Not long to go...

fd1972uk

Been a while.

Long story very short, lost my job June 2016, had not far off £30k of debt, contacted Stepchange, got a new job, less money and thought I was due to end with the DMP I have Dec 2020, but after a few checks with the actual balances seems should be clear around Aug 20.

That will free up nearly £600 pm. We are paying a Cc which does have around £6k on it, being flitted around 0%, so will get right into that too after we have more money to throw at.

Thankfully as yet its been quite easy, no real hurdles as yet, obviously we've had to tighten our budget, no holidays, but we've been OK outwith that.

Stepchange have been good and helpful although thankfully not had any major problems and needed to bother them too much. Only Down side was their prorata calculator impacts on the credit card as they pay a big portion of the balance which resulted in me being charged interest which has amounted to around £600 or thereabouts so far (was originally on a 0% but that ran out).

So hopefully all goes well for next few months.

Thanks for reading and hope you all have a lovely Xmas.


FD

EssexHebridean

Well done on getting so close to being sorted - always nice to hear a success story. Another few months and we will be able to start making plans for saving the money which will be freed up when the DMP finishes - have you got any sort of initial savings goal in mind yet?

fd1972uk

Hi, sorry not been on for a while. 
Well I have the final payment a week on Monday, so whilst it does say August it really is June for me, lol, going by my pay. Its a part payment which will come out at start of July, but I'll now be just under £300 better off.

Plans going forward, is for my new savings a good proportion of that will increase payments to my wife's credit cards, that could take a few years. 

In terms of saving just going to put the left over money away and then use it as needed for example our car needs mot so that may cost a little, but that can just be paid by not needing to further go into debt.
Also maybe as we save look at paying some mini payments to our mortgage, and do plan on holidaying, but within a budget meaning it's done with the money we have at that point. 

Also put a little more away for our daughter. 

On top of the saving we have a little fee pounds adding over time with wage rises and then once my wife credit card is dealt with that's more we would save in future. 
Thanks to everyone who has helped out and given advice, some even harsh sounding but needed to hear it, lol.