I can claim for meals for work and I'm sure you should be able to claim for school dinners as well.
As liverpig states - some people get a smoking allowance.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
Up until the result of the meeting the matters of allowances are negotiated. With all due respect to the IP's, you don't have to take what they say you should be spending as an absolute figure. The guidelines many use are just that ..GUIDELINES. Everybody has different expenditure and different reasons for that expenditure, so, please negotiate and don't go into an IVA with an unworkable allowance.
My opinions are merely that .. opinions based on experience. Always seek professional advice.
IVA Completed 23rd July 2013 .... C.C. 10th January 2014
Agree with everyone else that the figures must work for you. £60 for lunch may be a little higher than the guideline amount but it's all there to be negotiated.
Hi Nick and welcome to the forum! Great to have another expert on board!!!
I think if you can justify this money, and can provide receipts to prove it then they should allow it.
I get £35 a month for my meals at work, this has always been allowed.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
I'd be keen to know which creditors Payplan see refusing an allowance for school meals - as personally I have never seen this - and also why Payplan would say to someone that this needs to be taken from a housekeeping allowance when the CCCS guidelines state £36 per month per child and your client is saying that the actual costs are £60.
Children should not suffer as a result of their parents financial difficulties, and creditors who may seek to suggest this should be challenged relentlessly.
Hi,
I have an allowance of £35 for meals at work and £36 for daughters school meals.
Ha e to say when I read some of the posts here on this forum, it makes me thankful time and time again that I have Mel as my ip
kat
IVA accepted 6th May 2011, Full and Final accepted 17th April 2012.
I'm actually a bit shocked reading this as I would never expect any company to say school meals may not be allowed. Surely if the child has them it is an essential?
As Mel says a child should never suffer for our (the parents) mistakes. Especially in light of recent child poverty statistics in this country.
I can understamd setting limits - but since the school sets the meal price and gives receipts then this expenditure can absolutely be proved and the child should not be penalised.
"Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent." - Jean Kerr
IVA approved Aug 2008 - 6 year term - last payment made 6 Oct 2014. CC received 14 Nov 2014.
Thank you to everyone for your warm welcomes.
All IVA companies work differently, based on their experiences. In the experience of Payplan we have seen a lot of clients putting forward proposals with money in areas like meals at work and schools meals, which is why if a client can take it out of the housekeeping budget then great! However not everyone can, which is when we need our clients to tell us that they need money allocated specifically in that area. I really urge nicmc to contact her case officer to try and sort through the issues.
We are not saying school meals are not allowed, as you say children should not suffer.
Last edited by Nick Payne on Thu Jul 21, 2011 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
Hi, my name is Nick Payne and I am an Insolvency Practitioner with Payplan.
Read the Payplan blogs by visiting our website www.payplan.com
Why is it 'great' for someone to use, what can already be quite a tight housekeeping budget in light of recent significant rises in the cost of food, to fund school meals for children aswell?
My childrens school charges £1.95 a day now for each child, this equates to a monthly cost of £40.95 for each child, as we have an allowance of £488 a month for our family which I wholly accept as quite generous compared to some I have seen, I am quite surprised you think it would be 'great' for us to spend almost 20% of our housekeeping budget on school meals when there is a recognised allowance for this separately.
I believe we are claiming £36 for each child of which I am very grateful, and it seems thankful I am not with Payplan!
i don't understand your way of thinking, if the guidelines allow for meals at school, and your clients have children of school age, surely taking into consideration the affordability of an iva, you should be penciling in this allowance for them anyway?
as i have already said i have this allowance for my daughter and myself, even though it wasnt something that crossed my mind when going through my expenditure, but instead something my iva company pointed out i might be needing.
i understand it is the job of the ip to maximise return for the creditors, but if this is taken to extreme, surely the risk of the iva failing is more likely, with the end result being of loss all round.
kat
IVA accepted 6th May 2011, Full and Final accepted 17th April 2012.
I am not sure that I understand your comments either!
Creditors have standard allowances for things like meals at work and school meals which are regularly accepted. Are you saying that Payplan would expect their clients to firstly squeeze their housekeeping budgets to cover these before allowing them the allowances for such items - which in my experience I have never seen rejected?
Can you also confirm - either on line or off line to me directly which creditors you see regularly rejecting school meals payments as I find this alarming. I regularly engage with creditor representatives at a high level, and if this is happening - or they are applying such rulings to some firms and not others - something has to be done about this. Clients with Payplan would appear to be being prejudiced for some unknown reason.
absolutely agree with Kat here, when I was in the depths of despair crying on the phone to Tina Shortland last December while she was going through my budget with me, I had no idea what expenses were allowed and what weren't, I would never have even realised we could have an allowance for school meals if Tina hadn't told me.
Yes of course our IP wants to maximise the return for our creditors, but isn't it also the IP's responsibility to ensure that the budget set is fair to the debtor aswell and realistic in terms of ensuring they will be able to live within in for the 5 or 6 years they are going to be in the IVA?
My job as an IP is to put forward the best set of proposals for our clients and creditors. Our guidelines do not allow school meals, the reason for us saying that the funds can be taken out of the housekeeping is because this money is to be used to provide food for the family. If someone states that they do eat meals out of the home like meals at work or school then we can add this in along with proof and stating a reason for the creditors.
As already mentioned many of our clients have this in their budget with no problems, without the client stating that they cannot take these funds out of their housekeeping budget we are not to know that they are struggling.
Hi, my name is Nick Payne and I am an Insolvency Practitioner with Payplan.
Read the Payplan blogs by visiting our website www.payplan.com
