Just about to come up to our 3rd review. We are a family of four. We currently have £430pm for food allocation, but this is not enought and every month we use our contingency fund plus get help from family to buy food. We have not had a contigency fund now for several months so anything going wrong we wont have the funds to put right!!!. My question is do you think it would be reasonable for us to put in the review £480. Just wondered how many others out there have this sort of amount or what you might expect for a family of four. My children are getting older 10 & 13 so eating more and need things such as more toilteries etc...
F&F accepted 12/8/13 - Awaiting Completion Certificate
Thanks to everyone for your support. Could'nt have done it without you.
The current guidelines state £505 for food and toiletries so you should request an uplift in allowances. Clothing is now £93 for four so check you are also receiving that allowance correctly.
That seems way too tight. The CCCS/Stepchange guidelines are well in excess of that and you should ask your IP why you are not receiving these allowances. If there has been any uplift in payments from the start I would be inclined to ask for a reduction. If not, and you are finding the family suffering you could possibly ask for a 15% reduction as your contingency fund is exactly that and not a supplement for food.
I currently get £435 per m and £40 Contingency We are a family of 3+1 is a Uni but his student finance loan does not cover his accomodation so we are using funds from house keeping to help he has a part time job that covers his own living expenses , but when he's home we are back to 4 in the house who are eating adult meals, We have stated this in every review we have and a reduction has never been suggested.
any advice on this would be helpful.
Thank you Michael for your responses. I can't believe we have been made to struggle on our low figure for so long. At our year two review I told them we were stuggling with food allowances and the response has been if we take a reduction then the difference of the 15% would need to be paid at the end. For example 15% reduction for us would be £41.25pm. We would then need to pay that £495 at the end (£41.25 x 12 months). The clothing allowance has blown me away as in the three years that we have been in the IVA we have only been allowed an increase of £5.00 per month, not each, but for all 4 of us.!!!!. I am quite cross about this because we have also now paid in over the last three years about an extra £1000 that my husband has received in bonuses!!!!
F&F accepted 12/8/13 - Awaiting Completion Certificate
Thanks to everyone for your support. Could'nt have done it without you.
Special One - we have 2 children at university, and did have 3 at the same time. Their loans too did not cover their accommodation and expenses and we were unable to help even a little. The youngest works part time, the older one has been unable to find anything. He tried for fruit picking this summer and wrote on spec as there are several farms around us that take foreign students. Got turned down as he "did not meet their requirements" (ie he is British).
Fortunately up to now he has been able to use the cash remaining from what he earned during 6 months before uni. This was the case for our oldest, too, but as he was doing a 5 year medical course (40 hours contact hours alone first 2 years, full time on the wards for the next3, plus all the studying) he was unable to find any spare time for a paid job. After he qualified as a doctor his first few months' salary were spent paying back richer friends who had paid his sharwe of the rent, food etc. Imagine how that made us feel.
We had put down additional food costs to cover our 2 when they are home for the holidays, but our creditors refused to take this into consideration, therby doubling our monthly IVA contribution. Fortunately we did a F&F IVA, so it just means even longer paying back my Mum, but if we had been forced to take the normal IVA route as they wanted, this much extra would have been unaffordable for us.
Some IVA companies count this as a valid expense (ours did) and some don't. In the end, even if your IP includes it, it is up to the creditors whether they will agree or not - and may come down to what dividend they will get. Ours was very small and I guess they were intent on getting more one way or another.
Thanks for that Debt Tired
I have just looked at what my forecast dividend and it was 19 pence in the pound return, I have 18 months to go and our current position is 51 pence in the pound,
I know i have some equity in my property so Iam now thinking would it be worth trying to finish our IVA early.
