Looking for advice (& a lottery win?..)

DCFC79

Pixie5740 wrote: »

A new sim yes but you only receive a replacement handset if you have insurance.

I see, thanks.

MrsTinks

sourcrates wrote: »

Ok, back to the subject in hand.

People tend to get carried away a little on here sometimes.

I don't think an IVA would be suitable for you to be honest, I'm a little unsure why that's been recommended by stepchange when your debt is so low (comparatively).

I would say a debt management plan would better suit your needs.

One or two things could be cut back on from your SOA (not the dog obviously).

But I think you should look into getting a DMP put in place.

Possibly because the SOA is missing chunks of stuff? I don't recall seeing an answer to my question about where the consolidation loan is on the SOA list of debts? Sorry if I missed it. But that could account for stepchange advising an IVA route vs DMP?

OP - it's great posting in a few minutes during your lunch break - but you're asking us to give you some pretty serious advice... then tell us it's based largely on a 5 minute guessing session.

Ultimately if we're working with the wrong or incomplete information then our answers could be massively off.

Dog - depending on your EXACT SOA when you post it then your dog may be the difference between you ending up in an IVA and not. The origin of the dog makes no difference, it has no concept of being able to cope with things. Dogs live in the now, not the "then". What you will need to factor in is leaving a dog for 8 hours in the long run each day isn't fair, so what you need is a plan for how you will deal with that when your friend gets bored of helping out. You need to budget for a dog walker to at least let the hound out for a wee mid day.

Practical matters for the dog: you need to budget for toys, treats, training and I would recommend 2 excess payments in a savings account in case of claims. Most policies have excesses of about £65 and in a tight budget that can be hard to scrape together. As claims are like london busses... rarely will one crop up on it's own so make sure you can deal with 2.
Flea and worming treatment... for budgeting I would look into if you have a Vets4Pets nearby - they have a monthly subscription plan - it's £10 a month for cats - I expect it will be similar for dogs.

You have 3 months worth of food - grand. But you need to budget for this every month so if you buy it in bulk you need to set aside the NEXT amount over the next 3 months to bulk buy again, make sense?

If your choice is to have a dog then that is your choice. But accept that this may severely impact your timeline for being debt free and being able to afford a house. Not saying you shouldn't have a dog - I'm saying you need to accept that this is a financial trade off. So long as you are happy with this and the potential impact on your long term prospects then it's not a problem. Do get a proper dog walker though. (Being made to "hold it in" can lead to urinary infections and come renewal time this might become excluded from your policies meaning increased costs for you as you will be made to cover this cost yourself)

DashDotCom

sourcrates wrote: »

Ok, back to the subject in hand.

People tend to get carried away a little on here sometimes.

I don't think an IVA would be suitable for you to be honest, I'm a little unsure why that's been recommended by stepchange when your debt is so low (comparatively).

I would say a debt management plan would better suit your needs.

One or two things could be cut back on from your SOA (not the dog obviously).

But I think you should look into getting a DMP put in place.

Thank you sourcrates. I feared my thread would be left for dead after that derailing.

I have read a lot of your previous advice to others surrounding an IVA which is why I was so shocked to have been recommended this route.

I think I'll give Step Change a call and go through the DMP options.

Dobbi - thank you for the snowballing calculator. I'll have a play around tomorrow and see what it says.

I plan to call SKY and EE to try and negotiate a better plan tomorrow too.

Pixie5740 wrote: »

You said you bought 3 months worth of biscuits but dogs cannot live on biscuits alone.

Hah! This is why I will no longer be responding to your posts. But I would like to Thank you for the link you posted regarding snowballing. It's an interesting read.

DashDotCom

MrsTinks wrote: »

Possibly because the SOA is missing chunks of stuff? I don't recall seeing an answer to my question about where the consolidation loan is on the SOA list of debts? Sorry if I missed it. But that could account for stepchange advising an IVA route vs DMP?

OP - it's great posting in a few minutes during your lunch break - but you're asking us to give you some pretty serious advice... then tell us it's based largely on a 5 minute guessing session.

Ultimately if we're working with the wrong or incomplete information then our answers could be massively off.

Dog - depending on your EXACT SOA when you post it then your dog may be the difference between you ending up in an IVA and not. The origin of the dog makes no difference, it has no concept of being able to cope with things. Dogs live in the now, not the "then". What you will need to factor in is leaving a dog for 8 hours in the long run each day isn't fair, so what you need is a plan for how you will deal with that when your friend gets bored of helping out. You need to budget for a dog walker to at least let the hound out for a wee mid day.

Practical matters for the dog: you need to budget for toys, treats, training and I would recommend 2 excess payments in a savings account in case of claims. Most policies have excesses of about £65 and in a tight budget that can be hard to scrape together. As claims are like london busses... rarely will one crop up on it's own so make sure you can deal with 2.
Flea and worming treatment... for budgeting I would look into if you have a Vets4Pets nearby - they have a monthly subscription plan - it's £10 a month for cats - I expect it will be similar for dogs.

You have 3 months worth of food - grand. But you need to budget for this every month so if you buy it in bulk you need to set aside the NEXT amount over the next 3 months to bulk buy again, make sense?

If your choice is to have a dog then that is your choice. But accept that this may severely impact your timeline for being debt free and being able to afford a house. Not saying you shouldn't have a dog - I'm saying you need to accept that this is a financial trade off. So long as you are happy with this and the potential impact on your long term prospects then it's not a problem. Do get a proper dog walker though. (Being made to "hold it in" can lead to urinary infections and come renewal time this might become excluded from your policies meaning increased costs for you as you will be made to cover this cost yourself)

Great post. Thank you, and I think I've got the message. Loud and clear. Tomorrow I'll spend more time on my SOA and repost to see the difference.

Someone previously said before, your debt wasn't made overnight, nor will it be cleared overnight. I think I'm just getting to the stage of realising this.

I will be looking at a dog walker and discussing costs with my fianc! too.

DashDotCom

I would just like to make sure all of the dog lovers out there are not reading this and fearing for my dogs life right now.

I can assure you all she is a very happy pup and is very well looked after - she has genuinely had more money spent on her over the last month then I have spent on my own clothes and hair (hence the lack of this allowance in my SOA) in the past 3.

My fianc! and I haven't discussed the possibility of me not going home at lunchtime - this is one of the main reasons I took my job - so we clearly just need to look at options. Nothing is set in stone.

angelaf_3

I love dogs to bits and I'm no expert but not being in the first flush of youth
and until factors have made it impossible, always had dogs who were extremely well cared for parts of the family my observations are that dogs have become the new 'children' that have to be pampered, given special diets and allowed to rule the house.

Yes you have to learn budgeting and pet care but one size doesn't fit all and you can't be expected to know everything at once. You have had some good advice in amongst what I feel is some over the top reactions to the fact you have a dog and you seem to be simultaneously castigated for wasting money caring for it by parking at your office and not spending enough on it in other areas.

I know different size and breeds of dogs have different needs but I can't think there are many who need walking 3 or 4 times a day or need extensive training. Read a book or watch some training videos. I doubt whether when past puppy age your dog will tear your house apart if they are left as long as they have toys and attention when you are there if you don't take it to special classes at goodness knows how much. I don't know the suitability of your garden etc but if you have high secure fences and it's a fairly decent area get a dog flap installed then he can have a wee when he likes and entertain himself with his garden toys.

Part of budgeting is deciding your priorities and if yours at the moment means that you have to park at your office then you need to cut back in other areas, increase your income or decide that some of your other priorities like buying a house will take longer to achieve.

If your bored because you have to stay in there's a good basic money management course on the Open University Open Learn site for free and Christians Against Poverty (who Martin recommends) do free budgeting courses through local churches which would give you more detailed budgeting tools. You don't have to be a Christian or go to the church delivering the course or any other to do the course.

Sorry this is such a long post. I'm slinking off to hide now before the dog lovers come after me

sourcrates

Speaking with my work head on, puppies do need a lot of interaction, but they do sleep a lot as well, four walks a day may be adequate for a Labrador, but not necessarily for a chiwoua.

It would not be wise to leave a young dog alone for any length of time, as pointed out previously, they will chew things, they will lick the plaster off your walls if you let them.

Puppies will also cry a lot and mess all over, if left alone too long, work/life balance can be difficult with a young puppy, they are very demanding, more so if it's a rescue dog, as it may of experienced neglect prior to you adopting it.

At our practice, staff are able to bring there dogs to work as we have kennels obviously, so that works well for all concerned.

thegreenone

Thank you for answering my queries re the car. I would keep it, ride out the next six months of high insurance. Once your puppy is old enough for a dog walker you wont need to pop home but the parking money will go to the dog walker.


If you completely discount your pay rise to debts ie £120 to the current debts, £50 to the HA and £30 to the wages over payment. The money you have left (£1300-1137=£163) should go to overpay the highest interest debt. It's doable without intervention but you need to be strict with yourself. Good luck.