DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

CloudStrife

Sazzie - I do share your concern about the fact I will still be paying each creditor quite a big repayment and they might be reluctant to freeze interest and charges. Especially Pounds2Pocket who will be receiving more then then usually did, £162.47 rather then £155.55, but I am hoping due to the fact that the majority of my creditors are payday loans they cannot possibly keep adding interest at there usual astronomical rates. Ill keep an eye over the next month or so.

After worrying about Lloyds yesterday, I funnily received a letter this morning, detailing a repayment plan that actually increases my o/d to 2070 and them deducting £156 from my account on the 1st of every month until 1st November and then they want a final payment of £1290..they want the first payment 1st July which they wont be getting, as StepChange have told me they will be getting £205 which will be on the 25th. Should I just ignore this and clear my bank out as I plan to as soon as I get paid, or shall I ring them and remind them of SCs payment

tayajade

Monkeyballs wrote: »

Hi TJ,

Welcome to the thread

So with nippers and planned changes you're able to afford £630 pcm on your DMP? Be a little wary that budgeting for what might be and trying to keep the timescales as short as possible could bite you in the bum! And it won't be Luis Suarez doing the biting

Give yourself a little leeway with your budget (a bit of creative budgeting comes in handy here) to make sure you're not going to struggle at any stage along the way and if you've anything left at the end of the month you can either A) save it for F&F's at a later date to quicken your DFD make over payments if you happen to have a creditor unwilling to freeze interest entirely *cough*Barclaycard*cough* and C) give yourself an occasional treat

Do you have an emergency fund in place?

MB of G x

Thank you for the advice, after seeing your post i actually moved added a few extras into my budget before my phone call today and so i have agreed to pay 571 per month. This means for us that after bills and food we will have £500 per month which i am really happy with after living on next to nothing for the last few months This doesn't include overtime which i do have each month as i work in a hospital and am on a rota for weekend working.

They added an emergency fund into my budget although it wasn't a huge amount but we are sending token payments for July while the DMP is set up and banking the payment that we would normally make so that we have a safety net to start with. This has been a major problem for us with having no savings if anything happened we ended up using the cards because there wasn't enough spare income after making the minimum repayments (that awful spiral)!

We should be able to save some money each month now and because two of our debts are rather large balances with barclaycard i may just follow your advice and aim for a saving to make a ff payment, i have seen a lot of posts about barclaycard being particularly difficult on here?!

Kate_fixing_it

Well done tayajade! That is honestly the hardest part after admitting there's a problem. I promise it gets easier from now on. There'll be a few bumpy weeks where your creditors will call and write - think of them as farm animals around a trough, there's only one bucket of feed to go around and they're all pushing for a little more but YOU have said how much there is to go around and all the pushing, shoving, stamping of feet etc isn't going to increase it. When/if they call (one of mine never has) give them your DMP ref, tell them you'll only correspond in writing, thank them and hang up. I kept a record of calls just in case they played silly games but nobody has.

CS I'd (personally) open an account elsewhere. If they can't be reasonable about a VERY generous plan in place they don't deserve your custom. This may all be automated hot air but you don't want them acting on this in November and leaving you unable to fulfil your DMP requirements. The other concern is (god forbid) what if the unexpected happens and like poor MB you are injured and income drops. Your DMP provider will be able to reduce payments to help you but if your bank act on the rules ofooffsetting (they can use funds available to pay off debt with linked entities) you will be up the creek. Please consider this and protect yourself. I had no idea of the future, I qas visiting a friend, bent down the stroke her cat and my leg broke. 300 miles from home it's now been almost 15 months and two surgeries and it's still not right. Before this I ran 10-12 miles a week, was a fit and healthy 35 year old, incredibly independent and in a second I was reduced to needing help to wash and dress and couldn't even make myself a coffee. I digress a little but the point is that you REALLY don't know what the future holds.

Kate x

Kate_fixing_it

Off to hospital. Wish me luck! Or maybe wish my consultant luck as he's about to receive the Spanish Inquisition from a rather fed up patient of 15 months who wants to know EXACTLY how he/his team managed to miss two very easy to diagnose conditions that if treated could have potentially had me back on my feet 9 months ago!

Kate x

tayajade

Thank you Kate, i will keep that in mind when they call

Puzzcat

Karen777 wrote: »

The FOS contacted HBOS and they (HBOS) contacted me for more information and then they investigated and decided I am not in financial hardship so no reduction.

I haven't checked my credit file so don't know. What's AP? Last time I did that (checked my credit file) I ended up accidentally paying for a credit check every month or something so have been reluctant to do it again also a bit chicken about seeing what hideous things are on it. What is the best way to check it?

I am not meeting my minimum on any others actually so will contact them I think. And stop stamping my feet.

Thanks.

Hi Karen,


Ap is arrangement to pay on your credit file, this is worse than a default as it doesn't drop off until 6 years after the debt is settled rather than a default that drops off 6 years from when placed on the file. Unfortunately although some have had success getting creditors to change to a default others haven't had such luck. I haven't tried yet.. I have 2 that are showing AP's...


The best free way to check your credit file is to sign up to noddle, it is about a month behind in updating the figures but you can see all sorts on there.. go on.. be brave...:)


Puzz. x

Puzzcat

tayajade wrote: »

After posting yesterday for the first time I have just had our phone call with our case worker and it's now being set up! I have to say that payplan have been amazing so far, the case worker was very re-assuring and informative.

It's all done and after feeling guilty, nervous and embarrassed I now just feel relief that I now have an end in sight!

Welcome aboard the dmp bus tayajade.. next stop debt freedom.... :T


Puzz. x

Monkeyballs

Karen777 wrote: »

Rant warning - and possibly announcing my own stupidity warning!

Been in a dmp for just over a year after many many years of making minimum payments, robbing peter to pay paul etc etc.
None of my creditors have reduced interest since starting my dmp and as I have three accounts with HBOS I wrote to them about each account, twice. They ignored me so I went to the FOS, which prompted a response.

Their response - they don't consider me to be in financial hardship as I am making more then the minimal contractual payments on my accounts.

Does the fact that I am in a dmp and living on a teeny tiny budget not imply I am in financial hardship or the fact that for years previously I was only making minimum payments (most of which went to interest anyway).

I feel gutted. I am absolutely skint (and I do recognise that I got myself into this situation - not asking for any sympathy), living on very little, dreading a wierd noise on the car, trying to ignore the wierd noise on the boiler and the damp that needs sorting out, struggling to pay debts off and feel like they are just taking advantage of the fact by continuing to make interest off me to the tune of 1/3 of my payments every month.

Any advice or do I just need to suck it up and be grateful I am able to pay my debts off?

I don't see any point contacting any other creditors as suspect they will say the same!

Hi Karen,

None of your creditors have reduced/frozen interest at all (excluding the recent reduction by MBNA)?

Who are your creditors? I've never heard of anyone entering into a DMP and not having at least most stop or reduce interest before and am wondering if something is 'wrong'?

That said, I'm surprised that Payplan have suggested a DMP if you're actually now paying MORE than you were before? Something doesn't add up or have I missed something out here LOL? Almost sounds like miss selling on their part if all you're getting in return is a trashed credit file!

Have your considered going self managed because this allows more flexibility with your budget and payments...

MB of G x

Puzzcat

Karen777 wrote: »

Hello
Just wanted to say thank you and hello. I posted on here about a year ago having just taken the first steps towards a dmp with pp and got some encouragement from people on here. I am now a year in and sleeping better than I have for years and looking forward to a debt free life. I am gutted I waited so long and can honestly say it has saved my life. It's hard living month to month and I still have a way to go but I do know even on the bad days that I am getting there.

Most of the creditors have reduced but not frozen interest which is disappointing but can't be avoided I guess and I am grateful they have reduced it at least - apart from Halifax who take half of my payment to them every month in interest. I have written to them repeatedly but no response other than to add default charges and letter writing charges on to my debt to them. After researching, I made a complaint via the FOS yesterday, so see how that goes.

Anyway - thank you all for existing and making this journey feel less scary and good luck to all of you in the same boat.

Kaz.

Hi Karen,
In this post you mentioned that most of your creditors had reduced interest and in your latest one you say none have. You also say haven't checked your credit file so were you assuming they had reduced interest and have since found they haven't?
As mb says it's most unlike how a dmp is suppose to run. Can you now meet your minimum payments on all your accounts or just the one due to paying so much off already?
I would certainly sign up with noddle and as mb says maybe going self managed would be better then you could reduce payments to those where you are hitting the minimum and press again for freezing/reducing interest. Although the charities do a fab job in distriubuting our pennies at the end of the day they are our debts and only we can really fight the interest the charities do not do this for us.
Puzz.x

Karen777

Thanks Puzz will have a look.

MB of G - I think it's because HBOS minimum payment is quite low compared to total debt - so because PP pro rata the whole debt, they are getting more than the minimum whereas other ccs (MBNA, Barclaycard and Santander) are not. For similar outstanding amounts the minimum payments are quite different wierdly.

I got a dmp as couldn't make minimum payments as had been using credit to pay off debt for years... and then the credit ran out.

Charges have been stopped on the two overdrafts but nothing on the credit cards or loan (HBOS).

What do you mean by going self managed? (Sorry I am pretty thick when it comes to money - have only started opening post in the last few months and am in my 40s.)