I have setup this blog to hopefully record our progress through our Debt Management Plan (DMP) and our journey from debt to debt-free.

If you have any questions then please let me know however if they are financial questions then can I suggest you speak directly with a free debt management company.

I am recommending the Consumer Credit Counselling Service (CCCS) as I have found numerous forum posts and success stories from people who have been where we are - all the information I could find about the CCCS was excellent and they come highly recommended.

I shall be updating this blog regularly with any information/letters/phone calls I receive from both the CCCS and/or my creditors to hopefully give you some idea of the process involved in a DMP.

I hope this site proves helpful.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

18 months - time for a new update!

So, I've added a new list of my debts - these don't include my wife's debts any more as I can only guestimate what she still owes.

Reading back on my last update, I previously said that I had £14K of personal debt with an additional £24K of joint debt - so £38K of debt from the perspective of StepChange.

Well, 18 months on and my personal debt is now approximately £9.5K with joint debt of approimately £22K - actual total from the perspective of StepChange is just over £31.5K!!!

So...I've bought my own personal debt down by 1/3 in 18 months and between my ex-wife and I we have brought our joint debt down by 10% - This doesn't sound quite right to me but unfortunately I didn't make a list of my debts during my last update so I can only go by the overall figures that I wrote at the time.

So...what's my debt-free date now?  StepChange tell me that my date is in 10 years time.

Now, I have had to reduce my StepChange payments over the years as I got into a situation of using Wonga to help me get through the last week of a month before pay day - NOT GOOD!  This was due to poor budgeting on my part and after discussing it with StepChange we agreed on a more realistic amount.

Either way though, when I blogged 18 months ago my debt-free date was almost 20 years!

I'm still confident that both my ex-wife and I will be debt-free sometime in the next 5 - 7 years and I think we've both now got realistic budgets and payments set to allow us to keep on track.

If you found this blog through searching for information on Debt Management Plans (DMP) or StepChange then I hope it's been of help to you. If you are struggling with your debt then don't hesitate to contact StepChange - they are brilliant and life has been so much better since they helped me to get my debts under control.

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