DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

Sazzie23

charmed1318 wrote: »

Hi to everyone.

I just have a question about DMPs. Are they much different to you doing it yourself.
Granted I am only paying between £1 and £5 to each of the nine companies I am dealing with because I am on ESA, but when I do get a job I will increase these payments (hopefully), am I missing out on something?

Charmed

Hi Charmed, sounds like you doing a great job, going it alone.
It's known as a self managed DMP, the amount you are paying is obviously minimal, but at least you are trying.

Wish you luck in job hunt, don't forget to 'talk up' the skills you have obviously got in being organised and budgeting, contacting creditors etc when you are applying for jobs if it's relevant.

You might find the NEDcab website useful with some templates on DMP stuff. The a quite a few self managed DMPers on this thread so you are in good company.

Sazzie23

joee wrote: »

Hello there,

I am sorry for posting here, I feel awful doing this as a I don’t give advice (I would but I am not totally confident in advising or posting if I am being completely honest).

I am coming towards the end of my DMP with Stepchange (my total updated debt is £10,789.76) and I have a couple of questions if anyone is able to answer them I would be very grateful –

I am just reviewing all of my financial stuff and when I logged on to update my balances and I saw that my debt free date if the 14th June 2015 – can anyone explain this to me please. I send my payment to Stepchange on the first of every month and SC send payment to creditors on the 25th.

Along the same lines I have worked out the estimated balances for the next 4 months if I am able to continue paying £352.00 –

25th January – £9701.00
25th February - £10053.00
25th March – £10405.00
25th April - £10,757.00

In May I would be paying £32.76, can I add this to April’s payment, I know that this sounds stupid but I would love to be debt free by my birthday in May. If I am able to make an additional payment how can I do this?

I am very sorry if it is not appropriate for me to post here.

Lucy

Hi Lucy, absolutely the right place to ask, and well done for getting so far with SC already.

I just want to double check, the balances you have, are they confirmed with the creditors, or just the SC 'notional' balances ?

joee

Sazzie23 wrote: »

Hi Lucy, absolutely the right place to ask, and well done for getting so far with SC already.

I just want to double check, the balances you have, are they confirmed with the creditors, or just the SC 'notional' balances ?

Hello Sazzie23,


Thank you for the reassurance, the balances have all been confirmed with my creditors - I have got statements from my creditors

Puzzcat

Hi Lucy,


Well done for getting so close to your debt free date!


Glad your balances are all up to date with the creditors as there have been a few horror stories on here of people who assumed interest was frozen to then find out it wasn't..!


According to Sc website -


Transcash

You can make payment to us by transcash at the Post Office. The Post Office will add a charge for each payment you make. This means you'll pay around £30 extra each year if you choose to pay this way.
To make a payment by transcash you'll need to include the following details on each slip:
Transcash account number – 6017754
Your client reference number
Your client reference number must be quoted with each payment. If you don’t do this, the money won’t be applied to your DMP and we won’t be able to pay your creditors.




I assume if you wish to make an extra payment you can do it through this. They also state if you wish to make a larger dd payment you need to contact them first. So maybe give them a ring and discuss your options?


Good luck.
Puzz .x

Slothy88

Bit of a backward step for me


I made my first payment to SC a few days ago of 218. Tomorrow is payday, and I had a brief panic moment earlier where I wanted to check all of my outgoings for the month against my income.


When I checked (to my horror) I realised after I paid all of my bills I had absolutely nothing spare!


I then realised - I get paid 4-weekly, which means I get paid 13 times a year. To work out my budget, SC multiplied my 4-weekly wage by 13 to give a yearly salary, then divided it back down by 12 to get monthly figures. So although the figures are correct, they don't work for a 4-weekly pay schedule, as I actually get paid around £100 less every four weeks than I would if I got paid monthly. Hope that makes sense...


Anyway, to combat this, I worked out how much I would pay to SC on a yearly basis, based on the original payment of £218 a month. This came to £2616. One month I will be getting paid twice, but won't have any bills to pay with the second pay as they'll have already been covered in the first. In this month I will be able to throw a £1000 lump sum at SC. So, I subtracted that £1000 from the total amount payable. This gives £1616, which I then divided by 12 to give new monthly payments of £135.


So overall, over the year of 12 £135 payments plus a £1000 lump sum, I'll be paying off exactly the same amount as if I had paid £218 a month. This way at least I can live! Lol


Hope that all made sense. It took a little bit of explaining to the man at SC, but he was very helpful and when he understood, he agreed that my payments needed to be reduced to better reflect what was actually going into/coming out of my account every month.


So the new budget is now being fired off to me creditors. Fingers crossed that with this lower payment, Barclaycard will freeze the interest, as it should be less than !% of the balance being paid off now!

charmed1318

Sazzie23 wrote: »

Wish you luck in job hunt, don't forget to 'talk up' the skills you have obviously got in being organised and budgeting, contacting creditors etc when you are applying for jobs if it's relevant.

Thanks Sazzie. I never really thought of that LOL

Jono987

Hello again, my DMP has started, not yet heard from creditors but stupidly i forgot to cancel one of the subscriptions on my credit card so 9.99 has just been deducted from my natwest credit card. Will this effect my DMP at all as i am technically still using the card? Thank you

Mrs-s_4

hi just looking for abit of advice really. I have applied for a DMP with step change. waiting for the forms to sign in the post. on the plan they came up with my debt payments will be reduced from£600 a month to £170. it just seems to good to be true! does it really work? im nervous about creditors hounding me once its put into place. what will happen? im feeling really over whelmed right now after finally looking at all my statements and figuring out just how much debt I have.

joee

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi Lucy,


Well done for getting so close to your debt free date!


Glad your balances are all up to date with the creditors as there have been a few horror stories on here of people who assumed interest was frozen to then find out it wasn't..!

Hello Puzzcat,


Thank you very much for your kind words!


It is good to know about the Transcash option, I am going to pluck up the courage to phone SC in the next few days!


Lucy xx

Time_to_face_the_music

joee wrote: »

Hello there,

I am sorry for posting here, I feel awful doing this as a I don’t give advice (I would but I am not totally confident in advising or posting if I am being completely honest).

I am coming towards the end of my DMP with Stepchange (my total updated debt is £10,789.76) and I have a couple of questions if anyone is able to answer them I would be very grateful –

I am just reviewing all of my financial stuff and when I logged on to update my balances and I saw that my debt free date if the 14th June 2015 – can anyone explain this to me please. I send my payment to Stepchange on the first of every month and SC send payment to creditors on the 25th.

Along the same lines I have worked out the estimated balances for the next 4 months if I am able to continue paying £352.00 –

25th January – £9701.00
25th February - £10053.00
25th March – £10405.00
25th April - £10,757.00

In May I would be paying £32.76, can I add this to April’s payment, I know that this sounds stupid but I would love to be debt free by my birthday in May. If I am able to make an additional payment how can I do this?

I am very sorry if it is not appropriate for me to post here.

Lucy

Well done Lucy on being so close to the finishing line :T

Please come back and celebrate with us when you are debt free but it would be lovely to have you stick around in the meantime :j

TTFTM x