DMP Mutual Support Thread - Part 12

kram

Red_Athena wrote: »

Had my confirmation from StepChange today, first payment in October as I specified The debt amounts on the sheet they sent me are slightly wrong - I underestimated when I first went through the debt tool . Is it just a case of logging in when I have my password and changing the amounts? Or should I contact them? I did send updated balances with my dd form but they don’t seem to have noticed!

You could send them an email highlighting the bits that are wrong.

I hope you get it sorted.

danibee2k

sourcrates wrote: »

Hi,


Your "on paper budget", is just for information purposes.


How you actually distribute your income/expenditure is entirely up to you.

Thank you! I think i'm overthinking things, I just need to sit down and put it all down and go from there!

jools1985

I phoned Step Change this morning to start the ball rolling. I've cancelled my Direct Debits, but still have to do the frightening part - contact the creditors and tell them I need to reduce payments due to a DMP. All a bit scary but I know from reading this thread that it's the right thing for me. - Still scared though!

lulabelle01

I’ve been lurking and reading information on here for the last few days so decided to bite the bullet today and join.

After having a panic earlier this week after a letter from mbna saying my minimum payments would be going up by over £100 a month I figured now is the time I need to sort my debts out.

I have 3 credit cards totalling around about £15,000, no savings and literally living payday to payday (thank god I get paid weekly) I have filled out the forms on step change and they’re advising me to start a dmp. I have so many questions after reading some of the info on here.

I decided earlier to open a clean bank account then panicked when i saw they needed to know what comes in each month and what goes out (it all goes out and then some!). I bottled it and stuck my head in the sand again. Can they reject my bank account request based on this?

How much of an emergency fund did everyone build up? There’s currently a buffer of £100 in my bank account at the moment.

Do I literally stop paying my credit card bills as soon as I apply to step change to send me the forms to go ahead with the dmp with them? I’m finding this step confusing and daunting as I have never missed a payment.

Sorry for the rambling post but could anyone help?

Suseka97

danibee2k wrote: »

Thank you,
We both need to do this so makes sense that we just split everything in half I think.

To look at this another way - if you are 'both going to do this' - why not just do one I&E which captures both incomes and household expenditure. That will give you your total 'disposable income' (and you can determine what that looks like in terms of affordability - meaning, don't leave yourself short). You then just use the NEDCAB website to work out the %/£s allocation to each creditor. That said - I guess it does depend on whether your individual debts are around the same in total value, if that's of concern.

Just a thought.

DancingUnicorn

Hi all,
I've been on my DMP journey with SC since March (having previously been on a TPP for around 6 months). But, I'm currently considering going self-managed! I'm not really sure where to start with doing this, other than the NEDCAB website. I'm hoping that by having a little more control over what I pay towards each debt, I can use the snowballing method and start ticking off some of the debts.
If anyone has any advice for breaking away from SC it would be gratefully received!
Thanks

sourcrates

lulabelle01 wrote: »

I’ve been lurking and reading information on here for the last few days so decided to bite the bullet today and join.

After having a panic earlier this week after a letter from mbna saying my minimum payments would be going up by over £100 a month I figured now is the time I need to sort my debts out.

I have 3 credit cards totalling around about £15,000, no savings and literally living payday to payday (thank god I get paid weekly) I have filled out the forms on step change and they’re advising me to start a dmp. I have so many questions after reading some of the info on here.

I decided earlier to open a clean bank account then panicked when i saw they needed to know what comes in each month and what goes out (it all goes out and then some!). I bottled it and stuck my head in the sand again. Can they reject my bank account request based on this?

How much of an emergency fund did everyone build up? There’s currently a buffer of £100 in my bank account at the moment.

Do I literally stop paying my credit card bills as soon as I apply to step change to send me the forms to go ahead with the dmp with them? I’m finding this step confusing and daunting as I have never missed a payment.

Sorry for the rambling post but could anyone help?

Hi,


I think a lot of your questions have already been answered on other threads, but to clarify the important points, yes, you literally just stop paying, (what else would you do ?) i remember the feeling well when it was me in your shoes, perfect credit record for decades, circumstances changed, and i had to change with them.


Thankfully creditors are a lot more compliant these days after FCA intervention, about how they treat people in debt, there is absolutely nothing you need to worry about, this is a well beaten track trod by many in similar circumstances to yourself, you just have to learn to look at things in a different way.


Expect letters and phone calls, all can be ignored, as they are computer generated, and get triggered by your non payment, they will dry up as word of your DMP filters through the creditors systems, you must write to each creditor and inform them of your circumstances, do not expect stepchange to do everything, you need to be pro-active in this as well.


Once you have written to each creditor, you automatically get at least 30 days with no collection activity, its called breathing space, and in reality, you can take much longer, as long as you write and tell the creditor what you are doing.


I know you will have many more questions, ask away on here as much as you like.

kram

DancingUnicorn wrote: »

Hi all,
I've been on my DMP journey with SC since March (having previously been on a TPP for around 6 months). But, I'm currently considering going self-managed! I'm not really sure where to start with doing this, other than the NEDCAB website. I'm hoping that by having a little more control over what I pay towards each debt, I can use the snowballing method and start ticking off some of the debts.
If anyone has any advice for breaking away from SC it would be gratefully received!
Thanks

Hi DancingUnicorn

Worth looking at this post from Suseka97:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/74671408#Comment_74671408

Good luck

K

booksandbacon

Happy Sunday DMP Squad!

I am self-managing my DMP - token repayments set up for six months while I gather up an emergency fund, most have accepted and stopped interest/charges and the ones that haven't (yet) I'm happy enough battling it out with. All fine and dandy.

I've also so far received two default notices - these are on two of my smaller debts (£280 and £550 respectively). At first I thought 'hurrah' as that is two less letters I need to send out to formally request defaults.

HOWEVER - initially I thought I would be on a DMP long-term, but now I'm wondering if I knuckle down and clear it faster, is it still worth trying for defaults? Is it easier to get a reduced F+F on a defaulted account?

B&B

Willing2Learn

booksandbacon wrote: »

...HOWEVER - initially I thought I would be on a DMP long-term, but now I'm wondering if I knuckle down and clear it faster, is it still worth trying for defaults? Is it easier to get a reduced F+F on a defaulted account?

You ideally want defaults on all the debts, with the default date marked at when you were in 3-6 months of arrears. That way, the defaults drop off six years from the date of default. Otherwise, the bad debts will drop off your file six years from the date the account was settled, satisfied or partially settled. Defaults are better (as long as they are dated correctly).