DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Puzzcat wrote: »

Thank you HH, I find the milestones a huge incentive..slow and steady wins the race! Xxx

Oh yes. I can make a milestone out of anything!

HHX

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Pickle29 wrote: »

Further update...... Letter from FOS today saying GE have agreed to refund interest charged since we started the DMP, woohoo! As we owe them more now than we did when we started the DMP you can understand how relieved we are! So glad I went to FOS as we had contacted GE numerous times before! :T:T:T

Fantastic news. Always worth it even if we don't win. Am currently doing battle over a default date. I don't go down without a fight

HHX

Time_to_face_the_music

Pickle29 wrote: »

Further update...... Letter from FOS today saying GE have agreed to refund interest charged since we started the DMP, woohoo! As we owe them more now than we did when we started the DMP you can understand how relieved we are! So glad I went to FOS as we had contacted GE numerous times before! :T:T:T

Brilliant news Pickle - am absolutely delighted :j

Puzzcat wrote: »

Thank you HH, I find the milestones a huge incentive..slow and steady wins the race! Xxx

Hopelessly_Hopeful wrote: »

Oh yes. I can make a milestone out of anything!

HHX

HH made a milestone fan out of me! Oh I love them

Kate_fixing_it

Why does Thank you all xxx I'm not feeling too nervous yet but had a really busy day yesterday so hardly any time to think, I'm sure it'll hit me as I go in for the anaesthetic - usually does! In the past the panic has never set in until the anaesthetist is standing next to me about to put the drugs in! Last 3 operations I've had a scrub nurse holding my hand as I've "fallen asleep".

Good to see you back MB, I've been wondering where you were.

I'm loving the milestones too, but why does a 20th sound better than 5%? Not that it matters, it's a great achievement

Kate x

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Kate_fixing_it wrote: »

I'm loving the milestones too, but why does a 20th sound better than 5%? Not that it matters, it's a great achievement

Kate x

Because it does! LOL. Anything to put a positive spin on it helps me. Have been known to count down number of dishcloths and hoover bags for that year or to end of DMP

HHx

Sazzie23

Hopelessly_Hopeful wrote: »

Because it does! LOL. Anything to put a positive spin on it helps me. Have been known to count down number of dishcloths and hoover bags for that year or to end of DMP

HHx

It really does, I'm so glad I listened to advice on this thread to start a spreadsheet, and I look forward to getting the statements so I can update it. Now counting dish clothes that's something I could get into:rotfl: I need a hobby

Sazzie23

Great news Pickle - & well done for fighting it and not giving up

Welcome MB - hope you doing Ok now

Good luck Kate for tomorrow

Powered_By_Pies

Hello all!

Not sure if this is the right thread for this so excuse any ignorance on my behalf, but I've just set up a DMP and have already made the first payment, so I'm hopefully underway with it all

Quick overview;

At 25 years old I've managed to rack up about 7 grands' worth of debt, the primary one being Natwest who I will continue to hate with every fibre of my being until the day I die, but what pushed me into finally going down the DMP route was a combination of me trying to keep all my other creditors happy and continually taking out small lumps of credit every month to cover one payment, only for this to turn into another payment, with interest fees, etc... You get the idea, not helped by the fact I tried going down the 'easy to get hold of' route and using payday companies.... I know, I know!

It hit home last month when I realised that at the end of April if I stayed as-is then I'd have about 20 quid to my name once all the payments had been made, so I set up a DMP with *deep breath* Gregory Pennington. Yes, it's a fee-based DMP provider and I know on forums like this one they can be considered as bad as the rest of them and I'll now have loads of posters telling me I should be using a free alternative like Stepchange or Payplan, but for the moment, things are working out and I'm happy to carry on with it until I can get a better understanding of how to play the system, as it were.

So far, between pay-day which was the 28th and today I've only had one of the creditors call me and I wasn't around to take the call, one of them took a payment which turned out to be the banks' fault (I'd phoned them a few weeks ago to cancel continuous card payment and they didn't seem to have included this one on their list) but a quick call and the payment's being refunded, so I suspect another snotty call once they realise what I've done.

The DMP guys are sending out offer letters to the creditors from today and they say it can take between 4-6 weeks for everything to settle down and a rhythm can start of just paying the DMP and getting on with my life, which I hope is true, but being the kind of person that plans for the worst and hopes for the best, I'm sure one of them won't want to play ball and I'll have to deal with them accordingly.

DFD is forecast as around August 2016, sounds a lifetime away but considering I got a car on finance in 2010 and have two payments left, I know it can be done. This should allow me to actually budget for my needs instead of being stupid with my money like I have been - apart from the fact I'm now convincing myself that from this day on, credit is not an option for me, I only have one CC with Capital One and seeing as that's going on the creditors' list, I will shortly be cutting it up and using just my current account and what I earn each month. A combination of my car finance ending in July and a pay-rise at work scheduled for somewhere between September - December should also allow me to increase the payments, reducing the DFD a little bit along the way.

So that's my story, hopefully I can put a nice big 'I'm debt free' banner in my signature in due course!

Puzzcat

Hi pbp,
Welcome to the wonderful world of dmp's! I won't bang on about using a fee paying company as you have obviously given it some thought. All I will say is have you worked out your debt free date if you did use a free one? I can't recommend stepchange any higher I think they are fantastic and 100% of what I pay goes off my debts.
Anyhow' s welcome to our thread and good luck!
Puzz

Powered_By_Pies

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi pbp,
Welcome to the wonderful world of dmp's! I won't bang on about using a fee paying company as you have obviously given it some thought. All I will say is have you worked out your debt free date if you did use a free one? I can't recommend stepchange any higher I think they are fantastic and 100% of what I pay goes off my debts.
Anyhow' s welcome to our thread and good luck!
Puzz

Hey Puzzcat,

Thanks for the welcome! I did have a quick 'back of fag-packet' calculation and it'll probably take another three or four months off of the DFD, so it's something I'll think about after a while, but for now, the guys at GP have been really good to deal with, so I'm willing to cut them a little slack for now to get everything set up and rolling, plus the bonus of car finance finishing in July and a pay-rise on the horizon might combine to drop it even further if I play my cards right.

They claim they have a 98% success rate in creditors agreeing with their DMP's and their acumen and history seems to be ok as I did some research before committing, there are obviously some poor reviews out there but I take that as standard, it's the classic saying of 'you can please some of the people all of the time...'

Just hope it's that over-the-edge step to a brighter, financially focused future for me, I've spent too long relying on quick-fix lines of credit that make me worse off in the long run, so if I cut out the possibility of even being accepted for that, then I'm already half-way there to cutting my cloth accordingly