How do you budget on a DMP?

Mooglet71

Ok so start my DMP on 1.11.11 and have looked at my budget. I am still a bit panic stricken about how I am going to manage. Once I have paid my outgoings and my DMP amount I will be left with £414 a month. Of this I contribute £120 towards our monthly shopping and I pay £200 in petrol each month. So I will be left with £104 to live on for the month. I am really panic stricken about how I am going to make that last for the month, particularly budgeting for things like car tax, servicing and MOT not to mention birthday presents etc. I am a real bargain hunter and always sell stuff on ebay but am still a bit eek!

paulmapp8306

firstly, all those things should be taking into account on your DMP. if your going to struggle, then your SOA is incorrect. Its always tight but there should be enough in in each catagory to allow you to live.

Tax/Insurance/MOT etc costs around £25 per month (obviously depending on the insurance your paying). What else is left to pay? That still leaves you £80ish, which is £20 per week. We have £25 per week for "general" stuff for a family of 4 (me, wife and kids 8 & 6) and manage. Prezzies etc do come from another place though.

Mooglet71

I think I may need to call CCCS. When I say my outgoings just to be clear that is all the essentials such as mortgage, home insurance, car insurance, council tax etc (just so people don't think I am living the high life :beer:)

I don't smoke, take my lunches to work, fill my water bottle at the water machine etc.

One of my major expenses is petrol at £200 a month, obviously there is a cap on this with CCCS at about £130. The train would be much cheaper but logistically impossible (I have already discussed this with a travel planner at work).

paulmapp8306

really? my DMP has petrol at £240 present.

Depends if you can justify it. the fact that my job - which enables me to pay my creditors - requires a 17 miles journey (34 mile round trip) every day - and there are no direct bus or train routes I can use, means that without allowing me that amount I wont be able to pay them at all.

So - what do you actually need to cover with your £414? have you included little things you ARE aloud in your DMP to offset the cost of other things they are saying is too high? A few £ for stationary, haircuts etc - £15 emergencies. Can you raise the amount you pay in food on your DMP? There is a limit but if your not at that limit you could raise that by £10 for instance.

I was in the situation that some of my stated amounts were too high for my creditors to agree - however they were valid (compulsory fees at work, school uniforms where you had to have badged jumpers, food/energy bills because NI is 20% higher than the rest of the country) and CCCS were happy to take that, and adjusted my DMP to give me extra elsewhere to cover those costs.

**EDIT**

Just dug my SOA, and as examples I have:

£9 for school/work meals
£26 hairdressing (thats for 4, so £7 would be fair for one person)
£5 meds and perscriptions
£25 Denplan (this was justified as the only way to get the kids into NHS dentist was for my wife to go private with denplan)
£13 Dry cleaning - as work gave me a uniform which had to be dry cleaned.
£5 Newspapers and magazines
£20 childrens pocket money (totally aloud by creditors - for 2 kids that is)
£40 sundries/emergencies (again based on 4 people - so £10 per person)
£5 postage/stationary
£80 life insurance and private pension

Some of those would be lower for a single person or not applicable if you dont have kids - BUT there all valid expenses and can be used to offset actual costs that are too high to be agreed.

As long as you stay in the guidelines - and have at least £5 per creditor left then you good to go. Having said that dont abuse the system. dont use these things to make you life easy(er), but if you have genuine costs that appear too high to be agreed by creditors then your perfectly justified "fiddling" you SOA a little to make the budget work. this was suggested and carried out by CCCS not myself by the way, so they see it the same way. Just be up front with them and be prepared to justify any costs they think are excessive first.

rising_from_the_ashes

As others have said, the SOA you provided should allow for monthly budgeting for all the "essentials" to enable you to live.

If you're worried about overspending or not putting money aside each month, it may be worth thinking about setting up a separate account and putting in a set amount each month to cover these.

I've just done this with various "pots" from my main bank account which I'm going to put so much into each to cover the different budgets - I'm terrible at putting money aside each month (as I've never had spare money to do it before) so hoping this will work for me!

Mooglet71

I did my budget online with CCCS and it wouldn't let me override some of the amounts like petrol. In my naivety I assumed that I wouldn't be able to change that

I do a round trip of 32 miles a day, hence the petrol costs.

I guess I should give them a call

HappyMJ

Mooglet71 wrote: »

I did my budget online with CCCS and it wouldn't let me override some of the amounts like petrol. In my naivety I assumed that I wouldn't be able to change that

I do a round trip of 32 miles a day, hence the petrol costs.

I guess I should give them a call

That's not very high anyway it's less than 10,000 per year. Make the servicing figure the highest it allows to compensate. You can change any figure you want up above whatever they recommend as long as you can justify why is should be higher.

Mooglet71

HappyMJ wrote: »

That's not very high anyway it's less than 10,000 per year. Make the servicing figure the highest it allows to compensate. You can change any figure you want up above whatever they recommend as long as you can justify why is should be higher.

My point wasn't that I was doing lots of mileage more that to do 5 round trips of 32 miles each day means that it costs me £70 a month more than the figure that CCCS 'allocate' for fuel costs

Mooglet71

Just to update, I spoke to CCCS this morning and they were very helpful. I had a look at my budget again and had underbudgeted for some things in my initial contact with them (as I did it online).

I appreciate that things are going to be tight for a while, but in my efforts to not take advantage I ended up with a budget that would have been a bit too tight to live on.

They have increased my petrol allowance so I feel happier that I am still living on a tight budget but able to meet all my commitments.

I am determined to make this work.

paulmapp8306

congrats keep the faith. Im 11 years in with 18 months to go - there is a light at the end.