Debt management plan help! So worried and ashamed

Rob5342

It's a long game with various options that you can play to your advantage. Defaulting gives you a good foundation as all interest is stopped and you have a fixed date when the debts will drop off your credit report. You can then focus of repaying at a rate you can afford without having to worry about anything else, that can be adjusted as your cicrmctances change. Once defaulted debts are likely to be sold to a debt collector, and they will be open to some sort of settlement offer so you can clear them for less. Making affordability complaints can reduce the amount if you are successful. You are also able to ask for the CCA and if that can't be found then the debt can't be enforced and you can simply ignore it. That usually only works if the debt has been sold on and the right to ask for the CCA may be removed next year.

There's no urgency despite how you might feel or how lenders might present things. For now simply stop paying, start building up an emergency fund and make sure you don't have any money with banks that you owe money to.

RAS

The other factor that you need to consider is that people who start paying immediately frequently then find themselves in a financial mess when an emergency happens.

Maybe your husband's income and savings are sufficient if either of you looses your income for a while, something breaks down or needs expensive maintenance? Otherwise, you need to save the money you are not using now for payments into an emergency fund.

And if Stepchange are recommending a large payment each month, you must discuss your budget with your husband. Because the most common error in budgets written under pressure is that they don't actually cover a lot of predictable but infrequent expenditure. You need to learn to budget each month for those and put the money aside.

You may not have allowed for holidays, for example, but your husband expects one. Even bankrupts and those on IVAs are allowed holidays. How much have you allowed each month?

Sunbakedscobble

Hello

I could have written this post word for word this time 5 years ago. I was 34k in debt on credit cards, all kept secret from my husband. II entered a DMP with payplan. Best thing I ever did. They strongly advised I tell my husband. It was horrific at the time and he didn't speak to me for 2 days but then when he calmed down he was incredibily supported and said that it explained a lot. Payplan were incredible. it was such a relief to get it sorted and not have to think about it ever again. Just watch the amount I owed come down, I cleared my debt this summer, 4.5 years later. You are doing the right thing