A wee bit of DMP advice :)

havecourageandbekind

Hello,
I’m more of a lurker on these boards but thought I’d pop up a quick post to see what others would do in my situation

I’ve been on a DMP with Stepchange since the beginning of the year and I’m due an annual review towards the end of February. A few months ago I found out I was pregnant, but unfortunately I can’t afford to move to a bigger place due to my debt, so I’m planning to stay in my 1 bed flat for the moment. My flat isn’t in the greatest of conditions, it has damp and I’ve been saving since May to get this fixed along with getting central heating (I just have convector heaters at the moment). I was plodding along with my savings, but with the baby due in June it’s obviously more urgent to get things fixed as I don’t want its health to suffer. I estimate I’ve probably saved about half of what I need to get things done, but I will be arranging for some quotes this month.

Anyway I was thinking of phoning up Stepchange and asking to bring down my payments to £1 (currently £188) a month for Feb, Mar, Apr and May so I could put the remaining money aside to fix the house. Then in June, I’d redo my income and expenditure, calculating the extra cost of having the baby into there.

Does this sound like a good plan or should I stick to my current monthly arrangement and hope enough overtime becomes available at my work to save a bit more? Two of my three creditors have already defaulted me, the other marks my payments as late so I’m really not worried about my already terrible credit score!

Thanks in advance.

KID77

Hello!

I am only 6 months into my DMP and don't have any experience of reducing payments but I have read so many posts on this forum so thought I would try and help.

I would call or email Stepchange and say you want to reduce the payment to £1 per creditor for the next few months as you and your baby's health is much more important. Explain situation to Stepchange so they understand why and I personally would probably write to all my creditors to explain also just incase SC don't pass the reason on.

Once you have done your repairs then work out a new budget but just ensure you make it managable. Although you want to pay the debt back asap, babies are expensive so make sure you both have enough to live on and if any left over, save for future settlements. From what I have read, once you are no longer making minimum repayments then it doesn't matter whether you pay £100 per month or £10, you have defaulted and as long as you can show thats all you can afford then likely it will be accepted.

Good luck xxx

National_Debtline

Hi

Fixing the damp and getting proper central heating is essential in your situation so I agree with KID77 that a temporary reduction to token payments is the best idea. It would be risky to depend on overtime which isn’t guaranteed. I don’t think it will be an issue if you discuss your situation with Stepchange.

James
@natdebtline