Hiya, £70 is actually the cheapest I’ve found - the at home IPL lasers don’t work as well especially as face hair is so dense it takes a lot of work. I’m hoping I only need a couple more sessions of that though. The cats are both indoor cats already, but yeah cat litter is a cost isn’t it!
Which of your debts are dmp, how long have you been on the dmp and which are new debts/have interest charges etc. Only to see if there is a way of ordering how you pay for them and whether you say you will manage the ones from stepchange yourself as I would imagine they are already defaulted. It won't solve it as such but just to get a different view point of what your plans could be.
Jan 18 Joint debt 35,213 - Thankfully it's now less Jan 18 Mortgage 77224 now 71889E fund 100
Hiya, none of those debts listed are the ones on the dmp, it’s two old debts from a prior credit card and a prior loan. I’ve been on it around 4 and a half years so yeah those are absolutely already defaulted so I don’t think there’s anything they can do to harm my credit rating short of a ccj? Which as I’ll be paying them something regardless is fairly unlikely I would think?
First things first it's trying to make your budget balance I suppose, either by your budget or the one cranky40 has written. A good old fashioned spending diary on having a look through bank statements might help with how much food shopping etc is.
Jan 18 Joint debt 35,213 - Thankfully it's now less Jan 18 Mortgage 77224 now 71889E fund 100
And yes no further action is likely from the dmp debts. In theory they should have the interest frozen and there is nothing to stop you ringing stepchange and asking to reduce the payments. It's a while since the defaults so I totally get why you don't fancy doing that with the other debts. The dmp debts will be interest free probably though and aqua tends to be high interest once it's offer ends.
Jan 18 Joint debt 35,213 - Thankfully it's now less Jan 18 Mortgage 77224 now 71889E fund 100
Hi and good luck with this diary. My first thought was to ask if you can reduce the DMP payment to £100 per month, it will only take 3 more months to clear it and this monthly reduction would resolve your shortfall as per your first outgoings list. However, then you wrote that a spare £20 would be easily spent on a takeaway, so I second the suggestion of keeping a spending diary - I did this in one of those £1 types from any cheapy shop or you may be a spreadsheet wizard. It becomes a ritual to fill it in every day and keeps you focussed. So I think your mindset needs to change before you reduce your debt payments because a spare £20 should ideally be thrown at the card with the highest interest rate and that should also be more satisfying than a takeaway lol! I would also suggest keeping your monthly payments at what they are now if possible instead of following the reducing minimum payments as you will make better progress that way.
Debt Free 🍾 since 6.8.13 £31,997
Saving for🎄Xmas ☃️ 🎁 2023 £72/£365 19%
6 mth 🆘 fund £6k
Mortgage offset fund £11k/£110.2K
It turns out the answer to my problems wasn’t at the bottom of this tub of icecream, 🍨 but the important thing is that I tried...
Replies
My first thought was to ask if you can reduce the DMP payment to £100 per month, it will only take 3 more months to clear it and this monthly reduction would resolve your shortfall as per your first outgoings list.
However, then you wrote that a spare £20 would be easily spent on a takeaway, so I second the suggestion of keeping a spending diary - I did this in one of those £1 types from any cheapy shop or you may be a spreadsheet wizard. It becomes a ritual to fill it in every day and keeps you focussed.
So I think your mindset needs to change before you reduce your debt payments because a spare £20 should ideally be thrown at the card with the highest interest rate and that should also be more satisfying than a takeaway lol!
I would also suggest keeping your monthly payments at what they are now if possible instead of following the reducing minimum payments as you will make better progress that way.