My Income and expenditure

stubie

fermi wrote: »

As said, if your OH genuinely does not contribute anything towards the shared household expenses then that's just that. An OR might (or might not) double check this, but if that's the way it is, so be it.

Fermi,

What happens if it was paid into a joint account? As in my case.

Thanks
Stubie

PasturesNew

My thoughts on scanning down:

EXPENDITURE
Clothing £50.00 - seems excessive. Surely you have enough clothes now to stop this
Electricity £53.00 - seems a lot. Unless you've a special reason, I think this could be halved
Food & cleaning £360.00 - For how many? Seems a lot. I bet you could shave £110 off that for starters
Gas £65.00 - seems a lot. Unless you've a special reason, I think this could be halved
Holidays £50.00 - not any more you don't!
Hairdressing £20.00 - tricky one, it does add up, but you could investigate getting cheap/free hair dos at a local college/salon training night. I'll leave this in here as that's not available easily for everybody
Emergencies/white goods £30.00 - put this in the overall pot. Your debt is an emergency
Laundry/dry cleaning £12.00 - can you cut back? I'll leave it in for now as I've no idea why it costs so much
Opticians £20.00 - why so much? Don't people buy a pair of glasses once every 2 years?

Add that lot of potential first pass savings up and you get:
£50+£25+£110+£30+£50+£30+£20 = £315 which might be hiding in there.

It looks to me like you just need to really SEE every penny/pound you're spending and look at it and think "Do I need this more than I need the roof over my head" and you'd be surprised how often you turn things off, turn heating down, wear something one more time, don't wear the things that need laundering so often, eat less/cheaper foods .... and it'll soon start making a difference.

PasturesNew

stubie wrote: »

Car repairs/servicing seems low.

With petrol of only £50/month, that implies very low mileage per year. So servicing/repairs probably aren't an issue.

I've still got the original tyres on my car after 50,000 miles.

£50/month is about 12 gallons? In a fairly small car at 40mpg that is about 100 miles a week.

So it might be right.

fermi

stubie wrote: »

What happens if it was paid into a joint account? As in my case.

As far as I'm aware (I'm not really overly familiar with benefit/tax credit system so could be wrong), but isn't CTC claimed by the individual? Where it gets paid to shouldn't matter.

EDIT: CB and maybe CTC shouldn't be counted as income in the OR's calculations anyway, whoever is receiving them.

fermi

Hi PasturesNew.

That money saving advice will be great for the OP once they have declared bankruptcy, but here we are really trying to make sure that every fair eventuality is covered in the budget. There needs to be a fair amount of slack in it to cover anything unforeseen and even save up for a rainy day, as access to credit will be next to impossible afterwards which would originally have been used to smooth over those bumps.

A good example is holidays. The guidance to the Official Receiver states:

Whilst extravagance is not endorsed in this respect, it may be considered a reasonable domestic need to allow the bankrupt and his/her family to benefit from a non-extravagant holiday as a break from routine. Expensive or luxury holidays (particularly if the holiday is abroad) are likely to cause offence to creditors but an allowance of between £60-£80 per month (amounting to £720-£960 per annum) for a household of 4 people should allow the bankrupt and his/her family sufficient funds to take a moderate annual holiday. Should the bankrupt consider this allowance insufficient to fund a holiday, he/she should be informed that any additional holiday cost that he/she may wish to incur must be funded from the amount of surplus income left with him/her after deduction of the assessed IPA/IPO contribution.

Or haircuts:

31.7.27 Hairdressers

It is reasonable to allow a monthly allowance up to £10 per adult and £3 per child to pay for hairdressing requirements, but any expensive hair treatments must be funded from the surplus income remaining with the bankrupt after deduction of the assessed IPA/IPO contribution.

from: http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/freedomofinformation/technical/techmanvol1/Ch25-36/Chapter31/part7/part2/part_2.htm

Ultimately the OP is not trying to cut down this budget, but make fair contingency for the future.

straightandnarrow_2

Dear Pasturesnew,
this forum is meant for people who are about to go BR, not for those who need to cut their spending - there is a HUGE difference! I'm sure your comments are well intentioned, but unfortunately at this stage an I&E is not here for people to shave bits off here and there to make life more profitable, but is to ensure people can actually live after BR and that they will have a reasonable quality of life and be able to make the necessary payments for day to day expenditure, without going under and into depression and illness. As Br is a no way back situation, this is REALLY important.

chrisindebt

hi, im glad pastures new didnt reply to my i+e as i would have really dispaired,like fermi has said its not a money saving excersise, its to ensure the person going br isnt going to hang themselves financialy and that a respectable lifestyle is withheld.make sure you find the ceiling for your expences as you can only negociate downwards not up.dont dispair creditcardshuffler ,debt doctor advised me that the british banking !!! asign 30-35 pounds per person per week for housekeeping which will not be questioned by creditors so aim high!

madoldbat

Hi CCS ,sorry to be so late but just spent 2 days with DS in hospital again:rolleyes: (That had to go on our I & E as hes there about 2 days a month so transport food ect 30.00).
Can I please ask have you applied for CT benifit as yours is very high and your income is not? Also could you get working tax credit?Its worth checking .Not to stop you going BR but might make the future a bit better.
As for food bill 2 adults 1 child, Pasturesnew might think it a good idea to cut food bills but a small person needs more as they grow.Some of us very grown people need to eat less though:rotfl: :rotfl: Pasturesnew could join me in attempting to loose weight;) :rotfl:

creditcardshuffler

Thanks for the replies

Yes I have tried for all benefits but I am just on the threshold and one year I received it after jumping through hoops with all the forms and it was something silly like £5 per month which for all the hassle wasn't worth it, and then they would stop it if I did a little overtime at work. So I have not claimed for a year or two now but once I go BR I will reconsider applying.

mad old bat you didn't say whether the amount for my food was high or low!

betterlatethannever

On here http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/dmbmanual/DMBM800120.htm
it says that a couple with children can put £461 down for housekeeping, so i would say yours is a little low. Although how accurate the data is i'm not sure.
Each OR is different, but its always better to aim high, then let the OR batter you down if he/she needs to