DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Mossop01

Hi all, still waiting for ppi details to come through, hsbc promised it would be here in 3-5 working days, that was 8 working days ago! So still don't know how they will apply the refund!
Anyway dmp running smoothly only 1 out of 10 creditors applying reduced interest so I don't consider that too bad going.
1 year down another 10 to go! Hopefully will be able to increase payments next year, only paying £211 at the moment but once littlest starts school in sept I will be able to take on extra hours at work, fingers crossed.
Budget is abit tight at the moment as I've been trying to incorporate Xmas shopping into it this month and got some really good bargains for the kids at the sains toy sale which was well worth the trip, however this year instead of piling it all on a credit card I only got what I needed and budgeted for it. How times have changed!
Good luck to those starting out it is a roller coaster but it does settle down and I really don't know what would have happened if it hadn't been for our lightbulb moment, goodness knows what state we would be in!
As for car insurance well we are paying monthly installments and will carry on doing so my budget doesn't allow me to pay monthly installments AND save for next years full payment (if that makes sense?) so we'll carry on doing so even if it means not being able to shop around for the cheapest quote.
Good luck x

hopeful_at_last

well I sent my authority to act back today so another step done.
I still feel sick I think its the not knowing if creditors will accept my DMP plan.....what happens if some don't accept?:(

Mossop01

hopeful_at_last wrote: »

well I sent my authority to act back today so another step done.
I still feel sick I think its the not knowing if creditors will accept my DMP plan.....what happens if some don't accept?:(

As far as I am aware as long as ur budget with sc stays within their limits and sc will tell u if they don't then creditors have no reason not to accept, some may object to start but just keep paying sc payments and eventually they will play ball don't worry if sc didn't think this was an option for you they would advise something else
Try not to worry

hopeful_at_last

Mossop01 wrote: »

As far as I am aware as long as ur budget with sc stays within their limits and sc will tell u if they don't then creditors have no reason not to accept, some may object to start but just keep paying sc payments and eventually they will play ball don't worry if sc didn't think this was an option for you they would advise something else
Try not to worry

thanks Mossop think I will feel better once its all rolling along

Growurown

Standingtall wrote: »

Hi everyone:j

I just thought i would drop in to say hello and give some encouragement to those just starting out on their DMP.

Good luck to you all.

Hi Standingtall, nice to see you back on the thread! Glad it is all working out for you and congratulations on your upcoming wedding. It's nice to hear how people are getting on and makes us all feel better I think:)

DebtMagnet

Thanks to all who answered my query. I suppose I am not overly worried about the rejections but I guess I just expected a mix of good and bad and getting only bad is what has surprised me. I think the wife having a wobble had an impact as although I reassured her all is ok..........I guess I just need someone to reassure me too, which you have all done so thanks again.

Anyway to respond to a few points as below:

Sazzie23 wrote: »

....... If you use your SC debt remedy paperwork for the IandE, maybe they will be prepared to accept it?

My advice would be to contact the negative creditors with your SC budget details, and see what they say, meantime let SC know and take advice from them, but probably continue with payments as if you were in DMP so they are getting something. Do not stress over the letters about handing to collections, they will continue to come with some creditors no matter what you and they do. Collections have no more rights to get you to pay, they just try harder! Make sure you both know what your legals are with collections agencies and baliffs and stuff - read SC website for more on this.

See if anyone else had similar problems, it might help to know what your total amounts are - if your feel up to saying- mine are £32k now down to £28k:(

Thanks Sazzie23 that is good advice. I was thinking that even though SC have clearly written to them all, if I send a letter with a copy of the SC I&E form by recorded delivery then they will have to directly respond to that and will be harder for them to say they don't have it on record.

As for the amounts, yes I don't mind at all about saying. We have an old SOA floating around on these forums from last year showing a total unsecured debt of £65k. It came down a bit after getting a bit of PPI back and clearing the smaller debts with it but it then went back up when I consolidated all my cards in to a loan at a decent rate (as the interest is front loaded, the debt increased.....although it meant it was going to be clear in 5 years instead of never being clear paying minimum payments......alas not any more ) So anyway its currently sitting at just over £63K :eek:

Our predicted timescale on the DMP is around 10 years as of today and that is on the basis of interest and charges being frozen. So in real terms were looking at far longer than that based on current situation. However we fully intend (and hope) to bring that down as there are real prospects of finances improving when the baby eventually goes to school etc.

Hopelessly_Hopeful wrote: »

........ I felt very guilty about the DMP for a long time and hence I accepted interest rates etc without as much fight as I might have. Had I my time again I'd have fought much harder for reductions and freeze. That said I will have paid approx. £6k over 4 years which equates to 5% APR so I am comfortable with that but a shame I had to trash the credit rating as I will want another mortgage at some point.

My advice is get reading and challenging, lots of mini targets too and the time will soon pass and you will see how to get more for less, you will start to see and enjoy the positive outlook.

Let us know how you get on.

HHx

Many thanks for the kind words and encouragement.

I think my problem is that I am geared up to fight them on the interest front as I have almost resigned myself to them not freezing anything without a war. I just wasn't ready for them to say they won't accept what we can pay as I am already feeling guilty as you touched on above. I hate that I do feel guilty as these organisations have all turned on us at some point and have all seen a good profit in what they have done to us over the years......but I can't help the way I am in feeling that I should still just pay what they want like a good little debtor as after all, we spent the money in the first place!!

Find_The_Real wrote: »

.......SC would have said if your proposal was not viable so I would just sit it out and let the plan settle down as things can change a lot once they get that first payment from SC and also keep in mind sometimes they just send out a standard letter that seems to make no sense but in reality they are accepting of it and happy to be paid what SC send. The Co-op with me kept insisting every time I rang that they had no knowledge of my DMP but every month managed to apply my payment to the right account and froze the interest.

Good luck and although I appreciate the set up can be very stressful things will settle down.

Thanks for this. It is the budget that I have been most worried about for the past 24 hours. In truth we could cut things a lot finer and pay more to the debt. But cutting things fine to pay the debt in full is what has led us to this point anyway and so if we are going to continue to struggle, we may as well just do it as we have been doing for years and forget the whole DMP.

I will have to see how it goes I guess but I spent a lot of time on the budget as I really don't see the point in paying too little and dragging it out, or equally paying too much and struggling again. I'm sure I'll have to tweak it as it settles down but I'm now paranoid that the creditors are going to rip it apart!!

Sazzie23

Bettingmad wrote: »

You can sit in judgement all day long if you want regarding paying installments. The poster asked a question as it was a concern to them and I answered it to put them at ease. It did not require the interjection followed by an explanation mark about your personal views about how wrong it is to consider installments for insurance

Hi Bettingmad,
I'm sorry you felt it judgemental, and apologies to anyone offended by this remark, or any grammatical association. I think it's great if you are able to pay by installments, it wasn't a judgement purely my personal observation on what is considered credit. Since this is a supportive discussion forum that's what I intended.
I will be avoiding taking up any form of credit since I can't afford to risk my DMP, I wouldn't want to negatively impact my DMP in anyway.

Thank you for pointing this out

Find_The_Real

I know a lot of people think that by cutting the budget to the bare minimum is the thing to do but you need to have a budget that you can live on and most creditors are accepting of this. Unfortunately things do seem a little rocky at first but it does generally tend to settle down and payments are accepted.

Just another note though that even though you are in a DMP it is informal and gives you the opportunity to take your time to look at other options with either an IVA or bankruptcy if you find the level of debt is not sustainable or circumstances change in the future.

Good luck and don't worry I think we all have wobbles in the beginning but soon find we have a sense of relief and wonder why we didn't sort out our debt problems sooner.

Hopelessly_Hopeful

DebtMagnet wrote: »

Thanks to all who answered my query. I suppose I am not overly worried about the rejections but I guess I just expected a mix of good and bad and getting only bad is what has surprised me. I think the wife having a wobble had an impact as although I reassured her all is ok..........I guess I just need someone to reassure me too, which you have all done so thanks again.

Anyway to respond to a few points as below:



Thanks Sazzie23 that is good advice. I was thinking that even though SC have clearly written to them all, if I send a letter with a copy of the SC I&E form by recorded delivery then they will have to directly respond to that and will be harder for them to say they don't have it on record.

As for the amounts, yes I don't mind at all about saying. We have an old SOA floating around on these forums from last year showing a total unsecured debt of £65k. It came down a bit after getting a bit of PPI back and clearing the smaller debts with it but it then went back up when I consolidated all my cards in to a loan at a decent rate (as the interest is front loaded, the debt increased.....although it meant it was going to be clear in 5 years instead of never being clear paying minimum payments......alas not any more ) So anyway its currently sitting at just over £63K :eek:

Our predicted timescale on the DMP is around 10 years as of today and that is on the basis of interest and charges being frozen. So in real terms were looking at far longer than that based on current situation. However we fully intend (and hope) to bring that down as there are real prospects of finances improving when the baby eventually goes to school etc.



Many thanks for the kind words and encouragement.

I think my problem is that I am geared up to fight them on the interest front as I have almost resigned myself to them not freezing anything without a war. I just wasn't ready for them to say they won't accept what we can pay as I am already feeling guilty as you touched on above. I hate that I do feel guilty as these organisations have all turned on us at some point and have all seen a good profit in what they have done to us over the years......but I can't help the way I am in feeling that I should still just pay what they want like a good little debtor as after all, we spent the money in the first place!!



Thanks for this. It is the budget that I have been most worried about for the past 24 hours. In truth we could cut things a lot finer and pay more to the debt. But cutting things fine to pay the debt in full is what has led us to this point anyway and so if we are going to continue to struggle, we may as well just do it as we have been doing for years and forget the whole DMP.

I will have to see how it goes I guess but I spent a lot of time on the budget as I really don't see the point in paying too little and dragging it out, or equally paying too much and struggling again. I'm sure I'll have to tweak it as it settles down but I'm now paranoid that the creditors are going to rip it apart!!

Wise words. A lot of us tend to think of it as a marathon rather than a sprint, that way they can have their money but not our lives!

HHx

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Sazzie23 wrote: »

Hi Bettingmad,
I'm sorry you felt it judgemental, and apologies to anyone offended by this remark, or any grammatical association. I think it's great if you are able to pay by installments, it wasn't a judgement purely my personal observation on what is considered credit. Since this is a supportive discussion forum that's what I intended.
I will be avoiding taking up any form of credit since I can't afford to risk my DMP, I wouldn't want to negatively impact my DMP in anyway.

Thank you for pointing this out

Hi

The DMP providers don't view instalments as credit, so utilities such as , electric, gas, phones, council tax, insurance etc are ok by instalments even if interest added like insurance things. You can even get approval for new car loans etc. For utilities and insurance credit checks are fine, never heard anyone fail them as afterall if you don't pay next months they cut you off, seemples, more like pay as you go! Essentially principles of DMP are that you should be able to live and eat to be healthy and the spare 'disposable' cash goes towards DMP rather than holidays or treats.

Hope that helps.

HHx