www.iva.co.uk

Hey all, sorry another question. Am I ok to withdraw my allowances each month to put in a pot so to say, such as my housekeeping allowances, and other allowances and just keep my direct debits monies in or will I have to keep it all in my account, use my card so the relevant budgets can be seen on bank statements?

As I have been withdrawing it and mainly just keeping in the direct debit money as I find it easy for me to budget that way. It's not me trying to hide anything just I'm about 6 months in now, and I'm getting used to my set ways of budgeting, and don't want any stress come the annual review time

Hi nu4an

I do exactly the same. Its the best way for me to budget from week to week and I also have pots with my money in. Since doing this I have learnt to respect money and I prefer to use cash than my debit card as this was the start of all my problems pre IVA.

Its back to basics and for me the best way to understand how to budget

When I started my IVA this is exactly what I did for about the first year and dealt with everything, apart from DD's etc. in cash. I must admit that paying for the weekly grocery shop in cash did give me a smug feeling ( it was all paid for !!).

After around a year I plucked up the courage to start using the debit card again. At the time I had a Cashminder account and I opened a second account for "spending" .... Every pay day I left an amount to cover all of the DD's, S.O's and predictable expenses like car tax in the "Main" account and transferred the rest to my "Slush" account. It was to the slush account that the debit card was linked.

thanks for the replies, yes i find its the best way for me to budget each week aswell,aslong as it wont cause any problems down the line

Hi
We are just awaiting for our second year annual review to be assessed.

I do feel though we haven't got to grips with budgetting and was thinking of doing as you guys have and putting away the budget amounts for different things and placing in seperate envelopes etc. With this in mind would you suggest withdrawing the bulk of the money or seperate withdrawals for each seperate allowance ie petrol, food...

Thank you... am slightly worried waiting for the review to be assessed.

I had envelopes for all the little bits and each mone would withdraw and put it in them ... whatever was left then went in a holiday pot for a weekend away !