Here I go, Step One...

Lifeisforliving19

I think that's a good plan. Devote a few hours to straightening everything out. It will make you feel better. I have a folder I keep all the letters we receive, all sectioned off into each different debt and then I have a spreadsheet where I list all our payments each month, so at any one time I can go on and see exactly what we owe to who. I also have a list of all the default dates. Definitely makes me feel more in control. You have to remember you are in control of your debt plan, not your creditors. It all goes at your pace and if they don't wan to accept an offer of payment or something...that's their hard luck, you can only pay what you have and you still need to live. Also remember that a lot of the letters that come are computer generated and they have to send them to you, by law. I know how easy it is to get stressed about it all, but you need to de-stress as its bad for your health. x:)

HonestS

A change of plan for sorting finances. I babysat for a family I work for last night and my daughter left our laptop there. I don’t have time to collect it today so will do the replies on Wednesday when I’m off. The letters gave me 30 days so pls try of time.

I earned an extra £50 for the EF though so that’s handy

HonestS

That was meant to say ‘So plenty of time’

Phone won’t let me edit and is a perfect example of why I need the laptop lol.

Lifeisforliving19

I agree, I much prefer a laptop or OH's computer. Hate doing stuff on phone or tablet.

HonestS

It's Wednesday, I've got the laptop and I'm diving into the letters! Sorry for the long post and lots of questions!

In my holding letters I said my circumstances have changed due to a cancer diagnosis and ongoing treatment. My responses from creditors are:

RBS: Asked for medical documents and prognosis, will stop interest once they've seen the medical info.
MBNA: Waived fees and interest (but it's 0% anyway) for 30 days but restricted account.
Tesco: Taking no action for 30 days.
Halifax: Passed the account over to priority team to manage, we'll work together, even if you can only make small payments etc, medical info would be helpful. Pretty kind letter actually.

Barclays Partner Finance (HP sofa) and Santander are yet to reply.

No one has tried to call me at all.

I'm happy to send medical info but my most recent hospital letter has made an error and said that I had surgery in October when it was actually in April, I'm just sending a copy of the letter as it makes the whole thing look much more recent, it also lists my ongoing treatment but doesn't state that it has an end date which is quite helpful. Actually I've just looked at another letter written around the same time by a different doctor, that has all the correct dates on it but has recommended treatment that makes it look like I'm on weekly chemotherapy indefinitely, but it states that I'm very well within myself. The first one says I'm generally well but concerned about cancer not being picked up again in ongoing screening, so shows a level of anxiety I suppose and I did say I'm struggling to cope with the worry of cancer and debt (so no calls please)! Might be more helpful if I put copies of the info on here?

My aim was to say I'm working minimum hours due to side effects of treatment so need to pay token payments for a while. Any recommendations on which letter I should send? And should I give them the whole story about working minimum hours or keep it simple by just returning the info only?

And do I need to now tweak my SOA so it looks as though I have a tiny amount of money for creditors or just send the one I've done on NEDCAB that says there's £80 a month left over for creditors, is the £80 too much while sending token payments? I have two incomes, one in the supermarket and I have cleaning jobs, I haven't included the cleaning on the NEDCAB form. OMG I need to do my tax return:eek:

As they've all given me 30 days to respond I'm not going to put letters in the post today, I'll give it to the end of the week to see if I get replies from the other two so I can do them all at the same time (hopefully). I'll just get everything ready today so it's ready to go at the weekend, and I'll to do that tax return now!

beanielou

Think you need to factor in that you may not always be able to do the cleaning jobs due to treatment?
Good luck with it all

Lifeisforliving19

I would personally tweak the NEDCAB form to make it look like you have less money than you really have. That will help if at any time you miss a day or 2 work due to not feeling to good. Once you enter into a DMP with a creditor, it is you that is calling the shots, not them. You can say you need to pay token payments for as long as you want, as long as you let them know. They cannot ask to see any wageslips etc as a DMP is an informal agreement and you can tweak that NEDCAB form as much as you need, they won't know. When my OH had his motorbike accident and lost some days work I wrote and told them and they were all fine, just said to let them know and send a new I&E form as soon as we were in a position to start higher payments again. The longer you pay token payments, the more chance of them accepting a F&F offer further down the line.:)

HonestS

I have had a very productive day on the finance front. I had one more reply to my holding letters but had nothing from Santander other than some text messages asking me to call them about payments .

I've replied to all the letters with an offer to make token payments for 6 months, I explained that I am only able to work minimal hours due to effects of treatment, said that treatment will not change for 6 months so I can reassess the situation then. I enclosed a copy of SOA and a medical letter confirming diagnosis. They didn't all ask for medical info but I thought I'd just treat them all the same to save confusion, and it backs up my story so I thought there's no harm. I altered my SOA so it shows £7.60 available.

I sent a copy of the holding letter to Santander through their secure message system with a note saying when it was posted and that I hadn't received a reply. I then sent a copy of the offer/token payment letter and SOA with a note asking for standing order details and an address if they want the medical proof.

I currently have in my savings envelopes:
EF: £900, I have decided I don't need such a big EF of £2000 because my boiler has been declared fine with no leaks so I don't need to worry about that for now. My EF will be £1000 so I can start paying my mum back soon. I will be giving my mum £1000 a time so I will still have access to whatever's in that envelope if a more expensive emergency comes along. Plus if something drastic happens I could always ask my mum if I've been paying her back. Not an ideal situation but it gives me peace of mind to know we'll always be ok. Also I don't really want thousands of pounds of cash in the house, I'm slightly uncomfortable with the amount in here now so certainly don't want up to £3000 :eek:

I have 3 other envelopes for saving. One is for car and home insurances which are due to be renewed in July. I was putting £15pw in that as that is the amount it costs annually split to weekly, but I've decided to be more proactive and put £40 a week in so I'll have the full amount in July ready and not need to take it from EF or my mum's money. It's got £45 in it now as I only decided to change that amount today.

I have an envelope labelled 'shopping pot'. This is because my weekly food and household shopping budget is £70 and I'm trying to cap the food spend at £50 so the other £20 goes into that envelope. I go to a cash and carry to bulk buy laundry products and toilets roll etc because it's much cheaper than buying in supermarkets. This envelope will hold the money for when I next need to go, which won't be for months! There's £60 in it now. If I come under budget on food I will always put the extra in there.

The last one is for clothes and that's £10pw because that's what I put in my budget. There's £30 in it so far.

Shopping budget and other things wen't a bit awry while the students were here but I will be back on track now with £50 cash in my purse and at least 3 NSDs a week. I also had to take a cat to the vet so that took the extra money I'd earned which was supposed to go into the EF.

I've got my VSP savings account attached to my current account, I transfer the odd pounds and pence once a week to that, sometimes twice a week if I remember. There's £30.88 in there already, I'm not really sure what I'm saving this for but I suppose it will come in handy at Christmas.

I feel like I'm on track and am looking forward to filling my new envelope this week which will be labelled 'Mum', I'm excited about paying her back at last

HonestS

Think you need to factor in that you may not always be able to do the cleaning jobs due to treatment?
Good luck with it all

I only have 3 cleaning jobs and the people I work for are amazing and always very flexible, I just switch days if I need to because of treatment, appointments or even illness. So it's very rare that I can't get to the jobs. Sometime's they're away though so I suppose I just won't be putting money in the saving envelope that week.

Onebrokelady

Wow you are,doing great,it looks like everything is coming together quite nicely,it will give you a boost too knowing your are able to pay your mum back