DMP Mutual Support Thread - Part 12

EmergencyNurse

NewbieNat wrote: »

Thank you EmergencyNurse. It's now filed away in my shiny new briefcase-type filing system. It reminds me of the ones that bankers carry :rotfl:

Hi NewbieNat, do you feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders? I do. Its like i'm debt free already!!

NewbieNat

EmergencyNurse wrote: »

Hi NewbieNat, do you feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders? I do. Its like i'm debt free already!!

Hi, yes I do feel that way already too I started to relax a little when my new bank account was set up and my wages were paid in. I trust my payroll chappie implicitly,but had to see it with my own eyes :j

Onebrokelady

AnnM48 wrote: »

Hi,
I havent posted here in a long time, but read it regularly for advice and reassurance. Ive been on my plan now for 4 years, started as a low start plan as I could only pay £100 per month on my dmp... but still havent been able to increase my payments, and feel like Im never going to get my debt paid off!! I still really struggle every month and regularly wonder if Im doing something wrong with my money. Everyone around seems to be moving house, buying new cars, jetting off on holiday... and I can just about pay my dds each month and feed the family!!

I work part time and earn just over £15k and my husband earns over £22k, so I have never felt that we have a really low income... (I know we arentt about to hit any millionaires club soon!) but at the same time struggle to see how so many people can do so much more with their money... which is why I sometimes feel like Ive got it all wrong somewhere.

On the plus side, although we have struggled each month, we do manage to just get by with no further debt, which is good. But that is with no car changes, no decorating to the house, no holidays etc etc and complete panic if the fridge stops working as we never seem to get an emergency fund built up!

Sometimes I wander if we should have just sold our house at the beginning before starting a dmp and started from scratch?
So many things I suppose in hindsight I could have done to prevent myself getting into the mess in the first place!
If anyone has any advice on how to better manage finances.. Id appreciate the help!

If you look closely you would probably find that most of the people who seem to be buying new cars and going on holiday are using credit and are in debt,obviously some people manage to save for these things but since I've been in debt I've been surprised by how many people who I thought were well off admit to being in debt and using credit
I came here and set up a debt free diary to keep track of my money,I posted an SOA to see where I could cut the budget,I have a DMP with Stepchange and I made sure at the beginning that my budget was realistic,I think if you are struggling maybe you need to keep a spending diary so you can track where your money is going the contact Stepchange with a revised budget
I managed to start an emergency fund because I stopped paying my creditors for a month before I started my DMP and I'm lucky enough to have someone living with me temporarily who is paying me a small amount of rent so that's going into my emergancy fund,you could contact your creditors and tell them you are paying token payments for a few months and then save up an emergency fund,I'm not very experienced in money advice but these are the things I have tried and it's working well for me,I'm on £17,520 a year and my DMP payments are £134 a month, my debt is £17,128 at the moment so I'm not sure if your situation is similar to mine,good luck with it all and I hope you manage to sort things out

Onebrokelady

NewbieNat wrote: »

Hi, yes I do feel that way already too I started to relax a little when my new bank account was set up and my wages were paid in. I trust my payroll chappie implicitly,but had to see it with my own eyes :j

Im glad it's not just me,I phoned my payroll dept to make sure the bank had been changed and they assured me it had but I still worried until the day my wages went in :rotfl:

Dandytf

I've decided to stay part time permanently since I had been considering returning to full time past few weeks.
Thinking over new strategy for last few SC dmp years.
Rather than increase SC payments from 80 per month
I've since opened a helptosave account 50 per month
Only then a few extra pounds to find over 24 months
Thinking it could be possible to attempt clearing 4600 in 24 months
Things change though and I'm certain financial challenges could continue meanwhile.
The part payment advice if I try making reduced offers-still think this could make my credit rating poorer for more years -unless anyone can prove my thinking is wrong,
status is a few defaults-1st of which since of my report a few weeks ago
2-3 to drop off next year
1 or2 until 2020 or 21.
Is going the part payment offers going to add new part payment info for another 6 years -surely that's going to be more negative rating info.

[Deleted User]

NewbieNat wrote: »

I have just received a termination notice from Barclays regarding my overdraft. they are demanding immediate payment, but say fees are 0% daily. I assume this is a standard letter? They haven't said if they accept my DMP starting 1st May. Do I need to do anything?

Nat

I had a strange situation with my overdraft with Lloyds. It was only small (£300) but I included it in my SC DMP along with the £15000 credit card debt I owed them. They were very good and froze interest on the credit card straight away(although very late to default it:mad:) but they didn't do the same for the OD. In fact, unlike all my other creditors, they didn't close the current account that the OD was attached to. I think I'm pleased about that as it's a full account not a basic one and is still available for my use if necessary. I deposited enough to give a zero balance as soon as I was able so that solved the problem. I was too scared to write and ask them to stop interest prior to achieving a zero balance as I really wanted to keep that account available for future use. I was worried about rocking the boat. I haven't dared to put any other money in it since starting my DMP in 2013 though because of potential offset of funds against the CC balance. I'm perfectly happy with my Nationwide basic account for now:j

AnnM48

Thank you Onebrokelady
At the risk of sounding daft... what is an SOA?
I will certainly take some of the points you made and try to track things better. I do try to every month, but it always goes pear shaped!!
I am usually good at not getting too caught up with what others are doing around me... but every now and again I have a bit of a wobble... hold my hands up in despair that I just can never manage to get on top of my finances!...and it’s good to get some reassurance!!
Thanks!!

BeingDebtFreeStartsHere

Good evening everyone,

Our DMP has 10 years to run and our mortgage is with The One Account on an SVR at 4.5% :eek:

I am assuming it is highly unlikely that we would be able to get a remortgage deal with another company at a lower interest rate but thought I would just ask on here to make sure.

Thanks in advance

BDFSH x

[Deleted User]

Mortgaging/remortgaging must be a nightmare these days:eek:.

When OH and I were young (I can just about remember that far back:rotfl:) it was standard to obtain a mortgage from a lender for the full 25 year term that most of them were set at. Made life a lot easier and there was still the opportunity to repay the balance earlier than 25 years which is, thankfully, what we did. There wasn't the same problem getting onto the property ladder in those days as house-prices hadn't gone crazy by then. People tended to buy their first home in their 20s:j

January2015

BeingDebtFreeStartsHere wrote: »

Good evening everyone,

Our DMP has 10 years to run and our mortgage is with The One Account on an SVR at 4.5% :eek:

I am assuming it is highly unlikely that we would be able to get a remortgage deal with another company at a lower interest rate but thought I would just ask on here to make sure.

Thanks in advance

BDFSH x

We have a One Account mortage. Our 'deal' ended in 2010 and since then we have 'tracked the base rate'. At 1% over the base rate this has been awesome for us... so far.... as base rate was between 0.25% and 0.50% for most of the time since 2010. I guess we will have to 'watch' this space and see what happens.

Anyway - I think you can approach your lender and ask for one of their mortgage deals. I think, from reading other posts, that even if you are on a DMP they will usually be okay with this as they are not lending more money, and therefore there are no underwriting considerations to be made :T