Bankruptcy expenditure form 20 May 2020 at 1:07PM edited 20 May 2020 at 1:08PM in Bankruptcy & living with it 1 reply 142 views

stressedguy85

Hi,

I am in need of a bit of advice.

I am filling in my expense forms and am wondering if my expenses are reasonable.

Essential expenditure total	1,544
Rent	1,350
Building and Content Insurance	17
Pension and Life insurance	17
Council Tax	59
Gas	15
Electricity	30
TV Licence	13

Phone total	43
Home Phone	18.00
Mobile Phone(s)	25.00

Travel total	403.50
Public Transport (work, school, shopping, etc)	173
Car Insurance	70
Vehicle Tax	2.50
Fuel (Petrol, Diesel, Oil, etc)	100
MOT and car maintenance	25
Breakdown and Recovery	9
Parking Charges or Tolls	24

Housekeeping total	420
Food and Milk	320
Cleaning and Toiletries	20
Newspapers and Magazines	5
Alcohol	20
Laundry and dry cleaning	10
Clothing and Footwear	40
Pet Food	5

Other expenditure total	441
Health (dentist, glasses, prescriptions, health insurance)	67
Repairs/house maintenance (including window cleaning, maintenance contracts)	25
Hairdressing/haircuts	25
School meals and meals at work	40
Lottery and Pools etc.	5
Hobbies/leisure/sport (include pub outings, etc.)	40
Gifts (Christmas Birthday, Charity etc.)	25
Water	25
Sundries and emergencies	50
Entertainment subscription	22
Employment related	55
Gym	62

My main concerns are my rent, it looks a little high (£1,300), but I live in London and it is an average price for a 1 bedroom flat when you count that some of the heating bills are included in this cost, and the council taxt is slightly lower than in other areas. Could I be made to move - or even worse houseshare with people I don't know?

I have been looking around for examples of hosekeeping expenses (I have allocated £420/month) but can't really find any, the main bulk is made up of food costs of £320/month. I'm not sure if this is too high or would be ok.

The other thing I am worried about is having a car (worth about £2,100-£2,500), I don't use it for commuting to work, but I do use it to travel to visit family (20-300mils away), also, I have varicose veins on my leg and chronic shin splints, so it does make walking for longer period difficult - I also have a gym membership for this reason as swimming can help reduce the symptomns and again, I'm not sure if this will be accepted by the OR and if I would not be allowed to claim expenses related to my car.

The other one is health (£67/month), I have allocated 17/month for contact lenses (I'm on a computer for most of the day for work and the glare from glasses/computer screen gives me headaches), 15/month for glasses and annual checkups, 20/month for dentist, and 10/month for pescriptions

Any advice would be greatfully appriciated in this stressful time.

Thanks.

mwarby

If you are a one person household many of those figures seem high

you have car, and public transport quite high spending overall (I don’t know but OR may question the amount of travel to family and friends)
food should be more like 250
alcahol isn’t allowed for IPA purposes 
health is quite high normally 20-30
sundries and emergencies should be 20 per person
employment related would need explanation 
gym is high (you might be allowed 20-30, but that’s not a given)
property maintenance and repairs, this is up to your landlord, I doubt you’ll get an allowance 

My gut feel is that you’d get away with perhaps the exception for travel or health, but I suspect the combination of high amounts which are arguably not essential will trigger questions (and perhaps alterations to your figures) from the OR

eg for contact lenses which are needed for work, that arguably falls under display equipment regulations, which mean the employer should pay. I suspect your employer and OR would conclude that they are a nice to have and not essential. 

It’s also debatable wether you need an eye test and new glasses every year. If dental costs are private why not use nhs etc 20 a month or 240 a year would pay for none designer glasses(in Asda/spec savers anyway) and normal NHS dental stuff

sorry if sounds harsh but the OR has a duty to both give you a reasonable standard of living and maximise returns to cover bankruptcy costs and repay something to creditors