Tiger's DMP Journey

DMP_Tiger · 5 August 2018 at 8:47AM

Nice day yesterday, went to a traditional English Fete. Spent about £20 so not too bad and did include cold drinks and ice creams for all 4 of us. Then spent another £14 on Sausage and chips on the way home.

Visiting my parents today so won't spend anything.

DMP_Tiger · 6 August 2018 at 4:09PM

Letter from Aqua, they are going to default my credit card on 18th August if I don't pay them lots of ££££ by then. I don't have that many ££££ to give them so that will be my first default - hooray!!

They are the only ones at the mo who are piling interest on so a default from them is very good news!

motivated · 6 August 2018 at 4:57PM

DMP_Tiger wrote: »

Letter from Aqua, they are going to default my credit card on 18th August if I don't pay them lots of ££££ by then. I don't have that many ££££ to give them so that will be my first default - hooray!!

They are the only ones at the mo who are piling interest on so a default from them is very good news!

Hi DMP tiger

I had this issue with Halifax a while back. I made them fully aware of our situation and they threatened to default numerous times. In the mean time they continued to add interest.

However, I plucked up the courage to phone them to complain stating they knew our financial situation and I also reminded them they were treating us unfairly and all of our other creditors were freezing interest and charges. ( not quite true but who cares) We were already in financial hardship and they were effectively making it worse by adding interest AFTER I had informed them.

They responded with 'oh we will be defaulting on such and such a day and will also remove all the interest we added after you had informed us'. :T

Go me!
Try it you never know.
M

DMP_Tiger · 7 August 2018 at 9:00AM

Thanks M, you're very brave calling your creditors - I always ignore their calls and voicemails!

It may come to that though if they don't default, but the letter clearly says that they are going to default on August 18th so fingers crossed.....

motivated · 7 August 2018 at 9:25AM

DMP_Tiger wrote: »

Thanks M, you're very brave calling your creditors - I always ignore their calls and voicemails!

It may come to that though if they don't default, but the letter clearly says that they are going to default on August 18th so fingers crossed.....

I was absolutely bricking it when I phoned them. But told myself what's the worst they can do

. The lady was actually very nice once I put my feel sorry for me voice on. I just asked them to try and work with me as we are facing up to our debts, we are not ignoring it and want to repay all of it but need ou creditors to support us.etc etc.

It worked and they refunded the interest back to the account and this then lowered the total. You would've thought I won the lottery :rotfl:

DMP_Tiger · 8 August 2018 at 10:44AM

The odd couple of times that I have spoken to creditors, they have been very nice. I don't know why I'm so frightened to speak to them, I think it's more to do with my own feelings about my finances rather than my creditors actually being scary....

Summer hols spending going quite well. August's budget is on target but it's only the 8th so plenty of time to go pear-shaped. Just have to keep in the mindset of only spending what we have.

DMP_Tiger · 8 August 2018 at 10:56AM

DMP_Tiger wrote: »

Today I have realized something.

In 1992 At the age of 24, just prior to getting married, my wife and I bought our first house on a 25 year mortgage. We borrowed £38,000. We are still in that house so the mortgage should have been paid off last year at the age of 49.

I will be 51 this year and my mortgage debt is just over £70,000. This is because we have consolidated our debts by remortgaging several times over the years, the last time being in 2015. I have always thought of our mortgage being mostly house purchase and partly debt. But today it has occurred to me that my £70,000 mortgage is 100% debt.

Add that to my unsecured debt of around £35k and that makes a total of £105,000 :eek::eek:

This makes me feel physically sick. That's a lot of overspending

Really need to deal with this, it's not doing my mental health any good. I keep thinking about having to pay off £105,000 of debt. That's a lot of ££££££ :mad:

My mortgage (secured loan) has 13 years left to run until it's paid off. So if I think of the DMP and the mortgage together, that means I can aim to pay off the DMP in 13 years rather than trying to pay it off in 5-6 years.

That means that instead of trying to save up for F & F's, I can do more fun stuff instead - for a couple of years at least...hooray!!!

It also means that if I add my mortgage to my debt spreadsheet, instead of paying it off £35k at less than £100 per month I'll be paying off £105k at about £450 per month. So the "paid" column will be bigger...hooray!!!

New debt free day = March 2031

:eek:

DMP_Tiger · 9 August 2018 at 4:46PM

Feel a bit better today about my massive debt total. What's done is done, I could wallow in my self-pity or I could go forwards and not backwards, enjoying the fact that I now have more money each month than ever before and watching the debt go down instead of up.

No replies yet from creditors about my DMP monthly payment offers. Maybe they're still laughing at the tiny amount that I can pay.....