DMP help please

HelpNeeded1947

Hi...

I am 75 years young and I live with my son and his family. I have the following debt:

Tesco credit card = £5146
Barclaycard credit card = £4623
MBNA credit card = £787

Argos store card = £4658

Very retail account = £2373


So that's £17587 total... £15214 credit cards and £2373 online retail account.

I am paying high interest on all them as 0% deals have ran out and/or buy now pay later plans have finished. I pay around £600/month paying minimum payments across all of these debts.

I feel like I will be paying these off for the rest of my life and see no end in sight. The balances hardly go down.

I am retired and live off state/private pensions. This is around £1200/month. I am not bothered about my credit rating as I will not be getting another credit card/loan/mortgage ever again. 

I was thinking of cancelling all direct debits and getting in touch with someone and going on a DMP? Would that be the best option? Or do I carry on paying the direct debits? Any recommendations on how best to approach this?

I have very little money left over, if any, at the end of the month. I don't want to keep having to struggle every month just to get by.

Thanks for any advice....

peteuk

Is your min account with either Tesco or Barclays?  If so one thing to do is look at a new bank.

There’s a lot of debate about what to do first start the DMP or allow them to default.  Stepchange normally advise starting the DMP first, but it is personal choice.

HelpNeeded1947

peteuk said:

Is your min account with either Tesco or Barclays?  If so one thing to do is look at a new bank.

There’s a lot of debate about what to do first start the DMP or allow them to default.  Stepchange normally advise starting the DMP first, but it is personal choice.

My bank account is with TSB

RAS

A lot depends on what your other expenses are? Is your son subsiding your living costs as it doesn't seem as if you are paying much in the way of housing costs?

And just to check which country you live in as the rules are different depending on wher yoy live?

But the first thing, whatever you choose, is to open a new basic bank account with a bank completely unrelated to your existing creditors.

HelpNeeded1947

I'm in the UK... I give my son £400/month to help out. I don't have any other costs/expenses.

HelpNeeded1947

RAS said:

A lot depends on what your other expenses are? Is your son subsiding your living costs as it doesn't seem as if you are paying much in the way of housing costs?

And just to check which country you live in as the rules are different depending on wher yoy live?

But the first thing, whatever you choose, is to open a new basic bank account with a bank completely unrelated to your existing creditors.

Why would I need to swap bank accounts? I have had this one for about 60 years.

Grumpelstiltskin

Which country in the UK are you in?

HelpNeeded1947

Grumpelstiltskin said:

Which country in the UK are you in?

England, sorry.

sourcrates

None of your creditors are affiliated with the TSB Bank, so you don`t need to do anything with your bank account.
Usually people may have a loan/credit card or overdraft with their bank, so would require a new bank account to stop the bank from using the right of "off set", and just taking what is owed from that account.

Before you start looking at debt management or such like, why not try writing to your creditors, telling them your struggling on your pension, and see if any of them will take a commercial decision and write the debts off, that would be my first call.

If any will do that, great, if not then debt management would see you paying these off until you were well into your 80`s, not an appealing prospect, but there is also a solution called a Debt Relief Order (DRO) although you may have too much disposable income to meet the criteria for one of those.

You say you live with your son, but do you have any assets that may be worth money, a house, anything else of particular value?

HelpNeeded1947

sourcrates said:

None of your creditors are affiliated with the TSB Bank, so you don`t need to do anything with your bank account.
Usually people may have a loan/credit card or overdraft with their bank, so would require a new bank account to stop the bank from using the right of "off set", and just taking what is owed from that account.

Before you start looking at debt management or such like, why not try writing to your creditors, telling them your struggling on your pension, and see if any of them will take a commercial decision and write the debts off, that would be my first call.

If any will do that, great, if not then debt management would see you paying these off until you were well into your 80`s, not an appealing prospect, but there is also a solution called a Debt Relief Order (DRO) although you may have too much disposable income to meet the criteria for one of those.

You say you live with your son, but do you have any assets that may be worth money, a house, anything else of particular value?

Hi... thanks for the detailed reply. I have no assets and have nothing of monetary value. 

sourcrates

HelpNeeded1947 said:

sourcrates said:

None of your creditors are affiliated with the TSB Bank, so you don`t need to do anything with your bank account.
Usually people may have a loan/credit card or overdraft with their bank, so would require a new bank account to stop the bank from using the right of "off set", and just taking what is owed from that account.

Before you start looking at debt management or such like, why not try writing to your creditors, telling them your struggling on your pension, and see if any of them will take a commercial decision and write the debts off, that would be my first call.

If any will do that, great, if not then debt management would see you paying these off until you were well into your 80`s, not an appealing prospect, but there is also a solution called a Debt Relief Order (DRO) although you may have too much disposable income to meet the criteria for one of those.

You say you live with your son, but do you have any assets that may be worth money, a house, anything else of particular value?

Hi... thanks for the detailed reply. I have no assets and have nothing of monetary value. 

Well, if you want to go down the debt management route, then stepchange can set it all up for you.

I`m guessing at your time of life you won`t want to faff about too much, so a DMP can be set up quite easily for you, just make sure you don`t tell them you only pay £400 a month to your son, or they will want you to put the majority of what`s left into your DMP.

Budget conservatively so only what you can afford will make up the DMP payment, that way you will have a bit more cash to go down the pub and play domino`s with etc.