i'm new here,

[moneypenny]

hi all, very new to this site, been doin a lot of reading, this site is so helpful, i'm trying to get hubby on here.
Our IVA started on the 8th june 2009, i would like to know which wage slip would count as the first paypacket, to be counted towards the IVA, as my husband gets payed on the 24th of every month, would it be june or may that is counted, also when we send our p60 in for our first review, do they discount april and may 2009 paypacket. The reason i ask is because may's pay had extra bonus in it, and i know you have to give up 50% of the extra income, but is may's counted, i'm lost.
Also when our IVA started 8th june09, our tax came in for both car's and we had no saving's for this, also since then we have had garage repairs, and bill's for our animal's. we have never struggled so much in our life, we have lived on beans mince and potatoes, on top of that our daughter was diagnosed with coeliac disease in aug, which we are finding very difficult with purchasing the gluten free food, which is very exspensive. We have kept all our reciepts so that we can send them in when our review is hear. also our tax credits went down, and everything has gone up since we gave our figures in. if anyone can shed some light that all is right. here is our original plan.
monthly income: £2442
monthly expenditure is:2,109
mortgage £700
secured loan £141
h/c ins £24
household maint £50
coun tax £112
elec/gas £92
water £32
tel/mob £71
lif ins £51
food/grocery £400
car tax £30
car main £30
car ins £38
petrol £130
medical/dental £25
meals work £36
tv lic £12
prescriptions £14
pet ins £20
clothing £56
contingency £45
voluntary contribution to iva £330.
this is what went into court, we had a phonecall later that day to say, payments need to be £380, so they reduced H/M to £25, car main to £20 and m/d to £10. we were told that we had to agree or it would not be accepted, so we agreed.
since then our water month d/d has increased to £35.83 and our tax credits reduced by £4.
we phoned them and they did decrease our monthly payment to £325, we are learning and are getting there slowly, but we had a lot of unexpected bills come in, my husband had a puncture which cost £61, the cats and dog needed defleaing and worming £96 ( pet ins don't cover), my clutch went £384, leak from petrol cap, £62 two lots of car tax, 1 mot, how are you supposed to cope when you havn't had chance to save the monthly fiqure's up. I suppose it will take us a couple of yrs just to get into the routine. Don't get me wrong, i know its the best thing we've evr done and its amazing what we are learning along the way, and we are begginging to look at our selves more carefully, i am truly feeling like we are living our life using money wev'e worked for instead of spending other peoples money. anyway please if you have any advise on what i have written please come forth, any help is useful.

[Mrs_Moody]

Did you get advised to put some contingency to one side instead of paying creditors whilst your IVA was being arranged moneypenny? From reading on here thats what usually happens, that way you go into the iva something saved for these kind of emergencies. Have you been to your IP about your extra food needs now you have to get gluten free for your daughter? I know its very expensive as my dad has coeliacs too. Sorry not much help, just wanted to reply after reading.

[MelanieGiles]

You should not have been told that you had to accept modifications that you felt were unfair - your IP could have fought harder for you perhaps.

You don't seem to have some of the usual allowances in accordance with CCCS guidelines - so it is worth discussing this with your IP now rather than at annual review time. It seems such a shame that you appear to be facing five years of very tight budgeting, when this should have been realistically set in the first place.

[MRBLUESKY]

hi moneypenny if you send quartely payslips in i would start from june after your iva was set up.your p60 just confirms your annual wage,if your ip decides on any payment changes they will use your payslips to review any change quartely.on the face of it your expenditure does seem reasonable albeit with a few discrepancies,one being your paying two car tax but have only one down on expenditure,plus the car tax seems a bit high.would it be possible to downsize to one car,or to smaller engines to reduce running costs.pet care like you stated regarding defleaing etc could be done from buying products online rather than using vet appointments.regarding emergencies like car breakdown,you can ask for a payment break for emergencies.its hard to start with but when starting out in a iva you need to learn to be more prudent with spending and shop about for things you need,but in the past may have just relied on credit to buy so were not to bothered about the cost.good luck and dont hesitate to contact your ip with any concerns you have.

[kallis3]

I would keep your next three payslips and send them off.

As regards prescriptions - are they just for you or for both of you? If you need regular medication, it might pay you to get a pre payment certificate which costs just over £100 a year and covers all medicines.

Ronald - as regards cars, have you stopped to think that they may need to run two cars? We have two and need them both. I am sure that if they could afford to get rid of one, they probably would.

I would certainly ring your IP and tell them about your daughter - she needs different (and more expensive) food, so your food bill will have gone up. You may be able to sort out a new I&E.

As regards the P60 - both of ours are always late coming out and we never sent them off this year and they never asked for them. However, that may be because both of ours have our total earnings listed on them.

[Pennyless]

Moneypenny from what I read you seem to be running to a tight budget but like me if I'm successful, you certainly look as if you are going to try damn hard to make it work come what may.

First thing that I noticed was your mortgage is £700.00 therefore I would suspect you have a reasonable size house but your elec/gas seems to be less than £100, with completing your IVA in Jun does this take into account the winter months where your usage & D/D may increase?

As per the car tax I must admit I will probably be in the same boat.....my car tax is £215.00 (12 months) for a 10 year old 1.8 mondeo. The tax runs out this month and I too have not had time to put the expense aside between realising my debt problem and applying for an IVA....fortunately however I have managed to get some overtime in these past days and this will meet the majority of the money, together with a bit of trimming on the food and clothing.

I could however buy a 6 months road tax but that will cost £118.25 so in the longrun will be more expensive.

I agree with Kallis in regards to two vehicle and I have no doubt you no longer have the means to think about getting either a more economical or reliable vehicle.

I have however read this weekend on another thread that someone got a new vehicle on HP just before going into an IVA, knowing that they would have to keep the vehicle for a minimum of 5 years. I wish I had of pre-empted my position as well but I didnt have a clue on IVA's until the last minute. Oh well heres hoping my 2 10 year old fords can last the course, but I do have breakdown and repair cover on both.

[MRBLUESKY]

jan i did stop to think moneypenny might need two cars hence the sentence[to smaller engines]sorry should have been[two smaller engines]which if were appropiate to moneypenny,s family circumstances may help reduce costs.the smaller the engine of a car generally means better fuel consumption cheaper car tax and insurance.and generally cheaper maintenance.

[kallis3]

I don't think we can comment about changing to smaller engines as we don't know what sort of cars they have!

They may very well have small cars anyway which are fuel efficient.

[MRBLUESKY]

any suggestions about money saving ideas,must be good for the forum to help some people.

[kallis3]

I agree that suggestions are good, but each case is specific and we shouldn't make suggestions to specific posters if we don't know the facts.

[MRBLUESKY]

the fact that moneypenny has just spent,£384 on a new clutch,suggests to me that the car isnt the most cost effective regarding parts on the road regardless of size.so i was just trying to be helpful.

[kallis3]

I was referring to day to day running costs, not repairs. At least the clutch will last for a while now!

I have no doubt that to replace a clutch on one of our cars would be very expensive.

I have no wish to get into an argument with you, so I think we shall have to agree to disagree on this occasion.

[MRBLUESKY]

ok jan.

[Skippy]

I don't think the running costs are particularly high - my road tax for my Fiesta is £150 a year (around £13 a month) and up until a couple of months ago my insurance was £43 a month. It's only a 1.4 so I wouldn't really have much option for downsizing!

I also Googled the price of a new clutch for mine and it would be around £300+.

[Skippy]

Moneypenny, has your GP spoken to you about your daughter's diet? Someone I know is a coeliac and she gets a lot of food on prescription.