www.iva.co.uk

there are two of us in our household and our allowance is £280pm for groceries. i have told my iva company that our actual monthly spend is now closer to £400pm but they say they can not increase our allowance is this normal practice because they are being paid well for supervising our iva and cant seem to be bothered with the fact that everything has gone up since we started our iva 2 years ago

What company are you with glassman49?

Have your iva payments increased over the 2 years?

Paul

Hi - is your spend higher because of any dietary needs or any other reason you could ask the IP to consider? I know that annually the guidance to expenses only go up by a few £ which is ridiculous with inflation.

We do struggle some months with ours, depending on what's in the cupboard or freezer - we get £300 for the 2 of us.

I think the thing to do is keep receipts for a month and let your IP peruse them. We are expected to keep within budget but if it is causing a shortfall every month I think you are going to have to prove you don't spend 'frivolously' (if that's how you spell it!!)

Hi Glassman,

You will need to provide proof to your company that your expenses have gone up by this much. £400 a month is a bit high for two of you unless you have to have special food.

I claim for three adults and our monthly household allowance is nowhere near that.

We are only allowed £251 for 2 of us.

Its all relative though,if I was earning £50000 a year I would be used to spending more a month on food shopping than someone earning £25000.

Tesco beans on tesco value bread toasted with a small amount of grated cheese(a decent one,to hell with the budget),with a dash of worcester sauce is the dogs danglies when money is tight at the end of the month!!!

Paul

Glassman ... you say they are being paid well for supervising your IVA, which intimates that they should be doing your bidding. In fact they are very limited in what they can agree to without referring back to your creditors. £406 is the guideline max for a couple with a child, so you would need compelling reasons to be spending that amount on just the two of you.

Are there items you have included in the household allowances that should be being covered elsewhere, like haircurs, prescriptions, meals at work etc ?

I agree with others that you will need to supply receipts to show your spends which will then show what you are buying to indicate it is not things out of the normal.

Our household food allowance was £320 for the two of us but this included prescription charges as well which were £28 per month at the time.

Even out if the IVA we only spend £60-£65 per week on food for the two of us. To be spending £400 a month indicates special foods etc in which it will need to be justified.

I have always been allowed my prescription charges on top of the household food allowance.

We have £488 a month for 4 of us (2 kids) although my eldest eats the same volume of food as an adult and we manage to save from this allowance and still eat healthily and well so I am honestly staggered that you are spending £400 on just 2 people. It is very easy to let your grocery spend run away with you, a few years ago I would hazard a guess we were spending nigh on £1k a month on household shopping as we would do a weekly shop of at least £120 (and this is before the hige hikes in food prices we have seen recently) and then top ups during the week of easily £60 a time.

I agree it's all relative to what you earn however, once you are in an IVA you have to cut your cloth, it IS quite possible to eat well and healthily on the household budget that is recommended by CCCS guidelines if you are savvy, don't shop at waitrose and make some changes to what you would normally buy (cheaper cuts of meat, using extra veg to bulk out meat dishes and trying some vegetarian dishes as a change)

but I agree if you are on a special diet that is causing such a rise in your spending then you need to speak to your IP again.

font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:<hr height="1" noshade>Originally posted by luluj

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Our household food allowance was £320 for the two of us but this included prescription charges as well which were £28 per month at the time.

Luluj,
are you sil paying out £28 per month, asking as you may be able to save by getting a per payment card they cost £10.40 a month.

kev59 - no we are not now....some of the drugs have now finished !!!

I went to Tesco's this morning and spent £60 for the two of us - I got enough meet (chicken pieces, mince, meatballs, whole chicken), fresh fruit and veg, yoghurts, bread and milk and some household cleaning bits ...... I was amazed that it only came to £60 as I feel I got lot's for my money and some of what I got today will last into next week as well.
Think I would have struggled to spend more unless it was on alcohol !

Although I'm not in an IVA / IPA any more I've stuck to a housekeeping budget of £300 for 2 of us. Some months are tighter than others but we manage on that, and I never buy any value brands (not that there's anything wrong with them, just personal choice) - we get our fish from a wholesaler and meat comes from the butchers or market (cheaper than the supermarket). Everything else comes from Sainsburys.

I also find meat from the butchers is cheaper than the supermaret and more tasty. x

we have a monthly budget of £500 for 2 adults 2 children. One of which eats like an adult. We manage ok but Struggle alittle on the 5 weeks months, but on normal months we can usually manage to save alittle from that and put away for little treats x