What a mess...

natsplatnat

stvn1 wrote: »

I've just been working out that with £3690 left and a plan to repay £200 a month that I'll be debt free in 18 months. :eek:

Now, can I make that 12 months or less?

What I have done in the past to pay things off quicker is take the monthly repayment amount and challenge myself to raise that as many times over as possible. In your case, each additional £200 is 1 month off your end date!!


good luck on bringing your DF date forward!

NelliePie

Congratulations! You are a lesson in perseverance. You seem to have come so far, you're tackling it head on, making huge progress and changing behaviors to keep you out of debt - the moderate expenditure on the phone is proof. Don't let it slip, it's hard work but will start to come more naturally ad you won't even need to think about being MSE anymore. Well done

stvn1

natsplatnat wrote: »

What I have done in the past to pay things off quicker is take the monthly repayment amount and challenge myself to raise that as many times over as possible. In your case, each additional £200 is 1 month of your end date!!


good luck on bringing your DF date forward!

I like this idea a lot! Thank you.

stvn1

NelliePie wrote: »

Congratulations! You are a lesson in perseverance. You seem to have come so far, you're tackling it head on, making huge progress and changing behaviors to keep you out of debt - the moderate expenditure on the phone is proof. Don't let it slip, it's hard work but will start to come more naturally ad you won't even need to think about being MSE anymore. Well done

Thank you. That means a lot.

stvn1

Back when I first started this I contacted Cabot to negotiate a settlement, I then didn't follow up on it because I was focusing on other debts. Now that I've got rid of a few I thought I'd call Cabot to deal with this and get a plan in place.

The original debt was £1327.32 but today I agreed to 36 payments of £25.81 for a reduced settlement amount of £929.12. I made the first payment as well. So I'll just let the direct debit come out on 1st of each month while I focus on clearing smaller debts for now.

joeyjimbles

Well done. You're doing so well.
I second natsplat's suggestion of raising addition £x sums equal to your regular payment. There's also a variant where you challenge yourself to raise/save percentage points of it too. It works very well as a demotivator tool - so if your regular payment is £200 then £2 is 1% so each £2 feels meaningful.

stvn1

joeyjimbles wrote: »

Well done. You're doing so well.
I second natsplat's suggestion of raising addition £x sums equal to your regular payment. There's also a variant where you challenge yourself to raise/save percentage points of it too. It works very well as a demotivator tool - so if your regular payment is £200 then £2 is 1% so each £2 feels meaningful.

Thanks. It's definitely something I will consider. The problem is that I'm unsure where the extra will come from. Maybe it's time for another clearout.

stvn1

Following the success of my affordable lending complaint which led to the debt being written off and the records removed from my credit file (see post 125) I've now made three more similar complaints. These are for accounts that have been paid off.

To be honest I was a bit skeptical when I found out that complaints like this could be made but the proof of the pudding as they say...

If the complaints are successful I'll put any refund into existing debt, it's got to be worth a go.

I struggled a little with the morality of making complaints like this, I fully accept that I got myself into this situation, but the complaints system is there for a reason and I'm taking the success of my first complaint as a sign that the lending company should maybe have considered my circumstances a bit more and declined the loan. I'll see what happens.

enthusiasticsaver

Fantastic news re the SLL debt being written off. Good luck with the others. As you say some may feel this is contentious but lending complaints are worth trying. Obviously they must feel in some way they should never have lent to you in the first place. Grey area but desperate people don't always think thing through and lenders take advantage of this.

stvn1

enthusiasticsaver wrote: »

Fantastic news re the SLL debt being written off. Good luck with the others. As you say some may feel this is contentious but lending complaints are worth trying. Obviously they must feel in some way they should never have lent to you in the first place. Grey area but desperate people don't always think thing through and lenders take advantage of this.

I was unsure about whether or not to even post it here, I thought I might get flamed. I do think it's worth a try though, these businesses are very profitable and sometimes it's nice when the little guy wins.