DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 4)

Kudox

sunshine38 wrote: »

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Oh you two have made me laugh ... you both win a paper hat :T :T

Oh goody,:T
Who can I give that to for christmas:j

sunshine38_2

Kudox wrote: »

Oh goody,:T
Who can I give that to for christmas:j

Erm ... me, of course :rotfl: :rotfl:

Kudox

sunshine38 wrote: »

Erm ... me, of course :rotfl: :rotfl:

It's yours, I wish all my presents were so easy and so cheap!:snow_laug

tinkerbell12

sunshine38 wrote: »

Hi Tinkerbell

Thanks for your message.

Who are you with for your DMP or are you on a DIY plan? We've had two budget reviews now since June when we first started so I imagine that there will be a few areas on your own budget that could do with tweaking a little to take into account the additional living costs.

How do you keep a record of your spends, is it with a notebook/online/spreadsheet? Do you record things at the end of the day or as and when you pay for something?

Thanks again,

Sunshine

We are with CCCS and we have had one budget review in 9 months as our car died and we had to get another!

We do our budgeting on a spreadsheet - I try to buy everything I can on card so I can see exactly what I had purchased and assign it to a budget (food, clothes etc) and if I do get cash the rest of the £10 soon disappears!

I find our biggest outgoing the personal budget which should cover all the 'other' stuff after food, clothes, petrol, car, direct debits etc. It is just never ending...

sunshine38_2

Kudox wrote: »

... so easy and so cheap!:snow_laug

hmmm, have you been talking to my friends about me again :rotfl: :rotfl:

On another note, does anyone actually wear their paper hats for Christmas dinner any more (I do ) but the majority are like "I'm soooo not wearing that"!! What's wrong with them (the hats and the people!). Why else do we buy crackers for Christmas ... I could save some money here (very MSE!) - was it just another cunning plan for someone else to make lots of money ... are we all just "crackers" for buying them :rotfl:

You do know I'm not going to sleep now until I find out where the tradition of having Christmas crackers has come from :xmassmile

sunshine38_2

tinkerbell12 wrote: »

I try to buy everything I can on card so I can see exactly what I had purchased and assign it to a budget (food, clothes etc) and if I do get cash the rest of the £10 soon disappears!

Now there's food for thought. I've been trying to budget by just drawing cash out and although I have found that it does make me think (several times over) before I decide to purchase - I have no idea where the "change" from the cash goes. It is harder to keep track of the cash so maybe I need to try doing something similar to you so that I can balance it and look back over statements to see what was spent where too.

Thanks for your help

Kudox

I tried to do the cash only thing, which is fine but the "extra" does tend to disappear, so you end up spending more anyway.
Bye the bye Sunshine i always wear my hat for christmas dinner, small things etc!:rotfl:

dsljfreeman

Good mornin all,

We are currently in the process of going through CCCS for our dmp, I have received the form to sign and send off all my accounts, then hopefully it will all be sorted.

Ive been really good this xmas, I have all my daughters xmas and birthday presents (her b'day is on 20th dec) but then I suppose it helps that she will only be 1 and doesn't quite get the concept of only having 2-3 gifts

I have bought most of my son's presents, only want to get him a few more, maybe another £40-£50. Then my stepkids, sister, niece and nephew will all get cash in a card, I'll be so glad to get xmas out of the way, next year I will most definitely be saving up all year and not just leaving it til the last minute.

Laura xx

Althea

sam89 wrote: »

Hi MOAM,

It's Lloyds TSB who are the thorn in my side :mad: .

I reply to every letter I get in writing and staple a copy to the letter in my files. This way if they ever go down the legal route I can prove they are lying every time they write "we are disappointed to have no response, blah, blah" and show I have sent them the same information over and over again.

I've concluded they aren't being awkward they are just completely incompetent . I had a letter accepting the DMP and a week later a disappointed in no contact letter. I sent them a photocopy of their own acceptance and haven't heard anything since .
.

Hi Sam ... Just to say Lloyds are my own personal thorn at the moment too; they just seem to be completely ignoring all letters sent to them regarding my DMP. They've ignored contact from CCCS, I've written to them as well responding to their snot-o-grams, and they're ignoring those too. Not quite sure what the next step is, how do you make a financial institution actually pay attention to what you're saying?

Oddly Lloyds Credit Card dept are totally the opposite; they accepted my DMP without a murmur. How bizarre!

Althea

sunshine38 wrote: »

How many of you actually use a spending diary and find it effective? We really need to see where every single penny goes because we should be able to manage alright on our budget, but it just isnt happening as well as I/we hoped it would. The only other idea I can think of is an actual spending diary

Well I don't know if this is any help to anyone, but I use a free program called AceMoney Lite to track all of my spendings - and I do religiously fill in every single spend I make, I keep receipts in my purse until I've put them into AceMoney and I log on to my bank every couple of days to reconcile against. AceMoney allows you to add in all your standing orders, direct debits etc, and shows you on your statement page exactly what's due to come out in the days ahead, with a running total of what your balance will be. It also allows you to put budgets (monthly, daily, etc) on each of your spending categories (so you can fill in the budget you have agreed with CCCS/Payplan etc for each category), then you can run a report each month (or whenever) to see how much you were under or over your budget for each category for the month. Hopefully this last can help when it comes time for a review with CCCS/Payplan!

I just find it makes planning easier for me ... YMMV

HTH