All advice welcome

lollipop369

I am 40 and have been in debt most of my adult life. Following the breakdown of my second marriage, where we had lived way beyond our means, I had over £25000 in personal debt- a loan, overdraft and 3 credit cards. My daughter and I had to move in with family and in March 2013 I started a DMP through Stepchange. This started off well and to date have paid off over £5000 (original debt £26102, current total £20730).
I work full-time as a civil servant and although enjoyable, my job is quite demanding. My annual salary is £21000. Over the last few months, circumstances have changed and am now losing all hope of being debt free at all. In June, we had to move into rented accommodation after the family member we were living with had to move into full-time residential care. This meant a huge increase in my outgoings and reduced my monthly DMP payment from £344 to £145. My daughter recently left full-time education to start an apprenticeship which is so low-paid she can only give me a very small amount of board and I have lost over £350 per month in tax credits, child benefits and CSA payments. I have not yet informed Stepchange of this as I am worried that if this means that I can't afford any payments at all, I may be forced to consider bankruptcy which may have implications for my employment. I am now really struggling to make the £145 and have cut out all unnecessary expenses that I can.
Any suggestions on a way forward would be appreciated.

Monkeyballs

Hi Lol,

Speak to Stepchange and discuss options.

It's not unreasonable to reduce your DMP payments if you can't afford them, if you're struggling then the minimum is £5 per creditor so if you only have a few creditors then this will reduce your repayments dramatically BUT it will mean that the time you are repaying goes up (obviously).

The good thing about smaller payments is that in time there is more likelihood that your creditors will sell the debts and the purchasing DCA will accept a reduced settlement figure

It really is not the end of the world, you just need to take control and speak to SC - you may need to be a little creative with your budgeting too

MB

Growurown

I agree with MB. You have to be able to live, and the last thing you need is to start getting behind with the priority bills such as your rent or council tax. Call SC and discuss your options. They can't force you to do anything if you don't want to.