How do you manage on one income

Sorry I abandoned my post! UGGHHH I HATE ird with a passion - I just got a letter yesterday saying that I was to pay $613.15 by Feb 2011?!! I havent heard ANYTHING of this before now so I called them today and apparently they had worked out DP income wrong from when T was born (Nov 09) till end of tax year in march, and they had overpaid me, so they messed up and now they're trying to make me pay it back? With interest!! I had a go at them this morning, and the lady says "well, you have till Feb 2011"....... and could I afford to pay $10 a week - um no I cant I cant even afford to top up my phone! grrr seriously why do they think I came to them for help in the first place? If I had that kind of money sitting around I wouldnt be asking for financial help! Sorry for the long rambling angry post, it annoys me soooo much that there are people out their getting hundreds of dollars a week to sit at home and spend the governments money on drinking and smoking, but a mother trying to go to uni gets nothing, oh no wait, they give me $13 a week

grrrr I am jumping on the band wagon here F'n WFF.... Just got a letter to say DH earns 15k more....so have worked it out & yes his pay has gone up, to what they have it at before this letter but he will earn $6k more than his salary....but not as much as they now say. They said to ring them back with the figures & take it from there after I lost it on the ph at them grrrr

They told me they worked it out on what he earned in October which is just great as he got his back pay & got a about 2k more.

I am going to try & get them to do it as what he will earn & reassessed in January as we should have our child support payments stopped then so WFF will drop again.

When I checked on there website it shows a loss of about 1/5th but they are telling me we will lose 4/5th so we would be worse of with his pay increase...what's the point & it WFF what we are entitled...they set the criteria not me grrrrr

hmm seems like a few of us have had problems with them I called them and said I couldnt afford it, so she said she will talk to the people in charge of writing the amount off and they will call me back - this was on monday and i still havent heard back! Soo frustrating! Aethalia ill write a list like you've done and fingers crossed they'll let me off, there's no way I can afford $600!!!

Yep it definately seems like NZ is not that great with supporting families I called them and said there was no way I could afford it and I just got a letter the other day saying that they were gonna wipe the amount I owed and would take no further action to collect it from me, phew! Was definitely worried there for a bit!

Well WFF has gone up & down again so now we hardly get anything & am worse off with DH's pay rise than before grrr.

There is no point for me getting a job till DS3 is at school next yr.

When we stop paying for CS we will probably lose WFF but then at least we won't have to worry about them cutting it all the time...but I have been told the age is 19 & he is going to be 18 in 3 weeks so if he does not go on the UB then we keep paying grrr

Bizzy wrote: aethalia i find it wierd they would wipe a tax bill when they give you a years notice and the bills you have listed include luxury items. i hope you got it in writing. i over estimate my husbands income after we got stung one year with a big bill for WFF over payment. I think that WFF though is the only thing that takes into consideration any child support you pay, thankfully!

You won't need a letter saying it is wiped just get a login so you can check on line, best service ever.

Same thing happened to a friend they owed $1200 & rang to try & work out a payment plan so they sent them a form where they had to write down all they paid & then they had the amount wiped...so it is easy to do & maybe that is why they keep adjusting it monthly. Someone else I know owes $5k & have had there amount dropped & have to pay it back.

At the start WFF was nearly as much as the CS we paid but now it is about a quarter & if he does not go an a benefit or get a job we will be really struggling for the next yr as WFF will either stop or nowhere near help out.

I have just changed power companies, not going to save much but they have fly buys & 12% discount if bill is paid on time via internet banking. Also have locked into a price plan for just over a yr so will not get any price hikes on power rates.

We have just been advise that we no longer have to pay child support so will get a few hundred $ extra a fortnight. So now they are going to refund us the over paid amonuts.
Our WFF goes down more & we are still entitled to it so we will be better off & after struggling for a few yrs we finally will be able to do the things we want. I want to put the kids into more activities, & have money for emergences.

I am going to change the auto payments to monthly instead of fortnightly so they are paid well in advance, & want to over pay a bit.

We are also going to look at where we can cut costs.
I have been cooking/baking heaps from scratch.

We are going to down size a car & DH is getting a scooter for work. I am going to walk to school/kindy, it will be a lot of walking but it is free exercise & will cut the cost of running the car down. The main reason for this is so we can update the car at end of yr or next yr paying cash & it will cut out parking costs for DH.

We want to increase the savings & have a separate account to dip into for those extras that come in. So now we don't have to think about getting a Credit Card which we were in case of emergences, last thing I want is one of those at it took yrs to clear debt & don't want to go back to there again.

So now that we will have more $ this yr we are going to tighten our belts more, so often in the past when extra $ came in more went out on bills or WFF cuts or increased CS payments...

I hate stressing about money & bills...makes me sick, so hope my plan pans out

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