Was managing but now falling fast

the_troubled_one · 20 May 2008 at 12:37PM

Hi everyone,

First can I just say its nice to be in the company of people in the similar situation as me do not feel so alone now.

My OH and myself have debt in the region of £50,000 and have been in a debt management plan since April 07 with the ever helpful Payplan paying them £273 a month. Unfortunately I got made redundant from a reasonable paid job (£24,500 a year) last September and only received a small redundancy payment.

Sadly I have to admit I took the wrong attitude and wasted time looking for a job that paid around the same money and turned down lesser paid jobs thinking the redundancy money would last for ever. After a reality check I accepted a job in Jan paying £10,000 less a year but by then the damage was done.

The OH works part time days and part time evening 7 days a week cause she can earn good overtime rates and this bring our total earnings (with tax credits and family allowance included) nearly back to what we were earning before but this is still not getting us over this rather large blip.

Because of this we are now struggling to even pay the mortgage (£830) and council tax (£110) each month, incurring £38 unpaid fees from the bank probably 3 times a month losing us even more cash.

I am even getting all the threating calls back from the creditors claiming we have broken the agreement because we had to move the payment date back for Payplan (agreed with Payplan) due to me being payed later in the month.

Another issue is some of the creditors are happy accepting the payments but keep charging us interest and fees (HSBC seem to be worse as original debt was £988 and now its well over £2500) regardless of how many letters Payplan and we send them asking to freeze all fees. Cause of this the total debt increases by over £300 a month meaning we are now paying nothing of our original debts.

I have done much reading into IVA and bankruptcy but I am not keen to enter into these unless that is the ultimate final option.

I am at work at the moment and will put up a SOA later this evening with more detailed information for people to look at.

Cheers guys and thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

Merlot · 20 May 2008 at 12:42PM

Your priority repayments are the mortgage/council tax/Gas and electricity, make sure they are paid before anything else.

Will look in later after you posted your SOA.

Merlot.x.