Income /expenditure guide

Richard_S

betterlatethannever wrote: »

Quick question, is it best to try to get your income and expenditure balanced? My outgoings (just essential, not holidays, hair cuts etc) exceeds my incoming, although i am working hard to rectify this.

Hi bltn,

Quick answer.:D

No, it's best not to balance it or it'll look like a work of fiction. Ours showed quite a large deficit that I explained by saying that we were desperately trying to reduce our expenditure in line with our income.

Regards

Richard

betterlatethannever

Another Brilliant answer. Thats put my mind at rest as i didn't fancy trying to balance the figures.
Thanks again Richard.

Addicted2Chocolate

The OR's do have guidlines but there is regional variation as living costs vary. we use the Office of National Statistics Family Expenditure survey. Trouble is last published survey was for 05/06.

fermi

Addicted2Chocolate wrote: »

The OR's do have guidlines but there is regional variation as living costs vary. we use the Office of National Statistics Family Expenditure survey. Trouble is last published survey was for 05/06.

And that makes it a bit of a pain when trying to give/receive advice on a forum like this.

Addicted2Chocolate

yeah i agree! on the giving advice part! i think part of the reason the guidelines are not fixed and published is becaus ethen a minority of people might just put down the figures given rather than what they actually spend. But i see it is really hard to know what every penny goes on, i certainly dont know where my money goes.

fermi

And I agree. A minority would use it to play the system.

Unfortunately, that leaves a lot of people very concerned whether their genuine expenditure will be allowed or not. We should all expect the OR to be reasonable (and they nearly always are), but it makes it hard to reassure people sometimes.

But then nothing is perfect.

PixiePie

imho the figures bandied about are quite concerning for people like me living in London - prices are stupidly more here than outside London, an example being one of my best friends lives in Cornwall, and we talk about how much things cost and they are so so so much cheaper down there (ok, not branded goods things really, but rent, obviously, council tax and things like carrots, meat, unbranded food things). Hairdressers are another big big thing - I have yet to see a hairdresser, not a big flashy brand like Toni and Guy, just someone that cuts hair, that charges less than about £20 as a total minimum for a trim. And that's just a trim, not a heavy cut, restyle, blow dry or anything. Now I don't think we should be allowed to go and spend hundreds on our hair or anything, but what a hairdresser can term as a 'restyle' and what you (or the OR) might think of as a restyle can be v v different (and please don't think I'm having a go at hairdressers, I'm not, I'm having a go at the OR's guidelines on pricing). Anyway, sorry about that, rant over.

Posthinking

In my experience, the OR has a pretty good idea of living costs in their particular area. Costs for car servicing were upped in my case and she was about spot on. I know this for sure because a friend does my car and he confirmed the going rate

wherediditallgo

The figures are very useful as a guideline to what the ORs take into account, but at the end of the day your figures are exactly that - your figures. What applies for me in my part of town could be totally way off the mark for someone else in theirs. No two people's circumstances are exactly the same, & I think we must remember that on things where the ORs can use their discretion they will do, & it won't always work out in our favour. ORs see SOAs every day of the week, & I personally think they become very attuned to what are genuine figures, someone exaggerating some figures slightly, & what are clearly figures that bear no real relation to actual costs & are instead someone using the trigger figures or figments of their imagination to reduce their chance of an IPA as much as possible. It's the people who blatantly do the latter that make it worse for the majority who are just trying to give an honest picture of their circumstances.

I don't think ORs expect you to account for every penny - they couldn't do it, & neither could most humans with a life. In fact, an SOA that did account for every penny & where the books balanced so to speak would be quite suspicious to me. After all, if we could account for every penny like that, perhaps we wouldn't have got in such a mess in the first place.