Second Opinon Needed

Kunama

Hi all,

I am currently 4 months into a DMP with CAB. Although I am getting assistance from the CAB I am handling all contact myself. I had a bad experience with a DMP company before I went to CAB and am not happy to hand over the handling of my finances to any third party.

Currently I am paying £1 each per month to each of my creditors, with all interest and charges frozen. My problem is that my advisor at the CAB doesn't know what to do with us. She is unable to see anyway for us to get out of our debt without losing our home. Originally she told us we can stay on the DMP, and if our situation improves we can gradually increase our payments untill we can either clear our debts or have enough disposable income to go onto an IVA. Now we are being told we need to find some way to proceed as the creditors will not accept our low payments forever. I thought we were going to take each month one at a time and worry about that if and when it happened. She is currently trying to see if my partner could go bankrupt, sell me his share of the house for £1, then I am unable to work for 3 years untill we are clear on the bankrupcy.

Originally I was of the understanding that going onto a DMP reduced our monthly payments so we could survive each week but if I could raise a small amount of money we could pay off our creditors one by one with Full and Final agreements.

By doing a few odd jobs and boot fairs I managed to raise £150 that I was hoping to clear one of our debts however I have now been told by CAB that I cannot do this. I either have to find £10,000 to offer F&F to all my creditors, or I dont make extra payments at all.

I now feel that we have tried to do everything correctly, speak to people, don't let debts get out of control ect, and in doing so have backed ourselves into a corner in which the only way out is to lose our home.

I'm sorry if the post is a bit of a ramble, I just feel really dissapointed that I have worked hard to raise some extra cash for nothing, I really thought I would be able to clear my debts one by one not have to do them all in one go. Does anyone have any experience of companys refusing to accept further DMP offers because another creditor has been paid off in full?

Thank you for any help you can offer:(

***UPDATE**** SOA AND OTHE FINACIALS POST 6 & 7

Tixy

Hi

Token payments of £1 a week are only suitable for a short time period or for people on benefits or with no assets. If you have a house with equity in it then your creditors are soon enough going to try to get their debts secured on that asset (via CCJ then charging order).

If you have equity in your house then I don't think OH will be able to sell his share to you for £1, although he might if there is no equity in it.

Is there no way you can currently offer to increase your payments so that you are paying reduced ro-rata payments to your creditors rather than token payments?
Have you posted up a statement of affairs on this board for people to make suggestions as to how you can save on your outgoings so that you can offer more?
Have you sent your creditors a income & expenditure form showing that you outgoings are more than your incomings currently?

Regarding F&Fs - Once people have been on a DMP for a while they do sometimes make individual F&Fs to one creditor at a time. The debt charities don't actually advise this as you are using what money you have to favour one creditor over others.

However people do still do this and the usual way is when you write to the one creditor to explain that a relative has offered to give/loan you money to pay off a debt in full (I'm not suggesting you do this as such, just telling you this is what people sometimes do). F&F settlements only usually work once your debts are with debt collectors rather than the original creditor, thats when you are likely to get the best deals. I suspect if you are only on token payments and have only been on your DMP for 4months it is probably too soon for F&Fs.

If you have saved up any extra money you can either keep it for an emergency fund or a debt charity would say use it to make extra pro-rata payments to your creditors.

SouthCoast

CAB would have had the benefit of a SOA.

Post one here for considered advice.

podperson

Hi Kumana,

Could I just clarify a few points; whose name are the debts in? Since cab are suggesting your OH go bankrupt then am assuming they are mainly in his name? Obviously if they are joint or some in your name as well then will not really be solving much as will just leave you with people coming after you for debts.
If the debts are in his name and the property is in joint names then it will be harder for any creditors to force a sale for equity from it, also any charging order they might be able to obtain on it would not be a full charging order but only a restriction.

If you are not happy with cab's advice then is always worth getting a second opinion, maybe try CCCS or National Debtline (make sure you choose a free service). Without knowing your circumstances and seeing an soa it is a little hard for people to offer specific advice on what your options might be - you say you are making £1 payments at the moment, is this because you are having difficulties at the moment or is this likely to be a long term arrangement? While cab are probably right that creditors won't accept this in the long term you have only been on it 4 months so if there is a possibility of change of circumstances then could be worth sticking it out a bit longer.
Also you can make full and finals to individual creditors if you want to, cab are probably not advising it since if you are going down the bankruptcy route it could look like you are favouring one creditor over the others but you're on an informal dmp at the moment so is entirely up to you how you handle it. As Tixy said might be worth perhaps giving it a little longer since you have only been on the dmp 4 months and then stating in the letter that you can't see your circumstances changing in the foreseeable future but you have been offered some money from a relative in order to clear the debt at x% (start low as you can always work up). Make sure you get it in writing that the payment will be accepted as full and final settlement of the debt and will release you from all liability to it.

pelirocco

Kunama wrote: »

Hi all,

I am currently 4 months into a DMP with CAB. Although I am getting assistance from the CAB I am handling all contact myself. I had a bad experience with a DMP company before I went to CAB and am not happy to hand over the handling of my finances to any third party.

Currently I am paying £1 each per month to each of my creditors, with all interest and charges frozen. My problem is that my advisor at the CAB doesn't know what to do with us. She is unable to see anyway for us to get out of our debt without losing our home. Originally she told us we can stay on the DMP, and if our situation improves we can gradually increase our payments untill we can either clear our debts or have enough disposable income to go onto an IVA. Now we are being told we need to find some way to proceed as the creditors will not accept our low payments forever. I thought we were going to take each month one at a time and worry about that if and when it happened. She is currently trying to see if my partner could go bankrupt, sell me his share of the house for £1, then I am unable to work for 3 years untill we are clear on the bankrupcy.

Originally I was of the understanding that going onto a DMP reduced our monthly payments so we could survive each week but if I could raise a small amount of money we could pay off our creditors one by one with Full and Final agreements.

By doing a few odd jobs and boot fairs I managed to raise £150 that I was hoping to clear one of our debts however I have now been told by CAB that I cannot do this. I either have to find £10,000 to offer F&F to all my creditors, or I dont make extra payments at all.

I now feel that we have tried to do everything correctly, speak to people, don't let debts get out of control ect, and in doing so have backed ourselves into a corner in which the only way out is to lose our home.

I'm sorry if the post is a bit of a ramble, I just feel really dissapointed that I have worked hard to raise some extra cash for nothing, I really thought I would be able to clear my debts one by one not have to do them all in one go. Does anyone have any experience of companys refusing to accept further DMP offers because another creditor has been paid off in full?

Thank you for any help you can offer:(

why would that be so?

Kunama

Hi,
I have added below as much information as I can think of, if any one can offer any advice.
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900.00
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
State Pension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Pension / Annuity Payout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 1,196.00
Income From Savings & Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Gifts From Family / Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.99
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.99
Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.00
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45.00
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.00
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111.00
Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.00
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440.00
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.92
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.75
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400.00
Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.68
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Debt Repayments

Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00
Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308.00
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
family loan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320.00
DMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00

Savings & Investments

Pension Payments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Buying Shares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mini Cash ISAs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Lump Sum Saving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Saving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Family

Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.00
Pocket Money. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Nappies/Baby Extras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Laundry/Dry Cleaning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Children's Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Baby Sitting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400.00
Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Cinema/Theatre Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Books/Music/Films/Computers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Big Days Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Shopping for Fun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Pet Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Hobbies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
IT/Computing (eg Anti-virus etc). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
DVD Rental. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Drinking Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00

Clothes, Health & Beauty

Complimentary Therapies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Beauty Treatments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Healthcare Cashplans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Dental Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Private Medical Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
diet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.90

Education & Courses

University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One Offs

Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00
lottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,096.00


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,161.68

Kunama

2 Adults and 3 dependants living in the house.
3 bed semi detached house (valued in June at £185000)

Debts
Mortage (GMAC) £155000 - £600 in arrears (plan in place to pay £100 ontop of our standard £330.00 monthly payment to clear arrears) Interest Only at SVR (2.5%) JOINT
Secured Loan (Black Horse) £14000 - £600 in arrears no plan in place at present time to repay arrears although charges have been stopped. JOINT
Mum Loan £20000 - Loan taken out by my mum in her name at LloydsTSB.
Mum Credit Card - Another Loan by my mum
Abbey National (originally overdrafts but turned into loans) £1118 - MINE
Abbey National (originally overdrafts but turned into loans) £201 - JOINT
Abbey National (originally overdrafts but turned into loans) £1363 - PARTNERS
Cahoot (originally overdrafts but turned into loans) £1363 - PARTNERS
Cahoot Loan £9486 - JOINT
Cahoot Loan £2111 - MINE
Halifax Credit Card £4574 - MINE
Lloyds Black Horse Loan £4987 - JOINT
Moneyshop £863 – PARTNERS
PayDay UK £197 – PARTNERS
Body Tech Gym £380 – MINE (This is being disputed as I never signed a contract but they say I have and I cannot find my paperwork to prove otherwise)

EDF Gas - £150
EDF Electirc - £50
Southern Water - £225
South East water – £150
The CAB has made grant applications for us for all the above utlility bills

My partner currently works full time 40hrs a week.
I have only just come off Maternity Pay in May and gone back to work. I am a self employed online retailer working 18hrs a week. I am not currently earning whilest I gear the shop back up to reopen after maternity. In the mean time I have also put myself out for cleaning work and have a few upcoming jobs.
We are currently paying off a tax credits overpayment. The CAB have looked into the overpayment and agree we have not been overpaid, but they have advised as we only have a few payments left to make (the end of august) it is not worth fighting for it.

As best as I know this is an accurate and very honest break down of our finances.
Our end goal is to be debt free in our own home. If this is not possible then so be it, but this is the solution we are working hard to get. If we were to lose our home over our debts we have been told we may not be able to get council housing or enough help with private housing to make it affordable for us
So far the CAB has told us:
We are entitled to no extra benefits.
I have to earn a significantly higher wage to be any better off, but am better off working as I would not be able to get any help if not working..
We do not have enough disposable income for an IVA.
To go bankrupt would lose our home.
We went to our local council to ask about Mortgage rescue scheme. The lady was very helpful, very positive and thought we stood an excellent chance of getting accepted for the scheme so we decided to go ahead with it. We returned to CAB to get them to print the SOA we needed to continue and she told us the scheme would be of no help to us and not to proceed. On this matter I feel we had 2 very conflicting lots of advise from both partys. We ended up not going with this as we could not get any concrete details.
The current avenue the CAB are looking into is as I have mentioned above. My partner goes bankrupt, sells me the house for £1 and we then only have my debts of around £8000 to deal with. She has told me I would then be unable to work for 3 years, but didn’t say why that would be. This is probably the part that is making me not want to pursue this route as I do not want to be forced to not work, I want to be able to work to better our situation and get us out of this mess.
I am at a complete loss over what to do. Every single thing we look at comes to a dead end. The CAB lady keeps telling us we are a very exceptional case which doesn’t go anyway towards making this any easier. It has been 8 months in total since we first sought advise and we are no better off or clearer in our minds now to what we were then.
I cannot fault the lady at CAB, she has been very helpful and understanding from the start but she cannot seem to find a soloution.
If there is anything I have left out that can help at all please tell me
Thank you to anyone who even spares the tiem to look and to all the people who have answered this far. x

MRS_A_3

So can I clarify, your DH works 40 hours for £900 per month?

After 6 months you will have the £100 overpayment from the mortgage to be able to utilize?

There are quite a few other areas as well where at a glance you could free up about £250 if not more. You have an awful lot of allowances to be fair.

Is there any way you can cut back a bit? Do you really need to be eating out and then paying for diets? (just an observation)

Kunama

MRS_A wrote: »

So can I clarify, your DH works 40 hours for £900 per month? Yes this is correct although this is his take home pay after he has paid his tax and NI
After 6 months you will have the £100 overpayment from the mortgage to be able to utilize? Yes this is correct, although at some point I need to make some payments towards the debt on my secured loan that I haven't budgeted for

There are quite a few other areas as well where at a glance you could free up about £250 if not more. You have an awful lot of allowances to be fair. I do completely agree, I didnt really realize how much I spent untill it is all in black and white.

Is there any way you can cut back a bit? Do you really need to be eating out and then paying for diets? (just an observation)

Again I do agree. I figured the diet should work out a money saving tool aswell as a benefit to our health as I spend ALOT of money of trips to our local shop every evening for snacks.

I've had a good look a few times and can see ways to cut back, but then it is a case of fighting the family all the way to impliment changes and then to keep them on track. I want to change things so badly but i'm worn out with dragging everyone else along behind me

NorthernLas

Sorry, but the SOA format you have used makes it quite difficult to see what debts you are paying for (this is the more usual format http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html)

One thing that sticks out is that you are paying out £800 in debts which is nearly all of OH income. Which debts are you paying and which are getting token payments? It may be more of a priority to get a payment plan in place for the secured debt than to pay loans.

More worrying is that the SOA shows that you spend £1000 more than you bring in. If this is accurate, for the moment you need to cut back as much as possible.

Other thoughts ...

Could you do a spending diary so that you can both see where the money goes?
How long will it be before you will start to bring in income?
How old are the children and can you reduce the childcare costs at all?

chevalier

My comments are in blue.

Kunama wrote: »

Hi,
I have added below as much information as I can think of, if any one can offer any advice.
Statement of Affairs and Personal Balance Sheet

Monthly Income Details
Income from Employment (after tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 900.00 Holy cow this is a really low wage. Can he get a second job, or help you gear up the online shop quicker?
Income from Self Employment (before tax). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 I take it this is going to change when you start working on the online shop again?
Benefits (Inc. Child Benefit/Tax Credits & Income Support). . . . . . . . . . . 1,196.00 If you have been overpaid, but CAB think you haven't been then what is a letter querying this going to cost you?
Monthly Expense Details

In Your Home

Mobile Phone(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 can you bundle you mobile, internet and home phone together and get a better deal? Are the phone PAYG? If on contract can you ask to go onto a cheaper package. Do you have any old handsets, that you can sell to envirophone?
TV Licence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.12
Internet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.99
Home Phone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.99
Cleaning Products/Cleaner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 I know you have nothing against this, but star drops are your friend! Have a look on the old style forum board!
Garden Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Household Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60.00 Is this stuff you are contracted to pay, or stuff you are saving as a rainy day fund for when the boiler blows up or something? If it is contracted stuff can you end the contract?
Oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45.00 check that these are the best deals, would a combi account be cheaper?
Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45.00
Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24.00
Council Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111.00 ask to pay over 12 months not 10. As you are in receipt of benefits this should be easy to do. Also as you are not working at the moment, can you get council tax benefit, single persons discount or whateever?
Overdraft Cost. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Bank Account Fee. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Home Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43.00:eek::eek::eek: please tell me that is for contents and buildings, otherwise that is very very high, and you can get it down.
Mortgage/Rent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440.00 Is this interest only or repayment. Have you asked to extend the term, or get a mortgage holiday to give you some breathing room? I would also ignore the CAB lady in this case and submit your mortgage rescue application. If you don't ask you don't get.
Plumbing/Boiler Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Mortgage Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28.92 Is this for 1 or 2 of you. can you get this cheaper. do you need it at all? Will it pay out for a self employed person (alot of them don't)
Mortgage Payment Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Life Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9.75 do you need this and mortgage life cover?
Food and Household Shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400.00 For a start do a store cupboard and freezer inventory. You need to know what is in there, so you can plan your spending in this area better - ie not need the runs to the probably very expensive corner shop! Again the money saving old style forum board has literally 1000's of recipes that can be made very cheaply to stretch budget. And if the family don't like it explain to them that this is the new way now, and that the next meal is a long way away.....
Drinks for Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Motoring & Public Transport

Petrol/Diesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150.00 if you spent this say all at tesco at least you would then get a lot of clubcard points to change into deals.
Parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Car Tax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Car Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23.68 again is this the cheapest you can get.
Car Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00
Rail/Bus/Taxi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Breakdown Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Debt Repayments

Credit Card Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00
Hire Purchase Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100.00
Personal Loan Repayments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308.00
Car Loan Repayments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
family loan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320.00 Ok need to fess up here to the family. And ask to stop paying this for a bit. You need this money to raise your debt payments to creditors who can start charging you interest again, if they feel like it.....
DMP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12.00 Ok I don't understand this, you aren't actually paying the proper repayments are you? You are only paying the £12? Or are these repayments that are included in the DMP for some reason?


Family

Pet Food. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Trips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 is this a month? Holy cow! I would suggest that you may need to swallow some pride, and admit to the school you can't afford this. School generally have a fund to help out....
School Meals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26.00 Shouldn't school meals be free?
Childcare/Play Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400.00:eek::eek::eek:So nearly half your OH take home pay is going on child care!!!! Wow is this worth it? Are there family who could look after the children one day a week to help out? What about childcare vouchers from his employer? Can he up his income. Is this including the free child hours when they turn 3?
Pet Insurance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Travel Insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Entertainment

Satellite/Digital TV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Family Days Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 really sorry but these will have to stop for the time being. enjoy the park/woods etc museums whilst the weather is still good. Ask family for a national trust or similar family membership, so they can still get some outside play...

Eating Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 Again sorry you can't afford this.

Clothes, Health & Beauty
Optical Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Haircuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 so you all have really long hair?
Dentistry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00 even nhs you have to pay for the check up? so need to budget something for this.
Fitness/Sports/Gym. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50.00 can you stop this - running if FREEEEE!
Work Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
New Children's Clothes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40.00 do they have to be new? charity shops often have barely used clothes, or ask on freecycle for clothes. They are free you just have to go and pick them up. What about at car boots?
New Clothes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30.00 As above
diet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17.90

Education & Courses

University Tuition Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
School Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Your Courses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Big One Offs

Funeral Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Wedding Expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Sofa/Kitchen/TV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Birthdays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 be creative and see how you can make free things into presents, have a look on the freebies forum for samples. Or look on the competitions forum board for things to enter....
Winter Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Summer Holiday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00

Odds & Sods

Newspapers & Magazines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00 read theses online.
Tax & NI Provisions (self-employed only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Regular Charity Donations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Meals at work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.00
Smokes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 good luck when you want to quit. wouldn't you get free prescriptions for the anti smoking stuff?
Coffees/Sandwiches/Snacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20.00 £240 a year you could put towards debt. How about the first challenge being getting this spend included in your food budget, so that you save this bit a month?
lottery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10.00 If you don't do the lottery you would win a guaranteed £120 a year.....


Total monthly income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,096.00


Total monthly expenses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,161.68

I think for the purposes of your ACTUAL budget going forward, you can take out the actual debt repayments and put in the DMP figure only. You can start working the money back in once you have other areas using less of the available income.

I hope that you can up your income with the online shop....but don't forget to put money aside for tax

good luck
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