What do I do when the creditor is a friend?

harveybobbles

Dont pay Wonga any more than £1.00 per month.

Rosey_Future

Thanks very much. Its good to hear the opinions of people who have been in the position where they have been owed - to understand how they feel.

I slept better last night. Only woke up twice with the knot in my stomach. Thats a good night's sleep for me!

Meeting 2 more people today after lunch. Then I have one of the hardest conversations scheduled for tomorrow. Not looking forward to that at all, but it must be done.

Rosey_Future

harveybobbles wrote: »

Dont pay Wonga any more than £1.00 per month.

This made me chuckle, but it raises a good point. I wonder if StepChange would reduce my payday loan payments to £1 a month until I have my friends paid off.... Failing that, whats to stop me from setting up my own DMP.....

Hmmm. Food for thought here.

Anyone here set up their own debt repayment plan without going through a debt management company???

HappyMJ

I'd give higher figures for housekeeping/groceries on your SOA to your other creditors than you actually spend and then give the excess to your friend.

Most DFW's suggest spending as little as £100 per person per month on groceries but you can actually put down about £200 per person per month without any trouble. That should give you £100 a month for your friend....assuming you are a household of 1.

black_cat

People have given you good advice here. I don't have anything to add but just want to say I was moved by your post, and respect you for sorting the situation out.
Good Luck

HeadAboveWater

I was just gonna write the same thing as black cat!

:T for biting the bullet and getting your head out of the sand. It's taken a lot of courage to do what you've done. It's 'easy' to deal with companies and people you don't know. It's family, friends and work colleagues that's the hard part. As you say you just avoided them.

Let us know how you get on today and when you've spoken to the others, and if there's anything we can do to help - shout!!

poppasmurf_bewdley

Rosey_Future wrote: »

Hi,

The problem i have with this approach is that although its ok to pay BarclayCard and Wonga £10 or £20 a month under debt management, I think its insulting to try and do the same with "real" people. For example, I owe one friend £50 and another £100. I simply couldnt offer to pay them in installments - particularly if I did this at work people would know there is a real problem as they have a good idea of what i earn).

I think they will already know that you are having financial difficulties because you have (a) borrowed money and (b) failed to pay them back.

Speak to each of them in a quiet momet and tell them you have not forgotten the debt and will pay them as soon as you can. If they've been good enough to lend you some cash, I would think they will understand.

TooAshamedToBeNamed

Rosey_Future wrote: »

It was a very difficult discussion - however, you were all correct - she wasnt so upset about the actual money, she was more upset that I didnt communicate to her. She said she had noticed that I avoided her and didnt make eye contact when I saw her. She said she felt upset that I saw her as enough of a friend to ask her for it, but was then too embarrassed to talk to her after and felt used. I have arranged to pay her on 26th April. I will really need to do some work after to make amends for how I treated her.

Hi Rosey, I'm a newbie here so don't feel like I can give much advice when I need all the help I can get myself, but . . .

I think something you should do here is make a point of thanking her for being so understanding. She's clearly a very caring person being more hurt by the lack of communication than repayment. a simple gesture that reassures her you were struggling but had the best intentions and genuinely wanted to tell her/put things right you may find there's need to make amends than you first thought. Being appreciated and believing you now feel you can open up to her would probably be more than she would want.

Rosey_Future

Thanks very much everyone for your kind words. The shame associated with debt is so painful and all consuming and its good to find a forum where people understand.

When I look back I still cant believe how I got into this situation. It really can happen to anyone. I wasnt trying to fund a champagne lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination. Sometimes life and stuff just happens and without good advice its easy to dig yourself in deeper and deeper to fix what started out as a small problem.

I am guessing if you are already on this forum, you have experienced this is some way yourself, but to anyone out there, no matter how bad you think your financial situation is - putting yourself in more debt to try and fix it is never the answer.

I wanted to share with you an example of something that happened to me that really highlights how these things can snowball:

I had an account fraud a few years ago which cleaned me out. The bank said it should take 2 weeks or so for the money to be reimbursed, so I took out a £300 payday loan to help me through. With interest, the total amount i had to pay back was £480 the next month. I hadnt got the money back from the bank yet and the loan company were hounding me daily, so I took out yet another loan to clear the first. This time i borrowed £500. Payback was £720. This went on for a while. Long story short, for that initial £300 loan, I ended up owing £2000. I went to another payday loan company which I didnt know was connected to another I already owed. They declined my loan, but my card details were passed on and on my next payday my account was stripped - leaving me with £25 in my account. So what did I do to get through the month.... you got it.... took out another loan.

Sounds so stupid looking back now, but having people hounding you on the phone at work and turning up at your home, can pressure you into doing crazy things.

In the end you just need to get off the wheel of misfortune and get help.

Giraffeseeker

Hi Rosey :wave:

Are you a smoker? If not, tell your DMP provider that you are - this will give you about £140 per month allowance on your budget for cigarettes which you can allocate to freinds. There are other categories like this too - ie pets need an allowance in the budget for insurance and food. You can remove these allowances in the next budget review if all your friends are paid off.

Tintingirl