any help greatly appreciated. my partner and i have been doing ok with the whole budgeting thing since starting iva but have hit a bad patch. we have a small overdraft an account which i am waiting for bank to remove. we never go into it but on friday i had to rush my cat to the vets and we incurred a vet bill. £98 of treatment, to somr this woud be a small vet bill but we only had £100 to get us through to pay day. we ended up going into overdraft by £10. we now have cash to get us through to pay day which is thursay. is this going to affect my IVA. Obviously my cat is a part of the family and i had no option but to pay the bill. [:(]
Sadly owning a pet almost innevitably means occasional unnexpected costs. Did you include costs associated with pets in your original income and expenditure agreement? If not, probably worth having a chat with your IP, explain the current situation and see if you can get an agreement to have an allowance for such costs. I included £12 a month in mine, which I use to pay for Tesco pet insurance monthly. It's been invaluable so far with two bills for over £300 being taken care of without compromisisng the IVA or monthly costs for living...
Just a thought anyway, and sincerely hope your cats all better
Amy, I can totally sympathise with the vets bill and I hope he/she is now fully recovered.
I don't think £98 is a small amount - I'd be horrified if I had to pay that at the moment for either of my dogs. I am sure there will not be a problem with this for such a small amount. If you can manage to put that back I think you will be fine. Make sure that the overdraft is removed from the account though as soon as possible.
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
See if you can take out insurance for the cat. We have it included for the dogs.
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
Hi, yes me too I was allowed £20.00 per month for my dog for insurance and food . clearly uses more as the insurance is £16.43 . sadly the vaccinations payment has to come from my contingency money. but its better than nothing. worth giving it a bash if you aren't already allowed it in your I and E.
Last edited by merrypotter on Sun Aug 09, 2009 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
We have to fund our own vaccinations as well - fortunately they are three months apart so we have chance to save up again!
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
Pet insurance for pet owners is vital - and should be an allowable expense in an IVA. If the pet food an insurance comes to more than the allowance, advise your IPs of this - as the allowances are for guidelines only and if the actual expenditure is higher this should be allowed if justified.
Sorry to hear about your cat, hope he/she makes a full recovery. As others have said you should definitely look into pet insurance, it can be a bit of a minefield though - the best type of policy to have is a policy that pays out per year 'for life' with the 'pot of money' being reset each and every year, rather than per condition. Whatever your cat was treated for will be excluded as a pre-existing condition and won't be covered under the new policy though. I'm with Axa and for £7 a month my cat is covered for £7000 of vet bills each and every year.
Martin - Are you aware that standard Tesco pet insurance only covers you for 12 months for whatever condition you are claiming for? If your pet developed an illness that required ongoing treatment they would stop paying for that condition after 12 months of claims even if you continue the premiums.
One thing I will say for DFD when setting up our IVA they did ask us about pets. I have two elderly dogs and therefore can't get them insured but I put my allowance away for them for a rainy day.
My biggest problem with my dogs since the IVA is that I had to go in private rented accommodation and private landlords do not like pets. I always have to pay two months rent up front (one month to allow for any damage the dogs cause). One letting agent wanted 6 months rent in advance because of our IVA. Has anyone else come across this problem?
It really does annoy me that people won't allow pets.
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
It saddens me to see pet owners prejudiced like this by landlords. I own a couple of buy to let properties and would welcome all forms of pets - who are members of the family at the end of the day.
See it all the time in the local papers here, no DSS and no pets.
As long as you are a responsible pet owners and are prepared to pay for any damage they cause, I cannot see the problem.
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
Normally they put 'no pets' as a standard clause and if you approach the landord or letting agent and ask (and don't have a pack of large unruly dogs!) beforehand it's not normally a problem. I've rented for 10 years and have never had a landlord say no to my 1 or 2 cats. If they were not keen then an offer to steam clean the carpets and a slightly increased deposit normally does the trick.
My pets are part of my family and if a landlord said No to allowing them I'd simply find somehwhere else.
I feel sometimes like I have an infectious disease. Trying to rent with an IVA, three children and two dogs is awful. I also find if I speak honestly to letting agents and ask them to speak to the landlords they do not bother themselves. There are not enough properties on the rental market available at the moment in my area.
Fortunately I found a landlord that I explained my predicament to and after doing his own research thought we were a better bet than all the other people that came to view his property. Because we had the IVA and had a set budget for rent etc he thought we would be more reliable in meeting the payments every month. Who would have expected that outcome!!
I hope your cat is on the mend Amy. I don't think that £98 is a small amount of money either, and I would have done exactly the same as you if it had been my cat.
I've always said I wouldn't get into debt again, but if it was for Harry Puss I'd do it!
I've got Harry insured with Homebase and they would pay out £2500 per year and this would then restart in the next year.
