www.iva.co.uk

Hi all

a few months ago i had a letter through from the tax credits office and i have 2 overpayments there to pay back - dated from 2007 - i am now paying back £35 a month on one and £20 on the other.

Also when we moved i got my gas bill through and although i was on a payment meter the previous debt i had on there had not been added to it so upon moving i got a nice bill of £550 to pay, which i have set up to pay £50 a month.

So that totals just over £100 extra a month to find there.
Plus my childcare for this month is nearly £200 extra because of it being the summer holidays and my daughter going to the childminder and my son not getting his nursery education grant during holidays so thats higher.

Plus i have school uniforms to buy this month and school shoes and my kids have weird sized feet (one is a whole size bigger than the other), so i have to buy them clarks ones.

I just cannot afford my IVA this month.

I had 2 months between may and june where i missed my payments to help with our move, paid julys but cant afford augusts payment.

September is a much better month financially, with 2 kids back at full time school and the other at nursery with his nursery education grant and my hours changing to evening work so therefore no extra childcare costs.

I dont want my IVA to fail but at the moment BR is becoming more appealing to me.

Hi there - an IVA should be affordable and if there are new factors altering the payments you can afford you need to discuss these with your IP.

Before thinking about going BR you could ask your IP if its possible to vary the payments on your IVA. Why don't you submit a new income & expenditure form showing what you realistically can afford into the IVA.

It sounds as if your payments need to be adjusted whilst you deal with the additional debts - but do check with your IP to see if they could be included into the IVA. The HMRC debt ought to be.

i have phoned the HMRC and i seem to have paid quite a lot off - one now stands at £38 and the other £139 so only have a few more months to pay it off, but if it can be included in the IVA then that is an extra £55 to cover the other things that are causing me to go overdrawn and hopefully stop these ridiculous bank charges.
(waiting to hear from the co-op cashminder account and then will be trying to claim my bank charges bank which i will of course put through to my iva)

The electric one is £450 as i have made 2 payments for that one.

i will call my ip in a while, got to go out on a nursery run.

Thanks for the advice

You know you shouldnt have an overdraft and if you are getting bank charges you really must talk to your IP ASAP to sort things out.

Are you claiming your tax credits for your child care, if so have you not taken all the school hols into account? I am not telling you how to suck eggs but this is how mine works:

term time my child care is £175.00 x 39 weeks a year = 6,825

school holidays childcare is 285.00 x 13 weeks a year = 3,705

grand total = 10,530 so it averages out at 202.50 of which the tax credits pay 70%.141.75

Like I said I hope I am not repeating what you all ready know and I hope it helps I know child care is a killer I only earn 11,300 per annum.

I dont have an overdraft, i wish i did but nope and i've never had one with the bank i am with. I do however have a electron card and cheque book which i use to write cheques to my childminder and nursery.

The problem is when i write the cheques the money is either there or going in the next day but Direct debits/bank charges/other card payments which take a few days to register go out thus leaving not enough money to pay the cheque, hence the bank charges.

I want to start paying them with cash but all the while i'm trapped in this circle of bank charges taking my money off me one month and therefore playing catch up the next month which causes more charges i cant so until i change to a different bank i'm stuck with it should hear by next week but by then one lot of charges will have gone through the bank again.

Fingerscrossed - called tax credits office yesterday so should hopefully be getting a temporary increase until school goes back and hopefully a small amount of back pay for the 2 weeks already paid for. thanks though, yes you are right childcare is the killer, my childcare for this month is £800!!