Stepchange setting up a DMP, is this for the best?

RAS

You sibling(s) need to pay for their children's meals. Even if your child is cared for 3 nights a week by one of the siblings, the others need to pull their weight. Nor the satellite TV or phone costs.

You need contents insurance, and as a single parent, at the very least cheap term insurance to provide something in case of your death. 

fatbelly

You say you have £150 available but it does not appear so from your soa.

I agree that contents insurance is desirable and legitimate.

In addition I would allow £5 per person per week for clothing, so add a tenner

And £20 per month for maintaining a car using £150 fuel per month is probably not enough so double it.

I think you will find you are meeting the criteria for a DRO. Stepchange don't do them.

kimwp

You would benefit from adjusting where you spend - reducing your TV package and putting the money towards car maintenance, MOT etc for example. But if fatbelly says dro, then make that your first aim and adjusting your spends your second aim.

stu12345_2

are you sure you have to pay rent separately cos your benefits you get on top on your wages I assume is some some of universal credit which goes to your rent included 
as you have about £800 in benefits which like I said is the housing element perhaps of a universal credit claim which then pays your rent.

i considered a dro instead of a dmp, but I would have had to cut my hours at work to qualify. 
then probably be forced to look for more hours min 30hrs if claiming universal credit, ( the rules are the same for someone with a child aged 3 to 12)which would stop my dro and put me back to square one with all the debts still remaining.

I owe about the same as you.

basically the citizens advice counsellor said a dro works if you know you are going to be on benefits for a year min and will not be working at all ( like someone on a disability, that can't work)or not be forced to up your hours 

plus on a dmp you can set your own informal expenses thresholds, but as a dro is a legal insolvency, the guidelines will exist 
 ie your food bill is too much , cos you won't be agreed to be paying for relatives kids and sat bill is also excessive, and I also think gas and electric is way too high, especially averaged out over the year( plus prices have dropped since April).
plus you never mentioned the money you get for babysitting, you wouldn't be expected to do it for nothing 

I think on a better budget you could do a dmp and clear debts faster than you think

your petrol bill is huge, something you would expect on a full time worker who has to travel far daily.

eg my mobile is £10 a month PAYG, my broadband is £39 , cos I know I can't afford a phone contract or sat TV etc. that's a lot saved already 

fatbelly

Sorry, found that soa difficult to read because of the odd format

How come your council tax is zero?

kimwp

If you select "format for mse" on the SOA website, it should put it in a format we are used to on here. It shows the same information but in a different order, which makes it easier to mentally run through as it matches the other SOAs that we look at.

foxgloves

Hi, Agree with others that you can't afford to be paying to feed nieces & nephews. It would be a different thing if it was just occasionally, but as a regular arrangement, your sibling needs to be contributing the cost of their food as it sounds like it may be a kind of childcare arrangement? 
£400 is a big grocery spend for the size of your household & not really sustainable while you have debts. As a comparison, we spend £350 per month for 2 adults (1 of those with a huge caveman appetite) & 2 cats and this covers all our cleaning products,  loo rolls, pet food, etc. We no longer have any debt, but if our financial situation became squeezed, I know I could reduce our monthly grocery spend by £50 to £100 & still eat well. 
Any funds that can be freed up while debt busting is a change worth making.
Good luck!
F