DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

Puzzcat

January2015 wrote: »

Hi everyone

Wescot have picked up management of one of our debts and are chasing me for an I&E statement. They will have to wait a while I sent the I&E to the original creditor and they accepted it so Wescot can whistle.

I am planning to send an annual I&E to all our creditors / DCAs in the next month or so anyway. It should be now, but life has interrupted so they will have to wait a bit.

Wescot have sent me their template - no can do. They'll have the version I have set up (from NEDCAB).

Apart from all that, January household DMP trickling along nicely.

Hi January,
I have a couple of debts being managed by Wescot and I originally set up paying them direct. I then changed back to paying the original creditor as they were so slow at paying the money across! I also only use the nedcab I&e, anyone else's goes in the bin...
Love Puzz

January2015

It's very quiet on here this week

Not DMP related, but does help with my budget. I just phoned my broadband/TV/phone provider and after advising I was leaving to go elsewhere because of price they reduced what I pay them so I am staying with them. Saving of over £20 p/mth with the price fixed for 18 months.

Whilst I'm pleased to be saving, I am so cross I had to phone to get a better price for the same package. Anyway, the upshot is the new price with existing provider is cheaper than the package I was looking at transferring to.

That's another £20 p/mth into the savings pot

zenshi

May I ask who you're with Jan? That's on my to do list this week

January2015

zenshi wrote: »

May I ask who you're with Jan? That's on my to do list this week

I'm with Virginmedia :beer:

sourcrates

January2015 wrote: »

It's very quiet on here this week

Oh I dare say there will an upshot of new recruits introducing themselves in the next few days and weeks Jan !!!

Once the Christmas bills have sunk in.

BeingDebtFreeStartsHere

Hi all,

Just a quick update from me.

Phoned SC and asked for 2 months' reduced payments - paying each creditor a £5 token payment for those 2 months. This will allow us to pay the car repairs, school residentials and put a bit back into our emergency fund

I plan to phone SC early March once the March DD has gone out to do a full budget review and maybe lower the regular monthly DD from April onwards. I will take off my overtime and calculate it on a basic month's wage.

I am going to send a courtesy email to the creditors to inform them of the temporary reduction in repayments and that normal payments will resume in April.

Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who posted advice and support - I really appreciate the time you all took to respond to my dilemmas Love love love this forum!!

Take care,

BDFSH x

January2015

sourcrates wrote: »

Oh I dare say there will an upshot of new recruits introducing themselves in the next few days and weeks Jan !!!

Once the Christmas bills have sunk in.

I expect you're right Sourcrates

Despite having almost £70k of debt left, I feel quite smug that we have probably had the best Christmas ever as a family and it was all paid for with planned savings. I owe Ellieseleven a huge thank you for organising the "Saving for Xmas 2016 - A pound a day challenge". I managed to save an average fo £2 per day and guilt free Christmas shopping is an amazing feeling

However, I do know very well the feeling of dread after Christmas and waiting for those dreaded bills and card statements to drop in. My username of January2015 is a dead giveaway of when those feelings hit me hardest and I joined this forum with a whopping £95k of unsecured debt:eek: For any new members just joining - I've never looked back. The support and advice on here is second to none. These people have been through, or are currently going through, the process of clearing debts. Stuff what the banks, card companies, pay day lenders say are the rules. You will be amazed at how often they don't quite get it right, don't know their @rse from their elbow. The fantastic people on this forum have been there, learnt from experience and share those experiences with others.

I've got a long way to go to clear my debts (well mine and hubby's) but I honestly do not worry about debts anymore. I do fret about savings - which has never happened before. I try to squirrel away every spare penny. The debts are being paid at a rate we can afford and we will get there eventually. We will use every trick in the book to reduce those debts where we can, e.g.

• challenging enforceability (1 of our debts has proved unenforceable)
• challenging interest and charges - we've had literally hundreds of pounds refunded to our account, which all helps reduce the balance owed to creditor
• saving for, and negotiating, partial settlements of debts - meaning to pay a reduced amount to close the account with no ongoing liability from any lenders or debt collection agencies

When I first started this journey, I felt guilty at not paying the required installments, I felt guilty at delaying the start of my DMP - in fact I just felt guilty and useless. Two years into our journey I feel empowered. We are clearing the debts and we set the amount we can afford to pay - we do not allow the creditors to dictate what we should pay.

I've said it before and I'll keep shouting it from the rooftops. I love my DMP. My marriage has always been strong, but facing, and dealing with our debts together has made us far happier knowing we are both working towards clearing our debts and working together to save for anything we need rather than just pulling out another piece of plastic and using borrowed money.

In fact, I have only one regret....and that's is that I didn't find the DFW forum earlier - but better late than never as the saying goes :beer:

January2015

BeingDebtFreeStartsHere wrote: »

Hi all,

Just a quick update from me.

Phoned SC and asked for 2 months' reduced payments - paying each creditor a £5 token payment for those 2 months. This will allow us to pay the car repairs, school residentials and put a bit back into our emergency fund

I plan to phone SC early March once the March DD has gone out to do a full budget review and maybe lower the regular monthly DD from April onwards. I will take off my overtime and calculate it on a basic month's wage.

I am going to send a courtesy email to the creditors to inform them of the temporary reduction in repayments and that normal payments will resume in April.

Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who posted advice and support - I really appreciate the time you all took to respond to my dilemmas Love love love this forum!!

Take care,

BDFSH x

Well done BDFSH :j
Have a good couple of months and hopefully get back on track in March - but if life continues to be a nuisance and interrupt, just extend the token payment thing. You may be in debt, but you deserve to have a happy and worry free life.

I totally echo your words....fantastic advice and support always on this forum, and I also love, love, love this forum.:j

alianza

One of ny debts us a joint bank account overdraft going back to my divorce. I am paying £15 a month..I know its joint liability but i fear i am the only one paying this. If i ask them how much she has paid or have you even contacted her or are you harassing her as much as you are harassing me if not why not then they just hide behind data protection rules. Just seems unfair as she clearly is able to help as she just bought a new car last week. Is there any way to find out if they have even made an effort to contact her and get her to pay a fair share.

January2015

alianza wrote: »

One of ny debts us a joint bank account overdraft going back to my divorce. I am paying £15 a month..I know its joint liability but i fear i am the only one paying this. If i ask them how much she has paid or have you even contacted her or are you harassing her as much as you are harassing me if not why not then they just hide behind data protection rules. Just seems unfair as she clearly is able to help as she just bought a new car last week. Is there any way to find out if they have even made an effort to contact her and get her to pay a fair share.

In law you both have joint and several liability - this means you are both jointly liable, but also that each of you as individuals are liable for the full amount, for example should one partner fail to pay their share. Therefore the bank will take the money from whichever one of you is willing to pay. For example if you manage to clear half of the debt with your £15 p/mth payment, even though you think you've cleared your half of the debt, you do technically still owe, and will be liable for, the remaining balance.

Unfair as it seems, they are not hiding behind data protection rules - they have to abide by them and they cannot disclose any information relating to your ex and their communications with them.