co op and for their cashminder account they say u need to go into the branch or by post and it can take up to 3 weeks!! Might be cutting it fine for September pay day never mind this month's they are sending the pack out so I will go in whn I receive it I need to take that and my id - maybe take a week from then so fingers crossed for sooner rather than later! I just want it sorted now and over with but need to wait and see what happens next Thursday - pay day! God I hope I manage to get my money out before the vultures get at it or I really dont know what will happen. Thanks for the reassurance it will settle down :j:j xx

My bank didn't cotton on. I was with Halifax and had two overdrafts with them, one for £800 and the other was over £2000. I thought I had got everything sorted, my work and OH's work had plenty of notice to change our pay into the new account but it didn't happen with OH's pay (rubbish admin dept!). As his salary is the largest I was panicking too. I had cancelled all the dd's etc. and felt sure they must have known what I was up to. However they didn't do anything and I drew the cash out in full and paid it into my new account. We had our new account with First Direct part of HSBC and have found them to be pretty good and that was all set up over the phone. They even gave a £100 for joining!

jubilee14

Growurown wrote: »

My bank didn't cotton on. I was with Halifax and had two overdrafts with them, one for £800 and the other was over £2000. I thought I had got everything sorted, my work and OH's work had plenty of notice to change our pay into the new account but it didn't happen with OH's pay (rubbish admin dept!). As his salary is the largest I was panicking too. I had cancelled all the dd's etc. and felt sure they must have known what I was up to. However they didn't do anything and I drew the cash out in full and paid it into my new account. We had our new account with First Direct part of HSBC and have found them to be pretty good and that was all set up over the phone. They even gave a £100 for joining!

we went with FD too and had an account no within 7 days with the £100 ( they are offering £125 now) I transferred enough from my salary in my new account into old account to cover DD's that hadnt been swapped over. But i guess you could just do the same with salary from old account to new leaving anything for last direct debits such as mortgage and utlilities. Had to leave enough for bank charges too in case they took that from the amount to cover DD's.

They didnt have time to sort out setting off from the other debts e.g cc /loan and o/d .

Good luck

andrar

Don't worry Kirsty!

You'll get letters aplenty for the first couple of months, as well as maybe the odd phone call. Just refer them on to your DMP provider and all will be fine. It's mostly scare tactics but it soon settles down into a monthly routine once they see you making regular monthly payments.

I found asking my PayPlan account manager when I got confusing letters from my creditors really helped, and they always put my mind at ease.

I also had the same scenario as you, I remember running in to my old bank on payday and taking every penny out in cash then running down the street and paying it in to my new Co-op cashminder account. The account took a couple of days to be set up, I did it at the bank which took 10mins and she set me up for internet banking at the same time. All in all really simple and so far so good!

*Foolish*

kirstylanarkshire wrote: »

Hi

First of all Well Done to everyone on here and thanks for sharing ur experience, it really does help :-)

Im a newbie who had my lightbulb moment on monday morning - I had spoke to stepchange by lunchtime and have decided that a DMP is the way forward. I have so far cancelled all my DD's and printed off a letter (with the help of the lovely people on here) to give to my bank to cancel my continuous payments (to my absolute shame most of my debt is payday loans) this will be posted through the door tonight on way home (I cant face going into the branch) ready for next week when I get paid.

I have 2 silly questions - what if any bank account will give me an account number immediately? My wages are due to be paid next week and I need to let my hr dept know asap - I could possibly lift all the money when I get paid but the paranoid person in me says that the bank will know what im up to and keep it all to cover my overdraft :-(

I haven't got my pack fom stepchange yet (maybe tomorrow) but how long does it take to set up? Im saying this cause i need my car tax, car service and possibly new tyres next month - if I could start ot from the 1st October that would really help me out - I need my car for work so would like to keep it in good working order.

Thanks again to everyone for sharing their journeys, im in this for the longhaul and although my debt is £7500 it is still going to take me around 3years to pay it off im looking forward to th day when I get paid and the majority of my money is mine!!!

:-):-):-)

Nat West gave me my account number instantly when I applied online. All ID is done online (driving licence or passport) so no need to attend bank or fill in forms.

You can decide with StepChange when you would like your DMP to start.

Hosp this helps and good luck.

Suseka

Just jumping in to quickly say hi :hello: to the oldies and newbies... its been quite a while since I last posted and I can see I have much to catch up on.

I've not been on the boards for a while coz things have been a bit tough lately. Funny though its not debt or DMP related... just life I guess. Work is tough and I'm caught in the middle of a 'situation' with my two best friends. Not quite sure what to do or how to help - so I've not been sleeping well.

Anyway - we are two months into our DMP, seems to be going smoothly, except that not all of our creditors have written to tell us what they are doing about interest. Have received two credit card statements this week and it is clear those two haven't reduced interest charges, so I need to do something about that soon.

I've got the link to the NEDCAB (?) templates, so when I can get my head straight, will write to them and put a little pressure on.

Well, as I said, much to catch up on so best get to it

Ellieseleven

[QUOTE=

I think it's difficult with dh being self employed so never quite sure how much money we have.[/QUOTE]

I too understand how hard it can be when OH is self-employed. My OH is a Gardner and we have been hit quite badly over the last few years by either the weather or the economy. I get quite depressed in the winter as everything feels such an uphill struggle but we keep on going and the three years that we have been on the DMP have passed quite quickly.


I set myself small goals along the way so when I'm feeling down I can look back and see that we have achieved a lot and we are still managing on such a reduced budget

Growurown

Ellieseleven wrote: »

I too understand how hard it can be when OH is self-employed. My OH is a Gardner and we have been hit quite badly over the last few years by either the weather or the economy. I get quite depressed in the winter as everything feels such an uphill struggle but we keep on going and the three years that we have been on the DMP have passed quite quickly.


I set myself small goals along the way so when I'm feeling down I can look back and see that we have achieved a lot and we are still managing on such a reduced budget

I feel your pain! Every month there seems to be something to knock you back. In September I have got one wedding, four birthdays, one set of relatives visiting for a weekend and now the dishwasher is on the blink. Put it on at 6pm and the darn thing is still going at gone half ten. Plus I can't get my boiler to work so I need to get that looked at before the cold weather. Oh and I dropped the Ipad again:(:(

jubilee14

Growurown wrote: »

I feel your pain! Every month there seems to be something to knock you back. In September I have got one wedding, four birthdays, one set of relatives visiting for a weekend and now the dishwasher is on the blink. Put it on at 6pm and the darn thing is still going at gone half ten. Plus I can't get my boiler to work so I need to get that looked at before the cold weather. Oh and I dropped the Ipad again:(:(

HI GUO why do these things always crop up. Our boiler although less than 7 years old is not holding up too well either. it packed in last year and we had to join the service team so we could pay for repair over the year. went online to get a comparitie for this year and it failed their inspection as the fan ( although working) is noisy and they expect it to fail. So am trying to squirell money away in anticipation . Not that there is much this month ( few days till payday and i have only about £40 in bank its been a long month!

hope the dishwasher is an easy ( CHEAP) fix before the guests arrive.

Samjangi

Hi
I have been lurking here for a few days and you guys seem really supportive!
We are in the process of setting up a DMP and have applied for a new bank account etc.
I have a couple of questions. An awful lot of our debt is with Santander. Does anyone have any experience of how them?
Also we are also just about to send off application for finance for final payments for car. Obviously we are holding off DMP until that is sorted. Any advice would be most welcome.
We are about £42,000 in debt :eek: and face about 11 years till DFD. Mortgage will be paid off in 7 years 4 months so the DFD should be nearer as will be able to throw mortgage payments at DMP then.

huskypup

Hello

I am after some advice for my father - my mum died two years ago - so all pensions where reduced - he had a loan and a credit card - which he was struggling to pay - so on his behalf we contacted stepchange or CCCS as it was - we ourselves are with them and they have been brilliant.

He has been paying Barclaycard and capital one through stepchange for two years - we have been paying his rent for him to allow him more money to pay these bills off quicker, Barclaycard contacted him out of the blue and offered him a PPI settlement of enough to clear the loan and enough to offer a 65% settlement to Capital one. We have written to them and they have sent a letter back declining the offer, when we phoned them they say that they have now referred his account to a debt collection agency - we had thought that as it was now only one debt we could manage it ourselves, bad decision I think

In the meantime we are unable to help my dad out with his rent anymore as we have been shaving money off of each of my budget columns to help him out, Capital one sent an expenditure form - so a new amount could be agreed - we came up with an amount that was actually more than he was paying through stepchange (because the barclaycard loan was settled he can also pay more and pay his own rent).

So can anyone enlighten me to why one they have rejected a 65% settlement or why they wont accept £100 a month when previously he was paying £47, and why they wont send us any forms so we can pay anything.

Help - he is 75 years old and is really stressing over this - would I best going back to stepchange - he is in ill health and as terrible as this sounds if they dont accept something they wont get anything!!