It's time to begin.....

Kakiste

Thanks all. 

I did think about that but I vastly prefer the idea of starting out with no debts hanging over me; that way I've got a far bigger buffer for any financial changes that come my way. I could afford to leave now (I have enough in my EF to pay a month's rent and deposit upfront- that's outside of the £6k in my savings account) but my finances would come down to the wire every month and any increases would throw me back into debt. As it stands currently; I've decided to make the F&F offers myself via email and even if none of them are taken up and I just pay the £6k off the outstanding DMP and continue paying down the rest then the DMP will be paid off by July this year. 

I've then got a definite £1k coming in at the end of July for the summer exams marking (signed a contract yesterday) which I can either add to my EF use to pay off my car finance (I've not included this in my debts as it's a 'useful debt,' I've got something to show for it and I've always made payments in full and on time. Currently there's a year left to run on the HP agreement but by July, £1k would pay off the remainder which leaves me going into the summer holiday with no demands on my paycheck other than the standard DDs and with an extra £639 a month simply by the absence of debt payments. 

Plus things at home are stable at the moment- lots of demands on husband's time atm as work for our hobby group is starting to take up more and more of his time (meaning at least 3 hours out the house each weekend day and at least 2 evenings a week doing paperwork and making phonecalls) so there's less time for him to be starting arguments with me.

Mrs_Money_Penny

Hope you have some good f&f offers. Glad husband is occupied at the moment. I am glad that you have plans in place and the future looks a whole deal brighter xx

greensalad

It's definitely a tough one but, despite I think saying the opposite previously in your situation, it definitely seems worth it to wait it out a little longer. It sounds terrible but after suffering this long it's almost worth suffering a little longer to put yourself in the best position?

My Mum left my Dad when I was a similar age to your daughter (I guess, I'm not sure how old she is but sounds about right!) and honestly she never really financially recovered because she wasn't in a good position to leave. She is nearly 60 now and has only just started feeling "flush" again after many years of feeling behind in life. I think once you're out and living on your own it can be so much harder to get money set aside. One small issue like a car breakdown can cause a spiral of issues. If you have a good cushion when you start, you'll probably be able to climb upwards much quicker. 

Good luck on the F&F!

Kakiste

Thanks. I've drafted a letter using the debt camel template at breaktime and I'm just going to look for an email address to send it to now. I'm going to make them one at a time- starting with the big remaining bank amount which currently stands at £6,800 owing, after that the next biggest creditor I owe to is £261- so I want to leave myself all the money to negotiate back and forth with the big one. I'm starting by lowballing them with an offer to settle at 40% which leaves them room to negotiate up to 70% which I would be delighted by. 

@greensalad My daughter is 7. That's exactly how I feel- Everything is so close to being OK I don't want to jump the gun and end up in a flat with no money to do anything, no money for emergencies and having to build up a bunch of basic belongings again from scratch. I reckoned on leaving by the end of this year whereby I should have a nice cushion of money. 

In additional good news I should have an additional amount of money every month from the end of September anyway as the SENCO job should come with a substantial payrise to factor in as well. 

enthusiasticsaver

Your future is looking very bright. 

Kakiste

So having heard nothing back from the bank- I've given them a call today. I put the same offer to them over the phone- the woman said that she needed to refer it to her manager but said that at 40% it was likely to be rejected- I asked her to put it forward anyway. However! She then said that she was authorised to offer a 20% discount straight off! (This would leave the account at about £5800 to settle- which I could afford) This would leave me with only £614 to pay on my DMP which I could do in 2 months of regular payments!

So they're going to get back to me within the next fortnight about the 40% offer. I'm expected that to be rejected and I think if they put their offer of 80% settlement in writing that I'll offer 55% and see what happens with that. Very pleased so far!

stymied

Fingers crossed you get it in at 70% or lower so you can finish your DMP straight away!

Kakiste

Yep. Absolutely "worst" case scenario at this point is that I'll be finished with my DMP by June. Four months is a laughably short time. (My online DMP still has May 2024 as a debt free date as I'm negotiating privately with the bank) 
Best case scenario is them agreeing to settle at 80% (or even less) at the beginning of March which would then mean I could settle with them and use the remaining money in my savings account to pay off the remaining £614 on my DMP in the same month- DMP free in the next 5 weeks!

In other news I've used £120 of the £6.5k to buy myself a new pair of glasses- my prescription changed last year and I'd not been able to afford to outlay the money for a new pair. (It was going to be what my February gap in council tax would be used for) They'll be arriving next week and I'm very excited about that- been having mild headaches for the past few months which I've put down to using an old prescription. 

Also my NHS appointment for my wrists came through for mid-March. Also it just happened to land on a morning where I have gobby year 9s so that'll be such a wrench to miss!

Kakiste

Well my car window has come off the roller spool thing (the button doesn't work to roll it down or up) So in a hillarious short term bodge I've pushed it up (with my lift share friend) and then shoved some blutack to hold it up during today. I'm going to leave early and see if the garage can fix it quickly (and hopefully cheaply!)  

enthusiasticsaver

Hope the car window is a cheap fix.