1 step forward, 2 steps back

ceejaydee23

Back from CAB office! they phoned council tax department and my housing officer whilst i was there and spoke to them about me getting a financial statement. I'm to still pay them what i had intended to in the meantime. No doubt the CAB will come back saying we are in more poop financially then WE think we are, cos of the stuff they expect you to think about, Like gifts for birthdays and christmas! Like how can you realistically know how much you would spend on gifts, we just worked it out at an average of £15 a head for birthdays n christmas and then a lump sum for our kids christmas lol

But its done now, and its a weight off my shoulders i suppose.

ceejaydee23

Nothing like a good letter to put my calculations up in the air again! Had letter notification about the increase in my rent from 4th April, Its going up by £7.04 a week! Oh well i'm sure something will work out. Will the council automatically send me a new calculation for the housing Benefit or would i need to notify them of my change in rental amount?

CH27

If you rent from the Council it will be done automatically.
If you rent privatly you will need to notify them.

ceejaydee23

We are a housing Association so no longer council, but now ive read the letter properly it does say that anything about housing benefit changes will come from the council directly.

I wish i could remember where i put the letter from last year, to remind me when the free weeks were this year, cos if we are still due one @ the end of march then we could infact be free of our rent arrears alot sooner then we thought!

CH27 wrote: »

If you rent from the Council it will be done automatically.
If you rent privatly you will need to notify them.

ceejaydee23

Well, I have been feeling rather under the weather last couple of days, infact down right low, theres only so much we can take before something gives somewhat.

BUT got my post this morning with the budget sheet from the lady at CAB. 1 spot of good news they have confirmed our payment amount for 2011/12 council tax and its obviously counting something towards council tax benefit cos its gonna be £89.75 a month (£40.25 lower then the FULL payment i was expecting) When i get the councils own documentation through i will be double, and double checking everything! At least thats a little more in the budget to work out a PROPER BUDGET with! as before i wasnt, I'm hoping after the phonecall with PAYPLAN that i will be alot clearer in HOW to do this properly. As although we had been putting say £50 a month aside for so called emergencies, or other bills that came up eg Servicing the car) We hadnt really been budgetting for things like clothing either for ourselves or children, so far theres just been no kind of leeway at all for planning for those "yearly bills like Car Tax or how to work the christmas budget into things either! We had been relying on overdraft and the odd spend on credit cards to get us through.

Now we gotta try n do things properly, But right now i dont know how! Well i do, but still cant make the sums up lol, Hopefully its the kind of thing payplan can help us with. And you lovely people on here!