Unfortunately, having been in discussion with a certain IVA provider for several months now I have failed to reach any agreement and, it is probably fair to say, reached a point where I no longer have much confidence in the service this firm provides.
One aspect that I am uncomfortable with is that the firm will not say what fees it charges. My concern is that it may at some point seek to increase its fees and disguise the fact by putting the ‘blame’ on difficulties with creditors.
The real sticking point, however, is over what level of monthly expenditure I should be allowed on certain items. The firm insists that it has no flexibility in discussing these thresholds because it says they are dictated by the Government.
After rent, my biggest expense is - as you might expect - food. The firm uses a ‘housekeeping’ category, to include food, toiletries and other incidental household expenses. It says that the monthly cost of all these things together, as dictated by the Government, is £160. Well, for anyone reading this who manages to live on that budget (and the firm tells me it has ‘never been a problem before’) I salute you. In my case, as a civil servant I am fortunate enough to be able to use a subsidised office canteen where a properly balanced meal costs around £4 (without a pudding, which I accept is a ‘luxury item’). With breakfast and a light evening meal on top of that I would reckon on spending on average £7 per day on weekdays. Weekends for me are more expensive, but even assuming no extra cost that comes to 31 x 7 = £217 on food alone. I actually reckon on spending at least £10 a day at weekends, which covers basic provisions such as bread, milk, pasta etc, bringing a total monthly food bill of £241. I should be interested to know, what should be considered a ‘fair’ monthly allowance for food, please?
I spend about £15 per month on toiletries and washing powder, and there are always other ‘incidentals’ ranging from a new kettle, plates, mugs, light bulbs, duvet-covers and so on which it is difficult to put a figure on, but for which I think there should be some sort of separate allowance. Last week I spent £13.60 on prescription charges. Is there any way of covering this sort of unpredictable but very necessary expense within the terms of the IVA? How much should I be able to reckon on spending on toiletries, please? How much on ‘incidentals’?
The allowance for clothes that the firm uses is £30. Right now, I need a new pair of shoes and will struggle to get a decent pair for that price. A fairer allowance I think would be £45-£50. I would be grateful for others’ opinion/experience on this – what would be a reasonable amount for clothes?
The most difficult category I find is entertainment. The firm allows £50 per month for entertainment unless part of that is covered by the cost of broadband internet connection, in which case the broadband is listed separately (maximum £15) and the entertainment allowance then goes down to £40. It says that it is not obliged to allow anything for entertainment at all, and that some companies don’t.
Part of the problem as I see it is in deciding what should be considered entertainment. For example, I have a 30-40 minute train journey to work and always try to get a paper to read on the way. That works out at around £8 per month (40p per day, 5 days per week). I occasionally get an evening paper, but regard that as a bit of a luxury because there are free papers available (I am not on a line where I can pick up a free morning paper). I also normally get a Saturday paper (60p). The Sunday paper is 90p, which I don’t propose to include because I see this could be regarded as a (over-priced) luxury, too. However, my monthly paper bill - excluding evening and Sunday papers – still comes to £10.40, which is slightly more than I would spend on a haircut. Should I be able to incorporate my paper bill in an IVA, please?
Another difficulty I have is that part of what may be termed ‘entertainment’ is to me ‘my life’. My passion is music, whether listening to it at home, experiencing it live, or writing, recording and producing my own material, as I have been doing for more years than I would care to remember. Although this can be expensive, I do not believe that it need be prohibitively so if approached in a responsible way. Whilst I of course accept the need for constraint, I confess I do find it difficult in this case to accept that my interests should be entirely written off as forms of ‘luxury’ without the need for any discussion at all. Is this a reasonable expectation, please?
I would be very interested to know other people’s experience on covering the broad category that is ‘entertainment’. Can visits to the cinema/clubs /live gigs (which, again, do not have to be very expensive if restricted to only one per month) be listed separately to socialising with friends or spending on CDs/downloads? Can any of these be listed at all?
I really had not intended to write at such length, however, there is one final point probably worth mentioning. The firm uses one quite generous allowance - £100 for travelling. The reason this is generous is that the £100 applies after all deductions from salary have been made (I checked!). In my case a 12 month season ticket loan is deducted from my salary on a monthly basis, so the £100 ‘allowance’ is on top of that. Is this common practice? I can only presume this allowance really is in response to some sort of government guideline, because it is not in this firm’s nature to be generous in its assessment of living costs.
With apologies for the length of this message - which gives a flavour of the issues I face contemplating an IVA as a single person (goodness knows how much more difficult it would be with a family to support, and in that very narrow financial sense I count myself as quite fortunate). I should be extremely grateful to anyone who feels able to respond to any of the questions raised above.
