Trigger Figures

yvoweb

Help - my daughter has to have her case reviewed by CCCS and I am desperate to find the Trigger Figures for 2012. We know the usual costs i.e. mortgage, water, elec and gas. I want to know what the norm is for household expenses, clothing, pocket money.

I have been going round in circles on the internet as it seems the Trigger Figures are only for the privileged few. Can anyone help. Many thanks.

HappyMJ

Debt remedy on the CCCS website gives you maximum figures you can use for each category. https://debtremedy.cccs.co.uk/start.aspx

You could consider those as trigger figures.

fatbelly

National Debtline have some guide figures that look like they're based on the trigger figures in this guide

FireWyrm

Those figures are a load of hooey. According to the guide, a typical family (2 adults and 2 children) needs £520 a month for 'housekeeping' which consists of food and clothing. I and most other people here manage to run a house on around £150 a month easily. No wonder people are in a mess if they are being advised to set aside that much out of their income, and no wonder it takes so long to pay off debts if this is what CCCS is working to.

fatbelly

FireWyrm wrote: »

Those figures are a load of hooey..

From the cfs website:

The trigger figures are calculated using research from the Government’s Living Costs and Food Survey (previously known as the Family Expenditure Survey). The Costs and Food Survey is based on a random sample of lower-income UK households produced by the Office for National Statistics.

The actual trigger figures are a lot higher than you quote but if I told you what the figure was for housekeeping for 2 adults and 2 older children, you'd probably explode.

FireWyrm

fatbelly wrote: »

The trigger figures are calculated using research from the Government’s Living Costs and Food Survey (previously known as the Family Expenditure Survey). The Costs and Food Survey is based on a random sample of lower-income UK households produced by the Office for National Statistics. .

Yes, and that's the problem. Shouldnt the presence of such inflated 'trigger' figures indicate that the 'lower-income' families in fact need extensive assistance with the concept of budgeting and cooking from scratch. They could do FAR more good by converting a few of them to more efficiently run households and it might just make a dent in their debt problems.

fatbelly wrote: »

The actual trigger figures are a lot higher than you quote but if I told you what the figure was for housekeeping for 2 adults and 2 older children, you'd probably explode.

I probably would since I can provide lots of good organic fruit and veg every week without fail for £100 a month. I then can add sufficient relatively good quality meat to that for an additional £50 a month and on top another £50 of assorted sundries from the local budget supermarket. That's a TOTAL food spend of £200 (yes, I know I said £150 and I can, its just I've decided to increase the allocation to allow for organic vegetables as a trial this summer). So, my question is, how on earth does anyone manage to spend £300 a month on food and that's a conservative amount according to the fact sheet. This is the real scandal today and its one that is either being overlooked by the powers that be, or someone is 'helping' them to look the other way. The real scandal in this country isnt petrol prices, it's food prices from the major supermarkets.

fermi

While these are not trigger figures, and represent rough guidance to Official Receivers in bankruptcy (i.e. nothing to do with CCCS) they are compiled from the ONS family spending survey.

Spreadsheet showing average UK spending calculated from the Office of National Statistics publication ‘Family Expenditure Survey’

http://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/foi08/docs/Copy%20of%20Household%20Expenditur.xls

Anecdotally those are more generous that ones a DMP provider might use as guidance. So biiiiiiiig pinch of salt.

fermi

Also out of date now, but..

Budget Guidelines Report 2011

DS4215

FireWyrm wrote: »

Yes, and that's the problem. Shouldnt the presence of such inflated 'trigger' figures indicate that the 'lower-income' families in fact need extensive assistance with the concept of budgeting and cooking from scratch. They could do FAR more good by converting a few of them to more efficiently run households and it might just make a dent in their debt problems.



I probably would since I can provide lots of good organic fruit and veg every week without fail for £100 a month. I then can add sufficient relatively good quality meat to that for an additional £50 a month and on top another £50 of assorted sundries from the local budget supermarket. That's a TOTAL food spend of £200 (yes, I know I said £150 and I can, its just I've decided to increase the allocation to allow for organic vegetables as a trial this summer). So, my question is, how on earth does anyone manage to spend £300 a month on food and that's a conservative amount according to the fact sheet. This is the real scandal today and its one that is either being overlooked by the powers that be, or someone is 'helping' them to look the other way. The real scandal in this country isnt petrol prices, it's food prices from the major supermarkets.

Can you help us all out by telling us where you can get such great value food? - £50 for meat doesn't amount to much in Tesco unless you are shopping in the reduced aisle at 7pm ish (£3-4 for a single packs of chicken breasts now). We do spend a similar amount per month, but much of what we buy/eat is less healthy than you are able to provide.

HappyMJ

DS4215 wrote: »

Can you help us all out by telling us where you can get such great value food? - £50 for meat doesn't amount to much in Tesco unless you are shopping in the reduced aisle at 7pm ish (£3-4 for a single packs of chicken breasts now). We do spend a similar amount per month, but much of what we buy/eat is less healthy than you are able to provide.

Probably just cheap meat...most average quality meat I see is around £5 a kg. £50 would therefore buy about 10kg of meat in a month. Divided by 30 days is about 340 grams per day then divide by 4 people is 85 grams per person per day. The recommended amount of meat per serving is 3 oz or 85 grams. It's a rather small serving being the same size as a pack of cards.

FireWyrm

DS4215 wrote: »

Can you help us all out by telling us where you can get such great value food? - £50 for meat doesn't amount to much in Tesco unless you are shopping in the reduced aisle at 7pm ish (£3-4 for a single packs of chicken breasts now). We do spend a similar amount per month, but much of what we buy/eat is less healthy than you are able to provide.

A combination of lower end cuts from a local butcher and Aldi (whatever is available) and local butchers vans late on a saturday afternoon. Co-op on a Sunday morning often yields some good bargains also.

Lower end cuts of meat include stewing beef, mince, mis-match pieces (of various meats that he cant sell as 'whole cuts', liver, hearts, kidneys, raw sausage meat (for pies and sausage rolls). Occasional seasonal stuff like venison and duck are a treat rather than a staple. Liver is a favorite in the house and depending on the weather is either fried in a salad or stewed. Hearts are stuffed with tomatoes and vegitables and baked.

A usual week goes something like this :

Sunday - Roast chicken for dinner
Monday - chicken risotto (with left overs from carcass)
Tuesday - Sausages (in some way...like toad in the hole for instance)
Wednesday - Mince dish like Lasangne (feeds 4 people x 2 days)
Thursday - same as yesterday
Friday - Fish once or twice a month, else Liver/Kidney/Heart
Saturday - Vegitarian night...usually left over veg from the week as vegi-burgers or similar, sometimes duck, venison, burgers if I cant be bothered to actually cook.
Sunday - Roast again.

Aldi usually have some offer on and although it is more often chicken and pork, it is adequate as filler. 8 chicken drumsticks were £1.80 in Aldi last week (I bought 3 packs).

I buy meat in bulk and spent most of the afternoon splitting into smaller parcels to be frozen. Butcher vans on markets in the afternoon (depending on the van) can get you 16lbs weight of meat for £30 spend although don't let them try to palm lamb off on you.

When I was shopping at Tesco, I could spend £350 a month on food. Now, I spend £200 and include organic veg/fruit every week, at least 1lb of meat most days and assorted pies, cakes, biscuits, bread rolls, sweet roles and whatever else gets made routinely.

Like I said, the scandal isnt petrol, its the price of food in the big supermarkets and the continuous drip/drip advertising that suggests you cannot live any other way for less. We're being ripped off, big time.

Edit: Ive just read this again and it looks like we dont eat very well. Can I just say that the week above is very much illustrative rather than absolute. For instance, pizza is another easy meal made relatively often (not take out), baked chicken bits roasted with veg, spagetti, Chinese is meal type included at least once a month if not more, as well as fish pies etc. The weeks very much depend on what I can buy and what is available.

Edit 2 : Family being fed : 2 adults, 2 children aged between 6 and 9, so it's like feeding 3 adults in total