DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Puzzcat

blisteringblue wrote: »

Thanks Puzzcat, Spookily was just reading your diary hope that is not too stalkerish I'd noticed earlier you owed a similar amount to me so was reading your experiences.

By surplus I mean the amount I will be paying to Stepchange to disperse to my debts.

There is no real surplus, at the moment making minimum payments our debts have gone up another 10k since this time last year. Classic case of shifting around debts to free up an interest free period on a card, only to then run up that card too. Been doing it for years. Its the reason we are in debt.

I just think it is the not knowing? Stepchange says we should do a DMP so a DMP we are doing. Will just see what happens as the token payments hit this week.

I like visitors... hope you have left me a 'hello'...!!


You sound very organised and i'm sure you will fight the good fight if the creditors don't play ball.. there are letter templates on here somewhere to send if creditors don't play fair!


I have been in debt forever.. and i'm really old now.. well 45... and for the last 5 years I've just been servicing my cc's interest so I had no choice as the debts were just not going anywhere.. and now they are.. which is fab.. Good luck with your journey..

blisteringblue

Puzzcat wrote: »

You sound very organised and i'm sure you will fight the good fight if the creditors don't play ball.. there are letter templates on here somewhere to send if creditors don't play fair!

Lol, a very organised procrastinator !! Started snowballing in 2011 with what was just over 40K of debt. Still had access to credit then so 3 years of 0% deals and now 60K and over extended on credit with most cards maxed. Mrs BB gave up work at Xmas to concentrate on Uni Qualification so we are where we are now.

Time_to_face_the_music

blisteringblue wrote: »

If been a little anal with my spreadsheets since deciding to start a DMP.

Our main reason is we are down to my wage and OH has some paid teaching while she is in final year at Uni, but only around 3-5 hours a week. Hopefully after Sept we will be back to a much better second income.

Luckily I have a good wage and to be honest we were not far away from meeting the minimum payments. There was a little creeping up on the cards but we had no chance of paying it off any time soon. I was trying to snowball but that was creeping to 6 years, and if I'm being honest it was actually going up slightly each month. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Went to the Stepchange site and put the figures in and it then pops up in black and white 4 Years 7 Months (assuming interest is frozen).

So I'm thinking why go round and round in circles for 6 years, when chances are we won't have paid it off, and paying all the interest.

My only concern though is we've actually a surplus over £1k a month, so when I got the spreadsheets out and worked out % of total debt and the amounts they are getting, they are not drastically short of the actual minimum payments? I think the worst of our 8 debts was 25% less, and the best only around 13% less.

Is this likely to count against me? I realise the key factor is I need the interest frozen to make any headway into this debt. I'm not worried about the hit on my credit rating, in fact I see it as a bonus to making me realise the value of things again. I'm just worried they will see us as looking for an easy way out and I will struggle to get the interest frozen.

What are others experience in this? I've still started the ball rolling with a few token payments and 28 day hold letters in the post now, as well as all my forms for Stepchange, so no going back, but just starting to get nagging doubts that we're not in debt enough, if that is strange. Even though the total is a few hundred over 60k in total.

Hi blisteringblue :hello:

Did you work out the new payment v old minimum payments according to the % of total debt? If so, that is not the way that Stepchange distribute your payments, they do it according to the previous minimum payment for each creditor.

Being close to the minimum payment can be a problem as creditors sometimes refuse to accept you are in financial difficulty. When we started our DMP, owing over £82,000, one of our M&S accounts received more than their previous minimum payments and because of this refused to stop interest but told us they would if we reduced the payment. Stepchange were unable to help us with this, so we took the case to the FOS but lost because M&S had offered us a solution. In the end we left Stepchange and self managed our DMP to give us more control to play hard ball with difficult creditors.

Having said all of that, creditors often treat similar cases differently so there is nothing to say the same will happen to you and everything may be fine.

Please stick around for as much help, advice and support as you need.

TTFTM x

blisteringblue

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Did you work out the new payment v old minimum payments according to the % of total debt? If so, that is not the way that Stepchange distribute your payments, they do it according to the previous minimum payment for each creditor.

Yes, I did. All are under the previous minimum so hopefully that will help me.

I notice the Stepchange paperwork talks about this contractual Payment? They seem a lot higher than my minimums?

blisteringblue

I think I get it.

http://www.stepchange.org/Debtinformationandadvice/Debtsolutions/Debtmanagementplan/Yourcontractualpayments.aspx

The contractual payment is the minimum plus an amount to actually pay off the debt in a reasonable time !!

I will work my % out on that number and hopefully all will be good to go.

Said like a good Partridge ...... AHAAAA

Using the Stephchange figures my monthly payments will be down to 58% of contractual so I'm quite happy now.

Just need this to start now .....

joee

Hi all,

I hope that it is ok for me to jump in here - I am a long time lurker! I started my DMP with Stepchange in August 2012 after getting in to £10,633.89 of debt.

I believe that the stress of debt was a contributing factor in me having a nervous breakdown and being diagnosed with depression and anxiety. On a cheerier note I have cleared £6547.00 of debt and hoping to be debt free in February 2015!

I hope that I will be able to offer support here, please feel free to ask me any questions!

Lucy x

Puzzcat

Hi Lucy... no questions, just thought I'd wave and say welcome.

blisteringblue

One last question from me now, Tesco Credit Card underwrite themselves now don't they?

It's just we bank with RBS who also have our mortgage, but this is all we have with them.

I've not bothered about swapping accounts before starting the DMP because of this.

However one of biggest credit card debts is with Tesco and I know these used to be RBS but I'm sure they fell out and got letters in the past few years saying Tesco Bank are now self Underwriting?

Or am I making this up?

milocat

Super frustrated - been in the process of setting up my DMP for a good month now - have got a cash card account with Nationwide that has promised to do a partial switch (all my direct debits/standing orders) within 7 working days. I applied on Thursday and was accepted but now I'm still sat here waiting for my paperwork to be sent out to me so I can actually find out what my sort code/account number are and put them on my DMP paperwork.

To add to this, I start a new job tomorrow, and I received my contract, but it doesn't seem to say anything about how many hours I'll be working (37.5) and for what rate. So I don't know if SC would accept that as evidence for employment but equally I don't have anything else to show them.

Help

Monkeyballs

milocat wrote: »

Super frustrated - been in the process of setting up my DMP for a good month now - have got a cash card account with Nationwide that has promised to do a partial switch (all my direct debits/standing orders) within 7 working days. I applied on Thursday and was accepted but now I'm still sat here waiting for my paperwork to be sent out to me so I can actually find out what my sort code/account number are and put them on my DMP paperwork.

To add to this, I start a new job tomorrow, and I received my contract, but it doesn't seem to say anything about how many hours I'll be working (37.5) and for what rate. So I don't know if SC would accept that as evidence for employment but equally I don't have anything else to show them.

Help

Hi MC,

You could always go into your local Nationwide branch with some ID and they'd likely to be able to give you that info (call them first though just to double check, they may even be able to give you it over the phone but suspect not).

As for the contract... Ummmm, not sure I understand sorry is it a zero hour contract or something? What did it say on the ad which you applied to? You can probably confirm all of this tomorrow when you start anyway and then buzz SC (or email if it's out of hours) to confirm, I don't see it as being a biggie but I know how frustrating all this can be when you just want to ring the bell 'DING' and say "round one"

MB