www.iva.co.uk

Hi was just wondering whilst going through my income and expenditure with payplan I realised that there is nothing set aside for birthday/christmas presents (is this comething that cannot be included). Also I forgot to account for my lunches (approximately £10 per week). My surplus income was worked out at £240 a month (without including the above 2 items). I believe my debts are in the region of £38000 - is there a pay scale that will be accepted to enter into an IVA based on this amount of debt?

Lots of companies will say you need a set amount (say £170/month) disposable to be considered, but people have IVAs offering as low as a 4% return to creditors. Theres little point cutting bits out to make it look more acceptable to creditors if its going to leave you living on bread and water because that simply won't be sustainable for 5/6 years.

Seek some professional advice, put together a workable Income and Expenditure (comfortable but don't take the biscuit!) and leave the rest to the pros.

Have a look on IVA.co.uk, read some reviews, make some phone calls and get a feel for who you are happy with. Also look at the forum sponsors [:)]

Good luck with whatever solution is right for you!

Hi ninmc. I am afraid there is no allowance for birthdays or christmas. These have to be "factored into" and saved from other allowances, like housekeeping.

There is no pay scale to work out payments based on level of debt -- it is simply the disposable income that has to be paid in.

Have a peek at beatmydebt.com --- they have a useful "Living Expenses Guide" on their site, which will give you an idea of what you can claim for.

A general allowance per month for meals at work is available for purposes of financial statement for an IVA. It isn't exactly as much as you have suggested, but is as near as dammit. If this has not been allowed, or has been overlooked, then you should have opportunity to introduce it in to the finstat before progressing further. As the others have rightly pointed out, there is little point in committing yourself to a long term unaffordable payment. There is no specific allowance for birthdays/christmas, but there are other little bits which may be able to be added to a financial statement to try and plug the gap as it were, so do investigate those as well.

It would not benefit creditors for an IVA to fail due to unaffordability, I think that it is fair to say that they would prefer a lower monthly payment and a slightly reduced dividend if it was a more solid affordable proposal, and therefore less likely to fail. No one can guarantee that during the life of the IVA you won't be run over by a bus or kidnapped by aliens of course, those things are beyond anyones control, but a proposal that is unaffordable in the first place is the cardinal sin of IVA's in my humble opinion.

Regards.

I'm allowed £35 a week for meals at work and was told I couldn't up it at all.

Unfortunately, as pointed out, you won't get an allowance for Christmas and birthdays. I fund mine by doing online surveys and selling some of my unwanted stuff on Ebay.

You need to take some free and impartial advice. Visit www.iva.com and you will find a list of companies and reviews. Give one or two a ring.

Hi nicmc, the expense budget is the crucial starting point of embarking on any kind of solution to your debts - if that is not calculated properly then it can cause issues later. If the meals at work was missed out has anything else been missed out? There are allowances for thingsl ike haircuts, pets, school trips, dentist, sundries, etc if you need them so make sure your budget takes everything into account. Also, ensure your council tax has been pro-rata'd for 12 months (most monthly payments are for 10 months only) therefore that will give a little bit more into your budget for other areas.

If you have any concerns then speak to other companies to compare - you need to be confident moving forward.

Regards,

I get nothing for meal allowances, just have to take out of my food budget which is £35 a week, thats tight these days tbh, i struggle, 3 out the 4 weeks i come in at £32 ish, but 1 week it costs about £70, thats for loo rolls, domestos, clothes washing stuff, toothpaste, etc... all that stuff is very expensive at the moment, managed to get some toothpaste on buy 1 get 2 free deal which saved me £5. Watching those pennies helps and it gets easier as the months go by.

I've always had the seperate allowance for meals at work.

We save up and buy our loo rolls, kitchen rolls and toothpaste from Costco in bulk. It does work out a lot cheaper.

We dont have an allowance for the cats and haircuts. I tried to add it to this years review but was told I couldnt add once IVA had been accepted and they would have to come out of contingencies.

Who is your company, Carole? You should be able to add expenditure at your reviews, as long as it is within the guidelines and / or is a reasonable expense.

carole2662 wrote:

We dont have an allowance for the cats and haircuts. I tried to add it to this years review but was told I couldnt add once IVA had been accepted and they would have to come out of contingencies.

Your cats get haircuts?
[:D]

Paul

Hi nicmc. The standard allowance for meals at work is £36 per month for a single person. This is allowed over and above your housekeeping budget and so certainly worth having.

As has already been said, it is important to get your expenses budget correct in your IVA proposal. As such, I am surprised that Payplan did not point this out to you from the beginning as it is in no-one interest to start you off on an IVA when your living expenses budget is too tight.

Unfortunately once your IVA is up and running it is more difficult to add these things in at a later review as your creditors will question why the sudden change. As such, best to get it right at the beginning.

We get 35 a month for school meals, so I cant see why meals at work cant be factored in.

James Falla wrote:

Hi nicmc. The standard allowance for meals at work is £36 per month for a single person. This is allowed over and above your housekeeping budget and so certainly worth having.

As has already been said, it is important to get your expenses budget correct in your IVA proposal. As such, I am surprised that Payplan did not point this out to you from the beginning as it is in no-one interest to start you off on an IVA when your living expenses budget is too tight.

Unfortunately once your IVA is up and running it is more difficult to add these things in at a later review as your creditors will question why the sudden change. As such, best to get it right at the beginning.

James, I can see that adding in, say, pet expenses for a new pet might be difficult. But adding something that should have been there in the first place should require no explaining to the creditors. In effect, rather than the debtor gaining from future allowances, the creditors have gained from getting money that should have been retained.

Have to say I agree with Foggy on this one - but James is right to say that it should have been right in the first place. For these reasons all the IPs in my practice make sure they personally run through the figures with our clients before committing to the proposal. In that way we have only ourselves to blame if something is wrong, which thankfully does tend to be a rare occurance.