Token payments or ignore for now?

Clouds88

Hello,

Life has been challenging for myself for a long time now and this year I’ve put my head in the sand with my debts. 

My husband moved out for 6 weeks and household income reduced and I stopped paying my debts to prioritise paying for food ect. 

I haven’t got back in touch to sort it out and not sure what to do, none of them are massive amounts but there are a lot of them. 

I wanted to build an emergency fund back up as I don’t have that currently, should I be making token payments or just ignoring them for now? 

My creditors are 
credit cards-
capital one £200
zopa £500
zable £500
AO £1300
Jaja finance £1500
118 money £2800

shell energy £171
British Gas £700 (this one annoying and was an error on their side but still I owe it jointly with husband)

I think I stopped paying 118 ages ago as I struggled with the high repayments and jaja so both of those have defaulted already.

I am optimistic for the future that my income will hopefully increase, atm I’m only working once a week and we get top up benefits (husband on PIP/ESA) long background I won’t bore you with but I’ve managed to hold onto my career with the skin of my teeth and hoping once my youngest (almost 3) gets a bit bigger I can go back to doing nights part time and take my income back to £2000 ish a month and significantly reduce the benefits I’m on. Hopefully by the time he starts school so 2 years maximum. 

fatbelly

Not much point in token payment

Are Shell/British Gas still supplying you?

Clouds88

No Shell is a debt from my old property and British Gas was this same house but when I switched to EDF who I’m with now they said my account was set up incorrectly and I was only being charged electricity for the year not gas hence the high bill! (New build)

EDF I’m in credit for slightly and pay DD

sourcrates

All non priority debts then, continue as you are, let them all go to debt collection, when the collectors write to you, write back and tell them the payments are unaffordable for now due to your circumstances.

Collectors will return the accounts to their clients, and you will be put on the back burner, you maybe asked for updates every six months or so in case your situation changes.

Once it does, then deal with it, until then, nothing to worry about.