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If you have Debts, on these pages I'll give you the information and support you need to take control of your debt problems yourself.
Often your creditors or their agents won’t accept your offers unless they are endorsed by a third party such as your local CAB, National debtline, Advice UK, or some other Money Advice agency. These tutorials and the other downloadable material (template letters) will empower you to take on your creditors and their agents, and compel them to accept your payments (though they can still refuse to accept your offers - I'll exp-lain later the difference between an offer and a payment)

I'd advise you to get yourself down to the Citizens Advice Bureau or similar advice agency and get their professional Money Advisers to take you on if these are available, to get your debts and creditors under control. If you're confident that you can do it yourself, then the Financial Statement is a tool you will need allied to the template letters in the downloads page, to have to send to the people you owe money to, so that they can see that what they are getting is a fair share of what's available. The Downloads button will take you to a (NOT FULLY COMPLETED YET) range of short video tutorials that show :--

  1. how to set up a structured debt management pack (so that you can more easily deal with each of your creditors as they contact you) with a list of items you'll need to do this;
  2. how to deal with creditors on the phone;
  3. how to deal with creditors coming to your door, (and the difference between doorstep collectors and bailiffs);
  4. what to write to your creditors in response to their letters or other communications with you (the template letters);
  5. some tips for maximising your income;
  6. a structured approach to debt management;

The Financial skills page (NOT COMPLETED YET) will show you how to manage your budget to maximise your income and minimise your expenditure, so that you can live within your means reasonably comfortably. This is also where you get to learn how to make your own booze to a good standard (personally, I prefer it to the stuff I can buy in the shops, as it's a hell of a lot stronger and hasn't got the chemical additives that commercial booze is full of), and batch cook (amongst other essential skills) if you have to live on Welfare benefits.

The Financial Statement on the left is a spreadsheet where you can calculate your weekly Income and Expenditure. This is the best weapon you will have in controlling your money, as it lets you see how much you are spending in reality, and how much you have left over from what you have coming in. There is a video tutorial on filling it in in the downloads page. However, you may need to install this video codec to be able to play it (if your computer doesn't already have this one installed) depending on which version of the tutorials you download (Avi, WMV, Flash).
Essentially, it lets you plan ahead, because you can use it to do "what if" calculated projections of what you think you'll be spending, subtracted from from what you think you'll have coming in.

Please be aware that the benefit and tax calculators (mainly HM Revenue and Customs, and Entitledto.co.uk) and the lower buttons on the left are linked topages provided by other organisations and are NOT a part of this site. These will calculate what Benefits you should be getting and what levels of Tax / National Insurance you should be paying.

On these pages, I'll point you in the direction of the organisations who will give you funding for a variety of things, such as for :--

So that you can sidestep the problems before they happen to trip you up, we'll also tell you :--

Additionally, you'll see the buttons on the left for other money related matters such as Trust Funds, which is a listing of all the charities and trust funds that will give you money as a non-refundable grant.

To ensure that you have the best chance of getting a grant, there are 2 examples (good and bad) of filled-in Anglian Water Trust Fund (AWTF) application forms on the downloads page, which you can get to by pressing the Downloads above .

When you fill-in application forms for ANY Trust Fund, the rules are pretty much the same for form filling and what to attach to your application. You generally need an up-to-date full bank statement which shows what welfare benefits you are receiving and what you have in savings (generally - nothing in savings). If you are working, then you'll need to send copies of your last months pay-slips to show how much you are earning. Additionally, they usually want you to attach 3 quotes for each item you want i.e. if you want a fridge, cooker, and washing machine, then go to your local stores (Comet, Dixons, Argos, whoever) and get the prices for a model that suits your situation, but don't go for expensive models, as you'll just get no grant at all. The main pages on the AWTF are 8 + 9 and the Income / Expenditure (I/E). You can attach a copy of the financial statement that you can download from the Downloads page mentioned above (filled-in of course).

The Council and DWP Grants buttons take you to pages on their web sites that explain about what grants hey give. However, on release from any type of institution, you are entitled to a Community Care Grant (CCG - not to be confused with a Social Fund Loan (SFL) which has to be paid back). In the Bedford office of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP ) where you will be applying for your CCG, they have a computer system that restricts you to about 34 items, although in theory there is in fact no limit to the number of items you can claim for when applying for a CCG.

If you are restricted as above as I was, then you could make an appeal against the decision to restrict what you are applying for, but ask for the reasons in writing as you will need evidence of these restrictions if you are not given sufficient money to buy all of your necessities (I never found out about the right to appeal against the decision until too long a time had passed, and I was only told this by a woman at the DWP office - so I never got any evidence that they were applying an unlawful restriction).

The Welfare Benefits button will take you to the pages of Entitled.to.uk that calculate what welfare benefits you're entitled to (i.e. Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Income Support, JobSeekers Allowance, Working/Child Tax Credits, Pension/Savings Credit, Disability Living Allowance, Incapacity Benefit, etc.).

The Employment Rights button takes you to the governments DirectGov page, where you will be able to see the rules of, and calculate, what employment rights and benefits you are entitled to claim if you are unemployed or off work for any employment related matter. There's a small bit of crossover with the Welfare Benefits site, so you can use both to get a clearer picture, if it's needed.

The Benefits Rates button takes you to the LASA page that shows the current rates paid for each type of Welfare Benefit

There are additionally several calculators from a variety of sites (mainly local and national government sites) which should provide you with all you need to calculate what benefits you're entitled to (whether you're working, retired, or unemployed).

© Researched, designed and built by Stuart Blackstock 2002 - 2008  A non profit company Limited by Guarantee (Company No 5936521)