The long haul supporters thread...

babyplum

chops22 wrote: »

Hi Baby Plumb, have you looked into chidcare vouchers? I saved a fair bit on tax using these.

Yes, i have and am able to get them through my work which is fab! :T

climbintheladderouttadebt

Good morning all! How is everyone?
Great news on the childcare vouchers Babyplum!
Hi Debtfreemission! Sounds like you'll get a lot from MSE and the various threads, look forward to hearing any updates you have and chatting soon!
Congrats on the win ISOM, and hope the wedding went well Soma! I hope you had the good weather we did!

I am in a much better mood this weekend. OH came home from 2 weeks at sea and his holiday starts on Friday. He gives me so much help & support and has helped sort me out since he came home. My mum visited for a week which was a little stressful but not as bad as it used to be! Only sad point is that my MIL's MIL has been nasty about her behind her back, claiming she's not grieving for her husband (he died at the end of March aged 39 and anyone who knows my MIL knows how she works etc and would NEVER dream of saying such hurtful things). Anyway that caused some tears and upset but overall moods are good.

What's everyone up to today? How have your weekends been? Might tackle some debt stuff today, might leave it til tomorrow. Weather's a bit grey so I imagine we'll have a quiet Sunday at home. It's days like these I cherish!

sunfleur

Hi everyone

Please could I have a DFW long hauler number? We are here to get out of debt in the quickest time and in the best way we can for our small family (for quick read less years than we are currently headed for LOL). I'd like to come here to support others and be supported ourselves. You can't do it by yourself - well and stay sane at the same time LOL I have been reading and lurking and occasionally posting for a couple of weeks now and there are some incredible people who are so generous with their time, knowledge and effort to help others.

We are just about to make our first payment for our DMP to CCCS on August 1st and still haggling with creditors etc. We do everything in writing and DH has become as obsessed as me in filing everything in a place we can find it, with dates received and copies of letters we send etc. No real problems just yet and we have never been behind with priority bills etc including our mortgage. The unsecured debt we have only just had problems with but we are getting it all sorted out now.

DH works and I receive carers allowance for my special girly so I'm home full time with her as I educate her at home. We initially did our SOA online with CCCS to get some advice and what was returned to us in advice seems reasonable. Then a friend told me that DLA (for my DD) should be included in the total income but then taken off for her needs. I rang to ask CCCS if this was true and they did confirm this and said the online system isn't set up at the moment to take this into consideration. However, if we did do that the amount received would take our ability to pay anything into the deep red! So we will continue with our budget as started. The CCCS people were so helpful and kind and he did say that if any costs occur for DD that are not in our budget to ring them and we could claw it back on the months we needed to do that. We do have other ways we are going to raise some money so we should be able to meet some of the shortfall we need for various things not included in the budge but essential to her education and health needs. We just want to pay our debts so we are all in it together.

So far we have changed our land line/internet/home insurance and made £35 difference and still have a couple of insurances to go. I cook everything from scratch and the food bill has gone down enormously from a couple of years ago (and more recently). Slow cooker essential! We have grown our own salad stuff this summer and herbs and these help to make everything really tasty. We eat well, just less of the more expensive stuff like meat and buy it from a great butchers that actually works out less than Tesco. Thinking about getting chickens but got to save up for a little home for them!

Hope that wasn't too long - just wanted to introduce myself. Looking forward to being here for a while.....

In_Search_Of_Me

sunfleur (245)
In haste! Welcome...will pop back later to catch up!

Happytogetdebtfree

Hi sunfleur and welcome to the board, of course you can join us here i look forward to reading your journey and im sure that as cccs helps with the payplan you will begin to feel better... well done on making the little changes it all helps in the long run.. keep positive and good luck on the debt free journey xxx

Ps hope everyone else is doing okay ? xx

sunfleur

Phew I feel like one of the gang now LOL :j

Feel slightly 'stung' today although we will wait and see. Changed home and contents insurance to less than half what we were paying at the weekend (£15 from £33). Rang our current company who we have had for a few years - we have a mortgage with them - and we were informed that we would have to pay £41 cancellation/30 days notice - the monthly fee was £33 and it was up today.

We are already covered by our new company from the weekend just gone. We had already cancelled our DD with the old company just after last months payment had gone out and they had written to us to tell us that the bank had informed them we had done so (same bank, same mortgage company). After the call today (which I recorded and informed them I was doing so - and it's annoying to those I record as it beeps in your ear every 15 seconds ) we received another letter (today) from them saying that we had not paid the DD so we should pay it within 21 days or they would cancel the policy. No mention of paying anything to them.

When I asked how come I had to pay them as I was already covered by another company he said that they could make us pay for a full year if they wanted to. He said it was in the policy. It took my ages to find it but I did find that it said this in a back-handed way LOL I told him we would look into it and he said they would write to us stating what we owed.

So whether we will or whether we won't is another matter. I think the house insurance is the only one we have ever paid monthly (and the life insurance) in recent years as we have paid upfront for the year on other insurances so this is new to us. Years ago when we have paid monthly and changed we have never paid any cancellation fee. This must be a newer thing for the companies to scrape a bit back on the year they lose but it's cheeky as they already charge us for having it over the year. We are going to try and budget some money for when each of the insurances are up so we have some dosh to pay it yearly for the next time but for now and obvious reasons we will have to do some of them monthly. Also we have learned a lesson and it won't happen again! We are writing down on the calendar the date each is up and a month before reminder to cancel each one so that even if we go back with them we will be new customers! See we are learning - just too late sometimes. It is our sole aim to get out of debt and to NEVER have to pay anyone more than they should have!

That said I rang our life insurance company to see if we have to pay them a cancellation fee and they said NO! Still looking around to change that one!

Quick edit to say we are NOT with this bank any more as they are one of our creditors so we moved.....

Happytogetdebtfree

Hey, maybe its like a 12 month contract and if you cancel they can charge but i would assume its only by how many months are left on the contract.... maybe await a letter requesting payment ?? i dont know really want to advise sometimes its just one of them things about mean creditors you are paying .... ive had my day full of it lol grrrrrrrrr xx

having a nice coffee to calm down and pick the mood up xx

sunfleur

Happytogetdebtfree wrote: »

Hey, maybe its like a 12 month contract and if you cancel they can charge but i would assume its only by how many months are left on the contract.... maybe await a letter requesting payment ?? i dont know really want to advise sometimes its just one of them things about mean creditors you are paying .... ive had my day full of it lol grrrrrrrrr xx

having a nice coffee to calm down and pick the mood up xx

Awwwww sorry you are having a bad day HTGDF. I'm pounding dough - that's really therapeutic! Knocking ten bells out of it..

Happytogetdebtfree

lol lend me some or do some thumps for me hehe xx

Soma

hi
enjoyed the wedding, but definitely don't think a big wedding is for me which is good news cos they are really expensive
welcome sunfleur, keep meaning to change my home insurance but oh is in charge of it and it's in his name which makes it more difficult.
ladder - you sound happier which is nice
in search - congrats on the bingo win
happy - hope you have happier day tomorrow