Thank you so much! Yes I would like a copy of your spreadsheet please!

Ok ok...you have me convinced! Thank you. Will see what I can do. Do we now just stop all contact with the creditors, continue sending the token payments we've arranged and send the CCA request? I'm loathe to let it get to court as I just don't have the energy to deal with it at the moment (2 kids under 3, not great health, training to be childminder, mother going round the bend, husband working 60 hour weeks...you get the picture!). I suppose we could see then about full and final on some of them, I'm just worried about MBNA who seem to be gits. (Currently wishing I had alpha male husband who would just sort it all out since it's in his name!) Thanks for the advice, just run out of puff on this one for a while and want it all to go away so sorry if I sound rather pathetic right now.

I'm going to sound like a wimp but just reading the CCA threads and it sounds stupidly complicated and I'm wussing out of it a bit. Would like to stick head in the sand at this point and hope it all goes away! I need the fags for my mental health. How's that?! LOL

Hi, Thanks for the replies. Why not put fags down on I&E? There's a tobacco allowance up to £85 a month on bankruptcy and assumed we could put the same down for this. We haven't checked whether they're enforceable as I'm not sure I really want the phone calls and letters madness that follows if they're not. We're ok to pay it back just not as it was and not for a few months hence the token payments until I'm working again. Can we go down the CCA route whilst doing the token payments? I'm not sure how long they hound you before giving in and what the ramifications are for doing it (if it proves unenforceable).

Hiya I sent in letters requesting we went to token payments and included a budget sheet. It would appear that MBNA have spotted that we appear to have £150 plus a month spare and are now requesting pro-rata payment of £85 a month. We don't have that money spare though and having looked again I've left off my loan payment (£150), my fag money and a budget for the kids shoes since the baby has just gone into shoes (not cheap in their own right!). My current thoughts are to write again to all creditors with a new budget sheet and just apologise for oversight. Not sure what to do about my loan payment as we just wanted to sort my husbands out first before tackling mine. I'm not against sorting that out as well but I'd rather not right now. We've had all the expected letters and some phone calls to discuss it, Egg have been brilliant and accepted it no problems, Cahoot say we need to get CAB to send in letter as they won't accept CCCS, MBNA being a bit gittish but not too bad. Obviously we need to sort this out as we don't want to appear to be lying I just honestly didn't realise. help please!

Hello, If the payments aren't enforcable with the CCA thing do we just hang on until we can pay or try and sort a settlement figure? Or ignore it as long as possible?

Hi, I was under the impression that under debt management plans they choose the amount you pay? Although thinking about it that might just be IVAs. You're right, having someone else to sort it out would be a massive relief. Having talked about it with my husband I think we're decided on writing to see if any of the debts can be wiped off, and then if not we'll go to token payments until I'm working in the Summer and we can afford to start making proper payments. Would a DMP allow the above to happen?

Hi Thanks for your replies. No we don't own our home, we privately rent. I know the bankruptcy would make a lot of things easier but it just brings so many of it's own problems, and to be honest we're happy to pay it back just unfortunately we can't right now each month. I don't think our credit file is *that* bad, there have only been a couple of late payments although it's suddenly going to become defaults as I've just stopped all the direct debits in a fit of pique. What is a CCA? And what does it do/mean? I've never come across this before.

Hi, Where do I start? Up until about an hour ago we were going to go bankrupt. We being my husband actually. We have about £23k of debt, including a loan, sofa payments and credit cards. We've paid loads off by doing minimum payments and over and it seems such a shame to go bankrupt finally for *only* £23k. Anyway, having cancelled all the direct debits to creditors last week (sending token payment letters in) I started going through the particulars of it all this morning (again but properly now). There has to be some other way. At the moment I'm thinking that I'll write and see if any of the creditors would be prepared to wipe the debts, if you don't ask you don't know right? If they won't then I can ask for them to freeze the interest and accept token payments right? I'm currently registering as a childminder and when I'm working it will make a massive difference to our income so in 6 months time we would be able to pay something, maybe less than 6 months. If we write and ask for debt to be written off and they refuse can we then offer token payments until our circumstances change then negotiate amounts we can afford? The past couple of weeks have been really hard and I'm feeling VERY sorry for myself now. I won't bore you with my list but there's tons going on and I just want this sorted now once and for all. One last question - does having debt written off and altering payments go on your credit record if you're still paying something? Hoping someone can give me a good old shove in the right direction. Thanks