It's time to begin.....

missymoo81

Oooh fingers crossed for the pay rise! And well done on the cheap bbq! In the past I’ve spent about £50 extra for a bbq! But I’ve learned the error of my ways and only spent a tiny bit more last time! Keep up your amazing work!

Robert85

Hello everyone. 
Please, can someone help me with my bad experiences regrading currently DMP, I would say bad experience with TBS Bank I have have experience today (15th July 2020) and kept paying off my debts with Stepchange for them (TSB) 

Since August 2019 I set up DMP for 12 months and I have started pay off my debts to TSB Bank. I do monthly payments of £266 a month and this is split off and goes to two different classic TSB's accounts to be cover my whole debt in totall.

After 11 months I set up the new DMP plan (June2020) and my 12th payment is due on 28th July. Every 6 months I need to contact with Step Change and make sure they sending new paperwork for keeping the debt repayment proposal. 
I increased the payment up to £275 a month from July 2020. So Stepchange has sent the paperwork to TSB Bank with new debt repayment proposal and TSB Bank declined because :

This information I have been told on phone today (15th July 2020) when I spoken with TSB Debt collection.

1))) The Debt Repayment Proposal from Stepchange has been declined for Card ending ***123
I didn't get a reason why it was declined and person I have spoken with on phone told me he will send email to back office to check it why was proposal declined. 
Only I have been told I have broken 3 times plan arrangement during 12 months repayments and TSB can not offer me the same repayments like in last 12 month - intrest fees free for card ending ***123
I did explain to him on phone, it wasn't my knowledge how it all works and I didn't know about the amount of money has been took away from account during I do repayments. 
(Admin policy £8.99 etc, council £92)

2))) Card ending ***547
TSB told me. They didn't receive any paperwork for Stepchange with new Debt Repayment Proposal.
(I have spoken to with Stepchange and they confirm, they sent Debt Repayment Proposal on Friday 29th July to TSB for both Bank accounts and TSB even replayed for email and told they declined bank card ***123

Now they put me in uncomfortable situation and they told me this: 

I need contact again with Stepchange and tell them send once again the new Debt Repayment Proposals ( They sent excatly the same when they sent on Friday 10th July) for both TSB bank accounts and they will review again. 

TSB Debt Customer Service told me on phone also. Probably I will start paying now the monthly intrest fees and they do not accept the new plan for Debt Repayment Prospal which was was sent from Stepchange on 10th July 2020.

I don't know what to do. I really paying off my debts from two tsb bank accounts and I would like start from 2021 does massive savings and get a lump slum to pay off in one in December 2021.

I don't know what to do if they start charge me also with monthly intrest fees. 

Please help. 
Thank you. 

Kakiste

Hi @Robert85 You've posted this on my diary rather than the main board. If you copy your post and post it here; 
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/debt-free-wannabe 
Then many more people will see it and be able to answer your questions.

Kakiste

I got the payrise!!!! They initially offered £32 and I brought my 'ask' down from £35 to £34- and it's been agreed. 
It take effect from October 1st (as September 1st will be paying me for July which is the old academic year) but it's a raise of £7.5K a year and will give me £546 extra every month! So from October my plan is to pay £200 extra to family
Here is what I'm going to do with the extra money;
October 1st- Pay £346 towards my energy bill deficit (completely clearing it as I think it's -£365 at the moment and will be less by then as I'm bringing it down by about £60 a month. Also this will give me a bit of a cushion as we head into having the heating on every evening. 

During October I'm going to write to the three credit card companies that I owe around £300 each to. I'm going to offer them £100 each to mark the account as settled. If they accept on November 1st I'm going to use the £346 towards paying them off. If they all refuse then I'll use the £346 to pay the lowest balance off in full as it's the highest interest of the three and update my DMP accordingly. 

Dec 1st I'm going to earmark the money as 'for Christmas spending' but then try and spend as little as possible on it (should have about £400 saved by that point anyway) any remaining will be put in energy bill pot to make sure I don't build up another deficit. 


Jan 1st/Feb 1st will clear remaining debts with 2 other credit cards if they didn't accept the October offer. If they did then I'm going to offer the final credit card around 75% to settle my account and update my DMP. 

If they don't accept I'll use March 1st/April 1st and possibly May 1st to pay it off in full- Then I'll be able to increase my DMP payments to £580 a month and the remaining single creditor.b

 Then my final DMP payment will drop from March 2026 to some point in 2023. Then in June 2021 I will have repaid my family and will put the £400 a month towards the DMP as well bringing the DFD to December 2021! 

I'm so happy! I'm going to put this money to such good use!

Mumoffourkids

That is such good news on the pay rise and an amazing plan for clearing your debts! You will be debt free in no time at all!

ImpulseSpender

Congrats Kakiste! It sounds very well deserved.

Kakiste

Slight change of plan. Husband wants to pay our families back first and I can see his logic. (He is less bothered about owing companies money than our parents and said we should clear the debts to those we love first) So I'm going to up the amount I'm paying to his parents from £100 to £550. Then we'll be in a position to pay back his parents by the end of this year. Then I can up my payments to my dad from £100 per month to £650 per month in Jan 2021 which will mean I will have repaid him by April 2021 and then I can take the £650 and at that point add it to the DMP repayments. 
I will hold back £140 from the extra money to make settlement offers to the 3 credit cards (one at a time in this plan) and if they refuse slowly save up and pay one creditor back every 3 months. 
Still a plan. Still a massive improvement to my financial health and debt repayments. 

[Deleted User]

That's fab news on the payrise, well done!

Kakiste

Spent £25 on shopping for the meal plan for the week + snacks and also (inc in that) is a bottle of Rubris for my TA. It's red wine infused with chocolate and it's delicious. She's been an absolute godsend this term so I wanted to get her something. So that was accounted for within the shopping budget as I didn't need to buy any meat as I still have beef mince and chicken to use from the food group delivery this week. 
This week for tea we are having
Today- beef tacos 
Sun- Chinese chicken curry with rice 
Monday- Sausages (more on this below) mash and peas. 
Tues (food group night) We cook whatever needs to be immediately used.
Wed - Chinese noodles and veg
Thurs- Smokey bacon tomato spaghetti 
Fri- Chicken salad wraps 

The tacos, curry, Chinese noodles and spaghetti are all regular recipes I usr from the BBC good food website. They have an entire section of recipes called 'cheap and healthy' I highly recommend them. 

I've had a think about how to make.money back on what I'm already spending and so this week I've started a quidco account as I'm going to be using eBay a lot to pick up switch games for my daughter's birthday present in the next month and my car insurance needs renewing on Sep 11th so I'll shop around for a good deal.

I've also signed up with Zipzero and Shoppix (both apps want you to take pictures of shopping receipts) Zipzero exchanges receipts for money which you can put towards any of your essential bills (I'm going to build it up and put it towards my heating deficit)
Shoppix lets you trade for Amazon vouchers. I've been taking pictures of my receipts from household spending and also asking colleagues at work if I can photograph their receipts for their weekly class rewards budgets before they had them into finance. It's only building up a few pence at a time but it only takes me 5 mins after each shopping trip but it's money/vouchers I wouldn't have had otherwise. 
Finally! I also noticed today that Aldi have a 'fill In a survey' using numbers of their shop receipts and there is a prize draw for 6 prizes of £100 Aldi vouchers every month. Which again- only 5 mins but it's only costing me time and if I won it would cover my entire grocery bill for the month! Worth a go. 

Kakiste

It's lovely weather today. Hoping to get out to a local park or something to take advantage of the sun.