January 2015 is the beginning

January2015

Brogden wrote: »

That all sounds beautifully under control Jan !!

You know I am going the same sort of route and am making pensions, both occupational and personal the mainstay of the family's financial security and the tool for the riddance of problems . I am very sorry if you thought I was jumping in just to be negative (like they do on the Pensions, Annuities & Retirement Planning Board :mad:) I don't really think you thought that though .

Going back to being a young man, the civil service pension scheme was always referred to as the 'yardstick' and a large private sector company would try to copy the benefit structure in its own scheme. Thankfully I got a long run in one of thoses old fashioned final salary / defined benefit schemes until they kicked me out before Christmas. Without that I would be feeling a bit less positive (to say the least :rotfl:!!)

As if I would ever think you to be negative Brogden:eek: I know you are looking out for a fellow DMPer and giving sound advice and guidance:beer: I did pop over to that other place (you know the one....Pensions, Annuities & Retirement Planning Board) - I read some posts and decided it was not the place for me.

I agree, the long term family financial security is my goal. Just hope DH and I live long enough to reap the rewards of the planning - shame I wasn't as clued up on the debt bit isn't it:o

Seriously if something happens to DH or I the remaining one will be seriously well off (by our current standards). No mortgage, no debt, 2 large lump sum pay outs and widow/ers pension. If we both kick the proverbial - well the kids will be laughing....after they get over the shock of losing us and clearing the debt pile they know nothing about.

January2015

Well it's been a funny month DMP wise. I usually log in to my diary and update the reducing debt total with glee. I haven't bothered this month.

It was reducing at between £900 and £1000 each month, but now we've gone self-managed it's reducing by £11 this month (token payments will have that effect). So I haven't bothered updating the totals. Same again next month as well.

I know this gives us the much needed emergency fund, although if I had known about the pension release I would have left the payments at the full monthly amount. However, now we've agreed token payments for two months that's all I am paying. The rest can go into the F&F fund.

So on the one hand I feel a bit deflated not to see the debt total reduce this month and on the other hand I feel delighted to know that we will soon be in a position to start offering F&Fs. The delight is definitely outweighing the deflation;)

I think DH is getting a bit ahead of himself with this debt busting malarky. We were talking about F&Fs and the impact of using the pension release money and he has started planning for moving to mortgage free wannabe......hold you horses:eek:
Being hopeful/realistic I am aiming to clear £35k of our debts with the pension release and savings (which works our at approx 60% F&Fs). I am hoping £11k is unenforceable (MBNA still looking for paperwork). So that would be £46k off our current debt total of £84.6k - which would bring it nicely down to £38.6k. This could be less if we are successful at negotiating some lower F&F settlements.

£38.6k repaid at our reduced DMP amount of approx £800 per month would be 4 years 3 months at the most (because we do have room to save for more F&Fs). So debt free date would reduce from the existing forecast of December 2023 to June 2020. I think if we seriously work at it, we could be debt free at by 2019 and with more F&Fs by end of 2018. Gosh even 2019 sounds so close :T

Of course this is all dependent on F&F percentages and MBNA being useless at finding Abbey Nats paperwork. I could never have imaged in January 2015 that I would go from £94k in debt to potentially £38.6k in just 14-15 months. All legally as well - I won't have had had to shoot any predators to get there

I know we're not quite there yet, but it does lift the spirits and motivate us to move forward. However, I need to keep reminding DH the MFW is not yet in sight.

When I began this journey, just over a year ago, I used to read diaries and general forum posts where people had massively reduced their debt free date, or indeed had become debt free much quicker through various reimbursements of PPI, payday loan stuff etc. etc. I thought that is never going to happen to me. If you had asked me just two months ago, I would have said the same. We haven't won the lottery, but it sure feels like it. A few bits of unexpected luck (which hasn't yet hit the bank so I am perhaps still counting chickens) will turn our lives around and massively reduce our DMP DFW date. I don't consider myself, us, my family - whatever to be lucky in things like this.We are lucky we are a very close, loving family and generally in good health - but if we are talking luck of the financial nature - then no, that's never been us. It blooming feels like it's our turn now and someone, somewhere has flicked a switched to start releasing that luck.

We don't need a lottery win (er.....someone, somewhere...I'm not saying no if you do want to flick that particular switch), but what we have just had drop into our laps is more than enough to make a massive change.

So to anyone reading this, on a DMP, in debt etc. etc. have hope - you never know what's around your corner:beer:

Brogden

January2015 wrote: »

Well it's been a funny month DMP wise. I usually log in to my diary and update the reducing debt total with glee. I haven't bothered this month.

It was reducing at between £900 and £1000 each month, but now we've gone self-managed it's reducing by £11 this month (token payments will have that effect). So I haven't bothered updating the totals. Same again next month as well.

I know this gives us the much needed emergency fund, although if I had known about the pension release I would have left the payments at the full monthly amount. However, now we've agreed token payments for two months that's all I am paying. The rest can go into the F&F fund.

So on the one hand I feel a bit deflated not to see the debt total reduce this month and on the other hand I feel delighted to know that we will soon be in a position to start offering F&Fs. The delight is definitely outweighing the deflation;)

I think DH is getting a bit ahead of himself with this debt busting malarky. We were talking about F&Fs and the impact of using the pension release money and he has started planning for moving to mortgage free wannabe......hold you horses:eek:
Being hopeful/realistic I am aiming to clear £35k of our debts with the pension release and savings (which works our at approx 60% F&Fs). I am hoping £11k is unenforceable (MBNA still looking for paperwork). So that would be £46k off our current debt total of £84.6k - which would bring it nicely down to £38.6k. This could be less if we are successful at negotiating some lower F&F settlements.

£38.6k repaid at our reduced DMP amount of approx £800 per month would be 4 years 3 months at the most (because we do have room to save for more F&Fs). So debt free date would reduce from the existing forecast of December 2023 to June 2020. I think if we seriously work at it, we could be debt free at by 2019 and with more F&Fs by end of 2018. Gosh even 2019 sounds so close :T

Of course this is all dependent on F&F percentages and MBNA being useless at finding Abbey Nats paperwork. I could never have imaged in January 2015 that I would go from £94k in debt to potentially £38.6k in just 14-15 months. All legally as well - I won't have had had to shoot any predators to get there

I know we're not quite there yet, but it does lift the spirits and motivate us to move forward. However, I need to keep reminding DH the MFW is not yet in sight.

When I began this journey, just over a year ago, I used to read diaries and general forum posts where people had massively reduced their debt free date, or indeed had become debt free much quicker through various reimbursements of PPI, payday loan stuff etc. etc. I thought that is never going to happen to me. If you had asked me just two months ago, I would have said the same. We haven't won the lottery, but it sure feels like it. A few bits of unexpected luck (which hasn't yet hit the bank so I am perhaps still counting chickens) will turn our lives around and massively reduce our DMP DFW date. I don't consider myself, us, my family - whatever to be lucky in things like this.We are lucky we are a very close, loving family and generally in good health - but if we are talking luck of the financial nature - then no, that's never been us. It blooming feels like it's our turn now and someone, somewhere has flicked a switched to start releasing that luck.

We don't need a lottery win (er.....someone, somewhere...I'm not saying no if you do want to flick that particular switch), but what we have just had drop into our laps is more than enough to make a massive change.

So to anyone reading this, on a DMP, in debt etc. etc. have hope - you never know what's around your corner:beer:

A second LBM Jan .

Now the predators are on 'token' payments they can easily stay on token payments for good as you save the difference in the F&F fund and every now and then to wipe out one, then another, then another

Your revised estimate of the DFD is pessimistic! It will be before then. To anybody reading January's post here, please think about this........you can either stick with the Step Change route where for ten years you can't afford your shopping OR you can be 'tactical.' This is like a military operation but God......does it get the result :T.

Thank you Field Commander January !!

January2015

Brogden wrote: »

A second LBM Jan .

Now the predators are on 'token' payments they can easily stay on token payments for good as you save the difference in the F&F fund and every now and then to wipe out one, then another, then another

Your revised estimate of the DFD is pessimistic! It will be before then. To anybody reading January's post here, please think about this........you can either stick with the Step Change route where for ten years you can't afford your shopping OR you can be 'tactical.' This is like a military operation but God......does it get the result :T.

Thank you Field Commander January !!

Yes the DFD is pessimistic - being optimistic I think early to mid 2018 (I've done the figures and it is achieveable). Earlier if F&Fs can be negotiated lower than 60% - can you see a theme here...I am working on the basis of 60% because that would be acceptable to me, but I'll start much lower and see where we end up.

And thank you Brodgen for the promotion....I was a lowly Private ranked DMPer until today.....does the post Field Commander come with any pay incentives:rotfl:

Seriously - best thing I ever did was move to self-managed. Second best thing was to start the DMP with SC. If I knew then what I know now I might have gone self-managed straight away but still think I needed that first year with SC to discipline DH and I.

Life is [STRIKE]good[/STRIKE] bloody fantastic:j

jodles16

Hey January, what an amazing journey you have been on! Fab news on the pension and getting the job! We are lovely over on MFW board if you ever fancy venturing over! Keep on keeping on with the debt busting!

Jodles

January2015

jodles16 wrote: »

Hey January, what an amazing journey you have been on! Fab news on the pension and getting the job! We are lovely over on MFW board if you ever fancy venturing over! Keep on keeping on with the debt busting!

Jodles

Thank you Jodles - as soon as I am at the point of moving from DFW to MFW I will definitely pop into the MFW forum

I know that we will just move our DMP payments straight to the mortgage and it will be awesome to see that reduce and finish earlier than the agreed end date.

:beer:

Puzzcat

Gosh January, I am having trouble keeping up with you at the moment.. your all busy making plans which I hope for you all come to fruition..:T

My 6 year plan looks a bit boring alongside yours, but I do like the quiet life and as I am doing this solo and don't want to upset any apple carts (OH knows about debt but not how much or dmp etc..) I shall just rock on like I am doing..

About as brave as I will be getting is sending snotty default me now letters to 2 of my creditors and I may CCA others a little further down the line.. best get my self managed dmp up and running first I think...!!

Good Luck with it all.
Love Puzz. x

January2015

Puzzcat wrote: »

Gosh January, I am having trouble keeping up with you at the moment.. your all busy making plans which I hope for you all come to fruition..:T

My 6 year plan looks a bit boring alongside yours, but I do like the quiet life and as I am doing this solo and don't want to upset any apple carts (OH knows about debt but not how much or dmp etc..) I shall just rock on like I am doing..

About as brave as I will be getting is sending snotty default me now letters to 2 of my creditors and I may CCA others a little further down the line.. best get my self managed dmp up and running first I think...!!

Good Luck with it all.
Love Puzz. x

Many thanks Puzz:beer:
I'm having trouble keeping up with me as well - to be honest it's events that have occurred unexpectedly that are making the changes and we are working those changes to beneficial for us.

As I said in my earlier post, we haven't won the lottery but for us it feels as good as if we had. I haven't felt this lucky in years.

January2015

Hello Diary

Well - I've had a lovely day. No work - just enjoyed a lovely day with relatives. No reason, just a nice get together. No work tomorrow or Monday either as have taken annual leave. No plans to do anything other than enjoy and relax.

It also gave me some time to do a bit of housework before we went out. Lovely to have it out of the way before the weekend - more 'me' time at the weekend.

On the DMP front, our first self-managed payments go out next week - because we set the payment date mid month to suit us. I haven't got payment information for a couple of the predators. I'm sure they will soon get their act together when they realise they haven't had a payment and will no doubt write me stroppy letters saying we missed payments etc. Well I have the recorded delivery proof of delivery to evidence I did write to them, but they couldn't be bothered to read the letters properly. They have accepted the offer, but didn't read the bit in the letter asking for standing order details so we can set up the payment. Hey ho....I'm sure it will all sort itself out soon.

I'm now off to manipulate my DFD forecast spreadsheet....sad that it makes me so happy:o

January2015

Well the pack came from the insurance company today. I wasn't far out in my estimate of what we will receive - it's approx £18.5k. Will depend on the value of the plan on DH's birthday, but that's the forecast. Add that to what we will have saved by making token payments for a couple of months and we will have £20k to start offering F&Fs. Seriously hoping to clear £35k plus with this (£40k plus would be much nicer, but I am trying to be realistic).
Of course all of this does rely on the predators playing nicely:)
Exciting times ahead in the January household.