DRO help please!

jak

I m seeing the CAB about a DRO. What I would like to know are what the limits of bills and stuff are for my income and expenditure form.
Basically, I am a single parent to a nearly four year old and i'm confused about how much I can have for food shopping and stuff.
Does anyone know what the limits are?
I hope that makes sense? I dont want to leave myself too short but I also need an idea of realistic amounts.

SnowMan

The amounts to put down are the amounts that you actually currently spend on food etc or anticipate to spend. Try to be as accurate as you can.

If you were to put excessive figures down then the CAB will tell you they are 'excessive' so just put down honestly what you spend and they will tell you if there is a problem. But be realistic and don't underestimate either.

Some background information an debt relief orders on adviceguide website, on CCCS website and National Debtline website.

Good luck with your appointment at the CAB.

jak

Thanks. I'm trying to work it all out realistically but it's tricky.

jak

I wondered if there were any set limits?

SnowMan

jak wrote: »

I wondered if there were any set limits?

There are no publicly published limits

If there were a publicly published set of limits then everyone would look that up, put down the limit rather than that they actually spend which would make the system of identifying available expenditure unrealistic.

This page on adviceguide has more info on how to work out your budget and has a link to an on-line budgeting tool although I've never used that so don't know how useful that is.

fermi

An intermediary uses the Money Advice Trust/CFS trigger figures for a benchmark as a general rule.

They are not published publicly, so really you just put what you think is reasonable and your intermediary will go through it with you. Maybe adjusting a few things if they think you are over or underestimating on reasonable expenditure.

jak

Thankyou. Hopefully the cab will help next week x

fatbelly

Hi jak

You posted a soa last month on the DRO thread and I commented on it. The figures were fine and you had £34 surplus. I said that it looked like DRO territory to me.

If nothing has changed you can just use those figures. But your intermediary will advise on how to 'group' them as the application form online has quite broad categories.