My DMP diary - 2026 (year 1)

Dakota_Rose

Great picture! This is one of our catchphrases at work and keeps us going in the tough moments (which is most of the time) 😂

Enjoy the new socks! Every time you look at them, you can think ‘Ooh look at my free socks’.

ArtyJ931

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81957071#Comment_81957071

and I will! Haha

ArtyJ931

Voucher used for shiny new socks - £2 left went towards new pants. I'm truly living my best life.

In other news I've cycled a 12 mile round trip for aforementioned pants n socks so that was good exercise and the weather was beaut and cost me £0 in fuel costs.

Extra money saving wonders - arrived home to find a house down the road has a skip outside full of beautiful Victorian bricks which I have spent the last hour or so reclaiming. I had been looking at them online as I need a load for the garden and am thrilled to have been handed them on a plate. My hips and thighs are somewhat less pleased.

Re DMP: Checked the new email which was created specifically for the purpose of the DMP - for all loans/ cc and nothing much in there other than an 'oh dear you haven't paid your loan' email from tesco. Also sent off the bank statements that I have (I don't have all that they requested) back to tesco in reply to their request as part of the investigation into my affordability complaint. Updated my DMP spreadsheet accordingly.

My plan is to check the email address every week or so as the main thing is going to come through the post (default notice).

ArtyJ931

16yo car scraped through its MOT yesterday with a small fail, readjustment and then scraped a pass but with an urgent advisory. Actually had money in the “car” pot to pay for it!!

However as it’s only month 2 of all this pots business and being able to put money aside I don’t know how the pot will hold up to sorting out the urgent advisory (brakes). I only have £60 left after paying for the MOT. If it’s more it will have to come out of the emergency fund (exciting that I have the option to dip into an emergency fund!!)

ArtyJ931

Various calamaties later - it has cost me over £300 to sort out the advisories. I only had £60 left in the car pot so the rest had to come out of the emergency fund. I suppose that is what it's for but felt a bit annoyed that I've already had to dip into it in month 2. C'est la vie.

Did my weekly check on the email account I set up for debts and had an email regarding one of my affordability complaints - my zillions of questions around this can be found on a seperate thread :

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6662145/when-to-make-affordability-complaints-in-the-dmp-process

Paid myself my weekly spends out of my groceries/petrol/entertainment/etc pot. Financially everything is going well and I'm not in any bother as general spending is accounted for and various pots are building up. This is obviously because I've stopped paying my debts and so I can afford to… live. Shocking, I know.

A stressful week at work and I'm very busy so the weekend is incredibly welcome. It will be a low key one which I am thrilled about.

1 missed call this week from an unknown number… is it a spam call or one of the banks/companies calling about a missed payment? No idea as they didn't leave a message. All calls from unknown numbers go into a seperate folder and I don't get notified of them. I am checking on the missed calls situation every week but not sure why. Doesn't really matter.

ArtyJ931

£200 received from a bank switch today and that has gone into a “house” pot as I have so much work at home that needs doing. Considering looking into another one as it seems like easy money to top up a pot or two.

Re: the affordability complaints question above I had about how to respond to an email back from a cc provider - I also asked debt camel and she said to ignore them. So I will!