Today I reached a milestone of paying off two more debts. The buzz from that was short-lived as I just received an email from Jubilee Budget Advisory.
For those who haven’t read it already, here’s the background story on why I have a debt from a FREE budgeting service. Basically, I know that they gave me money but because I am still annoyed about their mistake , I have been making very small payments towards this debt – just $10-$20 here and there when I can. I just can’t bring myself to prioritise a debt that is A: interest-free, when most of my other debts are not and B: a result of somebody else’s error.
Here’s the email I received today:
There is approx. $620 still outstanding on that account at Jubilee. I see you have made various payment to this (with another $10 the other day) but I really would like to get it tidied up as soon as possible.
While we did accidently over pay you, you did still receive too much from Jubilee. I am however, happy to come up with a bit of a plan if you are interested and reduce the amount if we can clear this up by the end of the year? I am thinking the quicker we can reduce this amount, the more we can reduce the balance.
Here is my response:
According to my records I have $600 outstanding on that account.
In order to pay the remaining $600 by the end of the year, I would have to make fortnightly payments of $54 which is currently not possible.
I too would like to get rid of my debt, which I am working on doing but having so many debts it is difficult to keep everyone happy with the amounts I am paying. I will have a look at my budget for the year and see if there is any debt I can pay less on in order to pay Jubilee back faster. Even though this is one of my smaller debts, it hasn’t been prioritised as the others are charging interest but I understand I need to come up with a plan to reduce this faster.
Will get back to you once I have gone through my budget for the year.
So I will now go through my budget and see if I can increase my payments enough to satisfy Jubilee. Despite having paid off two debts today, that money has already been absorbed into other interest-bearing debts that I had reduced payments on temporarily in order to clear my Vodafone and National Bank loan debts. Now that those two are cleared, I have to play catch up so there is no spare money for Jubilee.
Will keep you posted on this matter.
$50,000 in debt and only half-way to 50! 
Oh, how frustrating. Unbelievable that a debt service would pull a stunt like that.
Keep plugging away – I wouldn’t prioritise them either. My partner has been stuck with more than his fair share of debt by others (some of which by default has affected me, especially while he was laid off) and has one more of those debts to pay off – but it’s not accruing interest so we’re no in hurry to pay it off quickly.
Seeing this so soon after your last update makes me wonder if they are keeping an eye on your blog and have thought “great, she’s paid off those two, now she can pay us”. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me based on the timing of it. It seems very suspect to me!!
I remember last time I paid a big amount on my Vodafone debt, the same day I received a bill for Vodafone so was starting to think I just had really bad luck but this makes way more sense!
They seem to be suggesting they would reduce the amount due in return for a more rapid and set payment plan to me, so perhaps negotiate the debt to say $500 (saving you $100) and then commit to what you can to pay by the end of the year, say $20 over 25 weeks…You will save $100, so it could be worth it. Otherwise if they wont budge, or you feel the other debts are much more higher interest bearing and not getting nasty/threatening your credit rating, keep drip feeding them..I just felt maybe you had not interpreted that meaning of “reduction” as I did..If you negotiate a reduction, get in writing and keep very accurate records with this crowd, they seem to have poor accounting!
You’re right I didn’t interpret it like that and after receiving a follow-up email from Jubilee, that is what he meant! I will see what I can do with my budget and post an update on the situation