DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

frugalliving

Hi there,

Just reading through some of the comments on here and surprised at how helpful everyone is. I have only just found this site so still very much a ' newbie' !

After years of robbing Peter to pay paul we finally decided to sit down and go through all our debts and I was appalled at how bad things had got. My husband was made redundant in December 2012 and due to a serious illness affecting our eldest son he is now a full time carer and unable to look for work at the moment, so it kinda brought things to ahead that something had to get sorted.

We have over 60k of unsecured debt!! I felt sick, we were paying hundreds of £ each month in interest alone.

We have decided to make our own plan of repayments in the first instance and see how we go! So far all of our creditors have agreed to accept our offer of repayments and freeze all interest and charges, I must say it was easier than I thought as this was what had been putting me off. We have saved £1200 a month on repayments so far and feel much better than at the beginning.

Our next phase of our'master plan' Is to offer FF settlements to our creditors as we do have some cash available ( my husband's redundancy and we sold our caravan ) but not to the the tune of 62k!

I'm really hoping that this next phase runs as smoothly as the first , if anyone has any tips for dealing with FF Settlements and how to get best deal I would be most gratefull to here from you.

Sorry to ramble on! Thank you

antonic

Hi Humph,

Just to make you aware, HMRC are NOT obliged to accept any proposals that StepChange make on your behalf, to clear your £6k tax debt, if the proposed time scale is to long.

What type of tax debt is it ? (VAT/SA/PAYE).

humphrd wrote: »

Hi everyone - I was just checking out the thread on paying off your debts by Xmas 2013 but as mine are £36,000 + £6,000 tax bill there is no way that is going to happen.

I am just scanning papers ready to go across to Step Change to set up a DMP and feeling quite emotional !

I've always paid bills on time etc but struggling to make the monthly payments and now the HMRC refuse to agree that they made a mistake I need to pay that back also.

I was made redundant just before Xmas and fortunately back in work now but every day feels like a struggle. We do have a property overseas we are trying to sale but as it's been 3 years so far not hopeful that will happen any time soon.

My debts are with Barclaycard and M & S - I am really nervous about getting any CCJ's or orders against the house, so checking this thread for people's experiences so thanks everyone for sharing !

Mossop01

choppy34 wrote: »

Thank you so much for responding! Actually looking forward to the call on Tuesday in a bizarre way.

Do they allow for the children to have swimming lessons? And what happens to the money extra earnt such as overtime? My husbands monthly pay can vary from 1350 to 1900 per month?

Sorry for so many question x

Hi choppy and welcome, I've had loads of support from here and asked lots of questions! Don't be afraid to ask.

My hubby also does a lot of overtime but they they advised to just work on his basic salary for the budget just incase overtime is Unavailable at any time. Extra can be always put into emergency fnd which is vital.

My little boy has swimming lessons and they are budgeted for within our plan, also a little extra every month for sundries like school trips, etc

One piece of advice I would offer is to budget for everything u can think of don't scrimp as dmps are usually long term and have to be manageable.

Good luck

Mossop01

frugalliving wrote: »

Hi there,

Just reading through some of the comments on here and surprised at how helpful everyone is. I have only just found this site so still very much a ' newbie' !

After years of robbing Peter to pay paul we finally decided to sit down and go through all our debts and I was appalled at how bad things had got. My husband was made redundant in December 2012 and due to a serious illness affecting our eldest son he is now a full time carer and unable to look for work at the moment, so it kinda brought things to ahead that something had to get sorted.

We have over 60k of unsecured debt!! I felt sick, we were paying hundreds of £ each month in interest alone.

We have decided to make our own plan of repayments in the first instance and see how we go! So far all of our creditors have agreed to accept our offer of repayments and freeze all interest and charges, I must say it was easier than I thought as this was what had been putting me off. We have saved £1200 a month on repayments so far and feel much better than at the beginning.

Our next phase of our'master plan' Is to offer FF settlements to our creditors as we do have some cash available ( my husband's redundancy and we sold our caravan ) but not to the the tune of 62k!

I'm really hoping that this next phase runs as smoothly as the first , if anyone has any tips for dealing with FF Settlements and how to get best deal I would be most gratefull to here from you.

Sorry to ramble on! Thank you

Welcome and well done so far on amazing progress!
I'm not in a position to give advice about !!!!!! but good luck!

zenshi

Can I join in as I'm not officially on a DMP? Apparently I don't have enough spare to set one up? So I'm going it alone and have just got letters done ready for posting to CC companies tomorow

Mossop01

choppy34 wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Hubby and I are seriously considering a DMP and have contacted pay plan who have arranged to call us back on Tuesday.

A quick question. are creditors likely to freeze interest if we've never missed a payment or had a late payment? We have £20k of unsecured debt owing to Halifax personal loan, 2 barclaycard and a HSBC commercial card.

Thanks for any help x

We too had never missed payments but like HH said we too were heading for a brick wall!
We have 10 creditors in total all have frozen interest for 12 months then will be up or review, some of them were extremely helpful, others not so, but advice from here showed me how to tackle them head on and get results.
For us things coud only get better and I'm so pleased to say things are better and as for my credit rating being trashed .....well that's fine cos I NEVER wasn't credit again!

Good luck

Mossop01

zenshi wrote: »

Can I join in as I'm not officially on a DMP? Apparently I don't have enough spare to set one up? So I'm going it alone and have just got letters done ready for posting to CC companies tomorow

Hi and welcome , a few people on here are doing self managed dmps
Good luck

zenshi

Thanks for the welcome. It's quite daunting doing it by yourself :eek: but I do feel better having got the letters written. Do credit card people usually get back to you fairly quickly?

Mossop01

Hi all, little update of my own, just realised today it's been 3 months since my LBM and contacting SC and 3 months since I've came off my anti depressants, stress from our debt was so debilitating at its peek and now I feel so much stronger and in control, I no longer dread the postie coming with the bills and love updating my spreadsheets .......partly this is due to the support I've had from here as I no longer feel so alone ....so cheers!
A long long way to go but we can enjoy living on the way!
Sorry for the rant...I'm probably hormonal ...but nevertheless it is heartfelt!

Cheers:beer:;)

Mossop01

zenshi wrote: »

Thanks for the welcome. It's quite daunting doing it by yourself :eek: but I do feel better having got the letters written. Do credit card people usually get back to you fairly quickly?

They all differ, mbna were the fastest of ours to respond others didn't respond at all! It's a bit of a waiting game