Well, I phoned him and explained that if I had £2115 sitting in my bank, I probably wouldn't need his help. He blustered a bit and asked me how much would I be able to pay.
I hesitated and nearly said that I couldn't pay anything - that's why I needed his help. However, courtesy got the better of me and we agreed that I would pay him half now and half once the IVA was set up and running.
Looks like that was the best deal I could get.
Be careful with fees - they are all different. By the way, I found a great forum about IVAs. There are loads of people with loads of problems just like mine (and, perhaps, yours) Take a look here
There is also a terrific blog by the IVA Mole that's well worth a look. (Thanks for your support, riters bloc)
Stay happy
Monday, 19 February 2007
Strange that I blogged about giving blood - Now it's the turn of the Insolvency Practitioner
Friday, I gave blood - willingly because it's something I believe in. This morning I feel as if my whole heart has been ripped out.
I have just received an e-mail from the Insolvency Practitioner who I have asked to prepare my IVA. He asked - straight up, no messin' - for a cheque from me, on account, for £1,800.00 plus VAT ( that's £2,115.00 in total)
I'm rolling in more than £80,000 of debt that I can't repay - where am I supposed to get that sort of money?
No invoice from him, no explanation. I'm just about to phone him - this should be interesting!
I have just received an e-mail from the Insolvency Practitioner who I have asked to prepare my IVA. He asked - straight up, no messin' - for a cheque from me, on account, for £1,800.00 plus VAT ( that's £2,115.00 in total)
I'm rolling in more than £80,000 of debt that I can't repay - where am I supposed to get that sort of money?
No invoice from him, no explanation. I'm just about to phone him - this should be interesting!
Friday, 16 February 2007
One thing I can give - and feel very good about.
It's just after lunch on Friday afternoon - and I'm off to do something that I believe is so very worthwhile .
I do it once every four month - usually after work, so the boss can't complain. (I'm on holiday this week, so am going in the middle of the day.)
It doesn't cost me anything, so the debt mountain doesn't get any bigger.
It doesn't hurt.
It's nothing to be afraid about.
The people who do it are a great, friendly bunch - both the givers and the takers.
I'm off to give blood.
If you have put all or any of the above obstacles in your way, remove them now and register for your nearest donor session.
Get a life and save a life. It's easy.
I do it once every four month - usually after work, so the boss can't complain. (I'm on holiday this week, so am going in the middle of the day.)
It doesn't cost me anything, so the debt mountain doesn't get any bigger.
It doesn't hurt.
It's nothing to be afraid about.
The people who do it are a great, friendly bunch - both the givers and the takers.
I'm off to give blood.
If you have put all or any of the above obstacles in your way, remove them now and register for your nearest donor session.
Get a life and save a life. It's easy.
Stay happy...
Another sadness
I've just been woken up at 05:30 by a high-pitched squealing in the kitchen, then the sound of one of my two cats running upstairs. As I opened the bedroom door, he presented me with a small, wild rabbit.
I've done a lot in my long life, seen and heard many sad things, but that rabbit, dying from shock and fear in my hands has just made me cry.
Can the day get worse?
I've done a lot in my long life, seen and heard many sad things, but that rabbit, dying from shock and fear in my hands has just made me cry.
Can the day get worse?
Thursday, 15 February 2007
Look - Ads again!!!
Perhaps you have all been screaming at me for days, but I have only just realised it.
AdSense (like size) isn't everything. In my Blog a few days ago, I told you that my AdSense account had been shut down by Google - unfairly, I thought, but what the hell has fair got to do with it?
I left the side of my Blog plain and thought that was that. No more ads making a bit more interesting reading than this Blog.
Then it dawned on me - at 11:30 at night, on a cold, wet February 15th, that I could put other things in the side bar. So I started playing. I've used Better Text Ads on some of my other sites, but have only just realised that I could add them to my Blog as well.
So here they are. Standing up proud and being counted. Perhaps they won't make me a millionaire overnight but we all need goals.
Sweet dreams.
AdSense (like size) isn't everything. In my Blog a few days ago, I told you that my AdSense account had been shut down by Google - unfairly, I thought, but what the hell has fair got to do with it?
I left the side of my Blog plain and thought that was that. No more ads making a bit more interesting reading than this Blog.
Then it dawned on me - at 11:30 at night, on a cold, wet February 15th, that I could put other things in the side bar. So I started playing. I've used Better Text Ads on some of my other sites, but have only just realised that I could add them to my Blog as well.
So here they are. Standing up proud and being counted. Perhaps they won't make me a millionaire overnight but we all need goals.
Sweet dreams.
By getting help, I'm getting deeper in debt!
A couple of days ago, I thought everything was going to be OK. I had decided that the best way to deal with this stupid amount of debt that I have wrapped around myself was to go to the Courts and get an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) in place.
An IVA is where I promise to put a monthly amount of cash in a .....trust fund is the best way of describing it (perhaps we can call it a big piggy bank) Anyway, this fund (piggybank, whatever you want to call it) is looked after by an Insolvency Practitioner and he watches the fund grow. All of the creditors (the people I owe money to - creditcards mostly) trust this Insolvency Practitioner and have agreed to receive just a small percentage of what I owe them.
In return, I must be truthful about how much I have to spend each month just to live (rent, council tax, gas, electric, food and so on) and what is left I have to put in the piggy bank. Every so often, the Insolvency Practitioner decides there is enough in the piggy bank for everyone to have a bit of a share-out. So, every year he takes out the bung, lets the cash drift across the table and has a count-up.
OK - I know I'm making it all seem very simple - but I really am a simple kind of guy. It was the complexity of living that got me in this mess in the first place!
Now - watch this carefully - which cup is the ball under?
If I owe £80,000 and offer to pay my creditors at the rate of 25 pence in the pound (that's 25 pence I pay for every pound I owe) over five years (and only if they all agree - for an IVA to be acceptable they all have to vote on it), then that's £20,000 I pay back - over 5 years that comes out at £4,000 per year that I have to promise to put in the piggy bank. Right?
Wrong. Because nobody works for nothing! Least of all the Insolvency Practitioner.
Every year - as soon as that bung comes out of the piggy bank - the Insolvency Practitioner lets the first £1000 spill across the table top and into his open drawer. That's right - he takes his fees first. Fair enough, I guess. I can't expect him to help me out of the mess that I'm in and not charge me for helping, can I?
So, instead of me promising to put £4,000 in the piggy bank each year, I must put £5,000 in. Easy, huh?
Think about it - £4,000 per year breaks back to £80 per week - each and every week for five years. Now it seems that I must find another £20 each and every week, to cover the Insolvency Practitioner's fees. Not only am I down to cold baked beans every night, I can only have the small cans!
Perhaps I shouldn't joke about it. After all, I was stupid enough to spend more than I was earning. I was stupid enough to use credit cards. If you want to really know - I was stupid enough to draw cash off of one card to pay the monthly payment on another. Now that is King Stupid - and I did it!
But I didn't know that my gas and electricity costs were going to double in 2006, did I? I didn't know that I was going to be made redundant in 2006, did I?
Whoa - I can hear you. All credit cards offer insurance against loss of earnings - Joy and Jubilation, I'm protected!
Forget it - just read the small print. I did - but too late. I can only tell you about the insurances that I took out - there were six of them - but I expect all the others are pretty much the same.
You can only claim on the insurance after you have been registered unemployed at the Job Centre. I was told that I could not register until I had been out of work for 6 weeks. You need the Job Centre to fill in a form and send it to the insurance company. You also need your old employer to fill out a similar form and send that off, as well.
All of that registering and form filling takes ten to twelve weeks. So you are out of work for three months, no money coming in and the debts still need to be paid. The insurance company won't pay out immediately so what happens? You do what I did and pay one card with another one, just to make the payments.
Look - I'm sorry. I'm going on too much. But please be careful with repayment insurance - I didn't get any help at all. Only you can decide if it's worth it for you.
I'm going to stop now and open my tin of beans. I'll Blog on in a couple of days.
Thank you for being there - I need you.
An IVA is where I promise to put a monthly amount of cash in a .....trust fund is the best way of describing it (perhaps we can call it a big piggy bank) Anyway, this fund (piggybank, whatever you want to call it) is looked after by an Insolvency Practitioner and he watches the fund grow. All of the creditors (the people I owe money to - creditcards mostly) trust this Insolvency Practitioner and have agreed to receive just a small percentage of what I owe them.
In return, I must be truthful about how much I have to spend each month just to live (rent, council tax, gas, electric, food and so on) and what is left I have to put in the piggy bank. Every so often, the Insolvency Practitioner decides there is enough in the piggy bank for everyone to have a bit of a share-out. So, every year he takes out the bung, lets the cash drift across the table and has a count-up.
OK - I know I'm making it all seem very simple - but I really am a simple kind of guy. It was the complexity of living that got me in this mess in the first place!
Now - watch this carefully - which cup is the ball under?
If I owe £80,000 and offer to pay my creditors at the rate of 25 pence in the pound (that's 25 pence I pay for every pound I owe) over five years (and only if they all agree - for an IVA to be acceptable they all have to vote on it), then that's £20,000 I pay back - over 5 years that comes out at £4,000 per year that I have to promise to put in the piggy bank. Right?
Wrong. Because nobody works for nothing! Least of all the Insolvency Practitioner.
Every year - as soon as that bung comes out of the piggy bank - the Insolvency Practitioner lets the first £1000 spill across the table top and into his open drawer. That's right - he takes his fees first. Fair enough, I guess. I can't expect him to help me out of the mess that I'm in and not charge me for helping, can I?
So, instead of me promising to put £4,000 in the piggy bank each year, I must put £5,000 in. Easy, huh?
Think about it - £4,000 per year breaks back to £80 per week - each and every week for five years. Now it seems that I must find another £20 each and every week, to cover the Insolvency Practitioner's fees. Not only am I down to cold baked beans every night, I can only have the small cans!
Perhaps I shouldn't joke about it. After all, I was stupid enough to spend more than I was earning. I was stupid enough to use credit cards. If you want to really know - I was stupid enough to draw cash off of one card to pay the monthly payment on another. Now that is King Stupid - and I did it!
But I didn't know that my gas and electricity costs were going to double in 2006, did I? I didn't know that I was going to be made redundant in 2006, did I?
Whoa - I can hear you. All credit cards offer insurance against loss of earnings - Joy and Jubilation, I'm protected!
Forget it - just read the small print. I did - but too late. I can only tell you about the insurances that I took out - there were six of them - but I expect all the others are pretty much the same.
You can only claim on the insurance after you have been registered unemployed at the Job Centre. I was told that I could not register until I had been out of work for 6 weeks. You need the Job Centre to fill in a form and send it to the insurance company. You also need your old employer to fill out a similar form and send that off, as well.
All of that registering and form filling takes ten to twelve weeks. So you are out of work for three months, no money coming in and the debts still need to be paid. The insurance company won't pay out immediately so what happens? You do what I did and pay one card with another one, just to make the payments.
Look - I'm sorry. I'm going on too much. But please be careful with repayment insurance - I didn't get any help at all. Only you can decide if it's worth it for you.
I'm going to stop now and open my tin of beans. I'll Blog on in a couple of days.
Thank you for being there - I need you.
Sunday, 11 February 2007
AdSense - No Sense!
Look at this Blog page - what do you see?
Nothing, right?
Well, nothing but my Blog, anyway. Why? Because Google have shut down my AdSense account.
Ah, you say. You've been self-clicking! WRONG! I haven't so much as touched any of the AdSense appearing on any of my Blogs or websites (and I've got quite a few).
So - what happened? A couple of years ago, I worked for a big travel agent, built a big, personal travel web site with loads of AdSense links and logos and started advertising it. The people I worked with found out, looked at the site and liked what they saw. It was relevant to them and their work. So they started using the AdSense ads as well, to get even more information about travel deals. I didn't know at the time, but everyone who clicks on an AdSense ad - any ad - has their IP address recorded by Google. All of my co-workers, visiting and clicking on my site from the office, all sent the same IP address, the office gateway router. Google looked at the stats, and WHAM, I was shut down.
No amount of explanation would convince Google that I hadn't been sitting at a computer all day, just clicking my ads. So I left it alone.
Two years later - I have moved postal address, shut down the travel website, changed e-mail addresses and generally forgot all about AdSense.
That is, until just before Christmas 06, when I found BANS (Build A Niche Store)
This quite brilliant piece of software uses all sorts of clever links to create a money-making web site, ready for you to start promoting. Part of it includes AdSense ads.
Now, do you see my dilemma? I thought about it and decided to re-apply. After all, the only thing about my new application that had stayed the same was my name and date of birth - No I didn't lie about either of them!
I completed the on-line application and was immediately accepted. Wonderful. Things seemed to be getting better. I created lots of BANS stores and started to make a few cents.
Day - weeks - months went by, then an e-mail from Google dropped into my in-box:-
"Your AdSense account was found to be related to an account previously disabled for invalid click activity and we have therefore disabled your account. Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.
As outlined in our programme Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to terminate any publisher's participation at any time."
So there you have it. Beware - don't dare upset the mighty Google. You might be terminated through no fault of your own!
By the way - Google still take a fair amount of money off me for my AdWords account - but I suppose that's OK!
Stay Happy, everyone.
Nothing, right?
Well, nothing but my Blog, anyway. Why? Because Google have shut down my AdSense account.
Ah, you say. You've been self-clicking! WRONG! I haven't so much as touched any of the AdSense appearing on any of my Blogs or websites (and I've got quite a few).
So - what happened? A couple of years ago, I worked for a big travel agent, built a big, personal travel web site with loads of AdSense links and logos and started advertising it. The people I worked with found out, looked at the site and liked what they saw. It was relevant to them and their work. So they started using the AdSense ads as well, to get even more information about travel deals. I didn't know at the time, but everyone who clicks on an AdSense ad - any ad - has their IP address recorded by Google. All of my co-workers, visiting and clicking on my site from the office, all sent the same IP address, the office gateway router. Google looked at the stats, and WHAM, I was shut down.
No amount of explanation would convince Google that I hadn't been sitting at a computer all day, just clicking my ads. So I left it alone.
Two years later - I have moved postal address, shut down the travel website, changed e-mail addresses and generally forgot all about AdSense.
That is, until just before Christmas 06, when I found BANS (Build A Niche Store)
This quite brilliant piece of software uses all sorts of clever links to create a money-making web site, ready for you to start promoting. Part of it includes AdSense ads.
Now, do you see my dilemma? I thought about it and decided to re-apply. After all, the only thing about my new application that had stayed the same was my name and date of birth - No I didn't lie about either of them!
I completed the on-line application and was immediately accepted. Wonderful. Things seemed to be getting better. I created lots of BANS stores and started to make a few cents.
Day - weeks - months went by, then an e-mail from Google dropped into my in-box:-
"Your AdSense account was found to be related to an account previously disabled for invalid click activity and we have therefore disabled your account. Publishers disabled for invalid click activity are not allowed further participation in AdSense and do not receive any further payment. The earnings on your account will be properly returned to the affected advertisers.
As outlined in our programme Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to terminate any publisher's participation at any time."
So there you have it. Beware - don't dare upset the mighty Google. You might be terminated through no fault of your own!
By the way - Google still take a fair amount of money off me for my AdWords account - but I suppose that's OK!
Stay Happy, everyone.
Thursday, 8 February 2007
I've made a decision
Hi - this is just a very quick post to tell you that I have made a decision about my financial position. I have spoken with an Insolvency Practitioner - he knows all about bankrupcy and debt and loads of other financial matters.
I'm just about to leave for work, but I thought I'd update you about it. He seems to think that bankrupcy is not right for me - I'm working and can aford to make a small regular payment to my creditors. He seems to think that a thing called an Individual Voluntary Arrangement would be the correct path to tread.
I have to list all my income and living expenditure - and then list all my debts. The Insolvency Practitioner then tells all the creditors how much I can afford to pay them and offers to oversee the payment deal. He becomes my Financial Minder. If I have a problem, he has to tell all the creditors. They can trust him, because he has posted a 'bond' to guarantee my payments.
It's all done through the Courts, so everyone knows it's legal and above board and - in three years time - I'm out of debt, with a clean slate and a good name again.
It all looks like a good option - the man is away for a few days - so I'll let you know what happens as soon as I know.
In the mean time, I'm trying a new web page building software called
BANS (Build A Niche Store), it's all about connecting with eBay and building a niche store to sell anything that's listed by eBay and getting a cut of the eBay charges. It works really well, it's dead simple to use and - even after just a few days - I'm making money. Not much just yet - but it's a start. Take a look at Computing Step by Step to see the software in action.
Take care in the snow.
I'm just about to leave for work, but I thought I'd update you about it. He seems to think that bankrupcy is not right for me - I'm working and can aford to make a small regular payment to my creditors. He seems to think that a thing called an Individual Voluntary Arrangement would be the correct path to tread.
I have to list all my income and living expenditure - and then list all my debts. The Insolvency Practitioner then tells all the creditors how much I can afford to pay them and offers to oversee the payment deal. He becomes my Financial Minder. If I have a problem, he has to tell all the creditors. They can trust him, because he has posted a 'bond' to guarantee my payments.
It's all done through the Courts, so everyone knows it's legal and above board and - in three years time - I'm out of debt, with a clean slate and a good name again.
It all looks like a good option - the man is away for a few days - so I'll let you know what happens as soon as I know.
In the mean time, I'm trying a new web page building software called
BANS (Build A Niche Store), it's all about connecting with eBay and building a niche store to sell anything that's listed by eBay and getting a cut of the eBay charges. It works really well, it's dead simple to use and - even after just a few days - I'm making money. Not much just yet - but it's a start. Take a look at Computing Step by Step to see the software in action.
Take care in the snow.
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