It's time to begin.....

greensalad

Congrats! That's an amazing sum - the end really is in sight for you!

enthusiasticsaver

£6500 is awesome and even better if there is more to come for the credit card. 

GeorgianaCavendish

Amazing news! I’m so happy for you 🥳🥳🥳 
Take a few days to think about it, but whatever you do you’re several steps closer to freedom! 

Kakiste

Absolutely! Whatever happens I'll be debt free within the next 6 months! 

rugbymadfamily

Fantastic news! So pleased for you!

Kakiste

I've emailed the financial ombudsman this morning to ask them to chase the bank and see whether there is the final payment coming for the credit card. 

I've decided to pay £6k off my DMP and then move £500 into my EF. I just tried ringing stepchange to see whether they'd take payment over the phone but apparently it has to go through their settlement team so I've scheduled a phonecall with them before the end of the week- Seems a bit mad I can't just go 'here you go, here's some money, please pay the creditors' but I think i'll ask if they're going to be ringing all of them if they'd make F&F offers on my behalf. If I ask for settling at 70% then the worst they can say is no. 

GeorgianaCavendish

Sounds like a good plan to ask Step Change to see if the creditors will accept F&F offers at 70%, seeing the back of the DMP will be such a relief! 

Mrs_Money_Penny

Good idea to make F&F offer. Fingers crossed for you xx

Kakiste

Obviously it's a whether or not any of them accept it; but it's 2.5 years after most of them defaulted so seems a reasonable time- and if they're ringing around anyway then it's worth a shot. 

If all of them accepted at a 30% discount then my total DMP would come to £6084- which I could pay off entirely with what is in my account right now. If no discount is offered it would take my DMP down to £2,800 owing which is taking about three quarters of what I currently owe right now straight off the total. So still good either way. 

Kakiste

Have booked an appointment with stepchange settlement team for a week on Monday.

Half term has started nicely- we took daughter to an inflatable assault course swimming thing yesterday and I've organised one of her school friends to come round tomorrow afternoon.

My mum is coming up on Thursday. She wants to book a short break away somewhere foresty at Easter for us all which is really generous of her but she is really hard work. It's nice that she is trying but I really struggle to deal with her for more than a very short while.

 I'm going to suggest 2 nights away with the idea that if we're travelling there on the first day and then an all day activity on the second day and then travel home on morning of third day, that sounds like something I can deal with. 

In other news I cooked a shoulder of pork for dinner today- slow roasted it in the oven for 6 hours and it was delicious. Even made decent crackling