DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

January2015

Hi Stormpassing

So sorry to hear your sad/bad news.

Don't worry too much - talk the financial issues through with SC. They can and will drop the payments. Even token payments of £1 per month to each creditor shows willing in extreme circumstances.

I hope you are all ok - I know the loss of a much loved pet hits families, especially children, hard. Look after yourself and your family. The creditors can, and will, have to wait a bit. You are doing your best -x-

Puzzcat

Stormpassing, so sorry to hear about your Puzzcat. Being a cat lover, you would never have guessed from my username! My cats are my children and I like you would do anything to keep them safe or make them better. Stuff the payments, pay what you can afford all will turn out okay. The creditors seem to have us scared pre dmp but now...we run the show.
Much love Puzz.x

Dizzig87

Thanks for everyone's help. Can I request lower monthly payments than have been suggested by step change? I did the online calculations and it suggested £1,100 but can I set that lower when I get the paperwork or is it all based on what I input and can't be changed? Just thinking a slightly lower payment per month may help us stash a bit of an emergency fund. We will be doing a token payment for January which will help us massively and will be able to put £1,000 in to the emergency pot straight away but building on that every month would be nice.

January2015

Dizzig87 wrote: »

Thanks for everyone's help. Can I request lower monthly payments than have been suggested by step change? I did the online calculations and it suggested £1,100 but can I set that lower when I get the paperwork or is it all based on what I input and can't be changed? Just thinking a slightly lower payment per month may help us stash a bit of an emergency fund. We will be doing a token payment for January which will help us massively and will be able to put £1,000 in to the emergency pot straight away but building on that every month would be nice.

You will need to adjust your budget so that your available funds for DMP payment come to less. You can't just change the DMP payment but you can revisit your expenditure figures and if they are higher than you originally calculated then it would mean a reduced amount available to pay to DMP

SC do have figures they seem to work to for what's 'reasonable' for each expenditure category. One example of a recent increase we had was £50 per month extra for car insurance because DH has 3 points speeding on his licence. The amount was high but once explained to SC they accepted it.

canuckinuk

Hi all. Ok so I rang Stepchange and the man I spoke to said the debt for tax credit overpayment could be added to the DMP. He said that when I was ready to have it added to call back.

I've done a bunch of research and what I think I have learned is that I've got plenty of time to deal with the tax credit issue. I have until March to submit a dispute. I will be doing this. I've found lots of guidance online about this process. Whilst this process is in place any collections process gets put on hold. There are also a couple of other things I can do such as request a hardship assessment and request for my mental health issues to be taken into consideration. Further down the line after exhausting all options if they still say I owe nearly 8000 then there are options under their 'time to pay' policies which means I can request up to 10 years to pay it back or if I can't afford that much I can request longer than 10 years in which case I'd have to provide income and expenditure details.

So I have decided to breathe and stop panicking. After Xmas I will go to the CAB or the like for advice about disputing the overpayment.

Eventually at some point I will start paying it off but for now I will take it one step at a time.

So glad I have this thread to come to during my debt related panic attacks!

Dizzig87

Great thanks for your help. Obviously I did the expenditure thing as a rough guide as it was really the first point of debt advice so I was after guidance and didn't expect it to be used to the £.. If that makes sense? What I filled in was fairly accurate but hopefully they will let me check it over before submitting. If not then such is life.
Everyone's guidance is so helpful.. Thank you!

Sazzie23

stormpassing wrote: »

Evening all well what a horrible week I've had. After putting our Christmas Tree up I took my 5 yr old DS out to see the Rotary Santa and after crossing the road heard my 9 month old cat meow behind us, he must have followed us out. As I turned to take him back home I noticed car headlights. Sadly there was nothing I could do and he bolted under the wheels of a truck. I saw him run away but he was dragging his back end. Due to the Christmas music playing from the Rotary Santa it took us 30 minutes just to find him deep in bushes in the front garden. A trip to the emergency vets and £222 later we're home with an empty cat basket

should I try to work overtime to make up some of the difference and struggle to pay for a couple of months in the hope DH finds work quickly or do a review with SC? Just when we were relaxing feeling like we were getting somewhere.

So sorry about little puss, you could contact SC anyway to say you need to reduce DMP due to emergency vets fee, and then explain about DH and see what they say. Probably reduce to tokens for next payment and then at least you won't be panicking over Xmas.

Don't know if DH is up for shop work, but there's a few temp vacancies advertised on our local high street.

Puzzcat wrote: »

This morning I rang Creation and they had received up to date information from sc 2 days ago..So all good and he also confirmed the interest is now frozen..:T I lost him when I started talking about defaulting the debt so will save that for my 2016 letter writing to do list!
So all 45k is now 0% 2 years into my dmp. I was only paying 2 creditors nominal interest, don't forget dmp'ers to always check your balances and update them online on your sc account.
Puzz.x

Good news Puzz, relief

canuckinuk wrote: »

Hi all. Ok so I rang Stepchange and the man I spoke to said the debt for tax credit overpayment could be added to the DMP. He said that when I was ready to have it added to call back.

I've done a bunch of research and what I think I have learned is that I've got plenty of time to deal with the tax credit issue. I have until March to submit a dispute. I will be doing this. I've found lots of guidance online about this process. Whilst this process is in place any collections process gets put on hold. There are also a couple of other things I can do such as request a hardship assessment and request for my mental health issues to be taken into consideration. Further down the line after exhausting all options if they still say I owe nearly 8000 then there are options under their 'time to pay' policies which means I can request up to 10 years to pay it back or if I can't afford that much I can request longer than 10 years in which case I'd have to provide income and expenditure details.

So I have decided to breathe and stop panicking. After Xmas I will go to the CAB or the like for advice about disputing the overpayment.

Eventually at some point I will start paying it off but for now I will take it one step at a time.

So glad I have this thread to come to during my debt related panic attacks!

Back under control again, and you did it all yourself. Your experience will be valuable for lots of others having similar issues, posting crisis messages are valuable.

Sazzie23

Dizzig87 wrote: »

Great thanks for your help. Obviously I did the expenditure thing as a rough guide as it was really the first point of debt advice so I was after guidance and didn't expect it to be used to the £.. If that makes sense? What I filled in was fairly accurate but hopefully they will let me check it over before submitting. If not then such is life.
Everyone's guidance is so helpful.. Thank you!

I think if you log on to the system it lets you change the figures.

Some people suggest slightly creative accounting to give them a buffer, eg. Max on Gas and electric, pets food when they only have a goldfish, dry cleaning bills for their work suits....etc etc, of course I couldn't suggest that myself, I'm only saying what some might suggest you could do:D

[Deleted User]

Sazzie23 wrote: »

I think if you log on to the system it lets you change the figures.

Some people suggest slightly creative accounting to give them a buffer, eg. Max on Gas and electric, pets food when they only have a goldfish, dry cleaning bills for their work suits....etc etc, of course I couldn't suggest that myself, I'm only saying what some might suggest you could do:D

I think I may have to do that myself, Sazzie:o

I left myself absolutely no room for manoeuvre with my budget, even the slightest emergency throws me out of kilter:o, but I was so desperate to become DF as soon as possible that I didn't really think how hard day-to-day life might be for so many years to come.

When I do my review they'll think I've suddenly started living a champagne lifestyle when several of my catagories suddenly need more money;)

Ellieseleven

carbootcrazy wrote: »

I left myself absolutely no room for manoeuvre with my budget, even the slightest emergency throws me out of kilter:o, but I was so desperate to become DF as soon as possible that I didn't really think how hard day-to-day life might be for so many years to come.

When I do my review they'll think I've suddenly started living a champagne lifestyle when several of my catagories suddenly need more money;)

I think it's important CBC to be able to have a few treats when you are on a DMP especially when you are in it for the long haul. I probably could have paid off my debt sooner if I had really cut everything to the bone but decided to have as normal a life as possible.


I have managed to shave off over 4 years from my original DFD so things do change along the way. I do feel impatient now though to finish my DMP but I'm trying to resist the temptation to throw everything at the debt at this stage. I've decided to keep on the way I have for the last 5 or so years and put any extra money away in the hope that I can finish my DMP by this time 2016;)



Ellie xx