DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

Brogden

Helpme34 wrote: »

Hi

I'm new to the forum and wonder if anyone could provide a little help.

We've been in a DMP since Aug 2012. Our review is coming up next week as OH has changed his job and we wanted to increase the payments we are making by another £20pm. His salary has increased considerably but so have our expenses as daughter has turned 16 and son in secondary school.

OH is not part of the company pension scheme and as we are in our early 40's, getting a little worried about no pension provision being in place!
Would payplan/creditors allow us to put away cash in a savings account for pension purposes or would this not be allowed?

Any help would be great

I have listed 'pension contributions' on my I&E statement to predators and never once had them questioned. I would be very surprised if Payplan should object.

Make sure you do get the money into a pension plan each tax year though to get the 'tax refief/boost' providing you have enough disposable funds to get by on. The pension savings cannot be accessed until currently age 55 though the age will rise to 57 in 2028.

Helpme34

Thank you Brogden and Sazzie...any restrictions on amount? Would £250 be extravagant?

Cheers Parv

Brogden

Helpme34 wrote: »

Thank you Brogden and Sazzie...any restrictions on amount? Would £250 be extravagant?

Cheers Parv

You can get tax relief on contributions each year up to the amount of your earnings. Probably need something to live on now though....:rotfl:!!

£250 x 12 = £3,000. The tax relief will be added so that's £3,750 in the pot. You can't knock that!

Even if you don't have earnings you can pay £2,880 each year and that's £3,600 in the pot after the tax relief is added in

Go for it and tell PayPlan what you are doing and why like you told us.

Bouncybubbles

Can someone please come to my house and slap me!!! despite starting my DMP and being really pleased to be facing my debt at last I am still being stupid with money :eek: I now have an extra £150/month due to DMP which enables us to buy food, petrol etc and save around £15/month for EF. I had been budgeting, planning shopping online, getting vouchers etc and reduced our food shop from £100/week (until we ran out of money on week 2!) to £30/week! So what did I end up doing this month when I got paid, didn't end up planning the shopping as am a bit stressed due to uni work and family issues etc and I spent £90 on utter rubbish that didn't give us enough for more than 5 days! Then due to my phone going kaput and needing a phone for work/uni purposes I thought hmmm I have got spare cash (never mind the essentials!) and bought a phone for £150! I am so disgusted with myself as now to buy food/ pay the essential bills I have had to almost empty my EF! Its no wonder I got in to so much debt over the years :mad:

Bouncybubbles

Also just to add i have received my final gas and electric bill from my previous supplier only to discover it is over £500!! Mad is an understatement whilst I understand I must have used it, it transpires that despite them upping my DD in January to £169 from £65(brilliant just after xmas) to pay for arrears I didn't know I had and not telling me, they were not actually taking out money for my current usage so the final bill has built up over all that time and then lands in my email like a big red bomb! so inevitably due to my financial issues I have now had to add that on to my dmp when will it ever end!

FunBrum

Bouncybubbles wrote: »

Can someone please come to my house and slap me!!! despite starting my DMP and being really pleased to be facing my debt at last I am still being stupid with money :eek: I now have an extra £150/month due to DMP which enables us to buy food, petrol etc and save around £15/month for EF. I had been budgeting, planning shopping online, getting vouchers etc and reduced our food shop from £100/week (until we ran out of money on week 2!) to £30/week! So what did I end up doing this month when I got paid, didn't end up planning the shopping as am a bit stressed due to uni work and family issues etc and I spent £90 on utter rubbish that didn't give us enough for more than 5 days! Then due to my phone going kaput and needing a phone for work/uni purposes I thought hmmm I have got spare cash (never mind the essentials!) and bought a phone for £150! I am so disgusted with myself as now to buy food/ pay the essential bills I have had to almost empty my EF! Its no wonder I got in to so much debt over the years :mad:

Ok BB consider yourself well and truly slapped!!:D
What I've been doing for the last 2 months is using the 'envelope system' , and it has helped me no end, to control my spending and makes sure I only spend in each category, the money that is in that envelope.
Take a look on YouTube, to see the different takes on the system, and see which one works for you. You can set up a 'virtual' envelope system if you prefer not o keep cash in the house.
It works for me, and im saving money like never before. I think for me, it is a great budget system.

Scaredofdebt_2

Sazzie23 wrote: »

Hi

I passed the Virgin mobile credit check for a contract but I am an existing customer so may not have been so strict, my credit rating is listed as 522 at the moment with noddle.


Hope this helps.

If necessary talk to someone before submitting in line as you might fall fowl of too many credit checks. Or consider a pay as you sim for now?

Thanks Sazzie, we ended up getting a sim only deal with BT who we have broadband and our TV with already so was fine. Got quite a good deal in the end so was probably better

Puzzcat

Bouncybubbles wrote: »

Can someone please come to my house and slap me!!! despite starting my DMP and being really pleased to be facing my debt at last I am still being stupid with money :eek: I now have an extra £150/month due to DMP which enables us to buy food, petrol etc and save around £15/month for EF. I had been budgeting, planning shopping online, getting vouchers etc and reduced our food shop from £100/week (until we ran out of money on week 2!) to £30/week! So what did I end up doing this month when I got paid, didn't end up planning the shopping as am a bit stressed due to uni work and family issues etc and I spent £90 on utter rubbish that didn't give us enough for more than 5 days! Then due to my phone going kaput and needing a phone for work/uni purposes I thought hmmm I have got spare cash (never mind the essentials!) and bought a phone for £150! I am so disgusted with myself as now to buy food/ pay the essential bills I have had to almost empty my EF! Its no wonder I got in to so much debt over the years :mad:

Hi BB,

Consider yourself slapped...! And now we move on...

I do both physical and online envelopes.. Each week I split cash into different 'plastic wallets' grocery, fuel, sundries etc.. and then just use that. no cheating with the debit card... I also do online when I get paid and have pots for Christmas, birthdays, car, etc... This budgeting thing does take awhile to get used to but eventually when you do get some spare money you find you just don't actually want to spend it...!

Puzz. x

AnnM48

Hi,
Iv'e been on my DMP with stepchange for 3 years now and have always completed my review online. I tried to do it today, nothing much has changed, salary up £20 but very quickly absorbed ino other bills which have gone up. this time it prompted me to call them. When I did call the advisor said she needed to book me in for a call as because my DMP is not going to end for anothre 10 years they need to check its still the best option for me.

When we started it I was told it was a low start up plan as I have two HP payments we are still making, our car finishes next year and our caravan, another 4 years, so after this we can pay more.
I'm panicking a bit now as I don't know what other options there can possibly be?

I did consider selling the caravan at the beginning of my plan, but got some advice here and basically its our holiday, we can't afford to do anything else. I was also advised as I'd paid over half I could include it into my DMP... but I wasn't sure about that either!

Does anyone know what they could possibly be suggesting?

[Deleted User]

Bouncybubbles, sorry the wheels have come off but well done for coming on here and confessing:T

I see from your signature that this is just the very first month of your DMP. The hiccups are probably less serious than they might have been had you been well into the DMP and had fallen off the wagon then. A DMP is a brilliant way of dealing with debts in a manageable manner but it's probably totally at odds with the way you managed things before. It can take some getting used to. After all, probably most of us got into debt in the first place through poor spending habits:o


So don't beat yourself up too much about it and just try to take onboard the lesson that you've probably already learned. After all, we DMPers can only spend the money we actually have with no access to credit. If we overspend in one area we'll leave ourselves short in another. It's as simple as that. I speak from some experience here_pale_



Some posters have offered valuable budgeting advice. Use/adapt these or have a good look around the web and try to find something that will work for you. Good luck:beer: