Help financial statement

[AndNowItsSeven]

Could anyone help me with a breakdown with what is acceptable costs per person for food , clothes leisure, holidays etc. We are applying for help with school feeds and as I don't keep records I have no idea what to put. Thank you

Anyone?

Hmm ... It's not really a question of "acceptable costs". Not at all in fact.

Do you not have a bank account? That's the obvious place to look for records of your income and outgoings.

The school will want to establish exactly what your income and assets amount to, what your unavoidable costs are and whether it would be impossible for your DC to attend without a certain level of bursary help.

You'll know already that if there are two parents they expect both to be maximising their income unless there are insuperable reasons not to do so. Where there's one parent it's more likely they may have caring responsibilities that make that difficult. And it's possible they may arrange a home visit.

But, to be frank, they would firstly expect you to approach the application with a degree of serious intent - that includes keeping records and having a clear idea of your finances.

(I should perhaps have asked if you are applying directly to a school or to some other body. A school probably won't want extreme detail about what you spend on food or clothes - I don't know about charitable organisations or anywhere else.)

It seems rather late in the day to be applying for financial assistance for the upcoming academic year. They don't want to see what you perceive to be reasonable but how you currently allocate your finances and what are your fixed outgoings. Go through your bank and cc transactions and try to identify where your funds go each month. You could presumably find a comparative price for last year's holiday if you have no email or invoice records. If you need advice , speak to the school bursar.

It's not actually a regular school school bursary it's a bit more complicated but need to be vague for privacy reasons.
Yes I could go through my bank account but our past income will not reflect our current income so I need an idea of the acceptable averages. Actual bills will be exact such as gas, electricity, house insurance, rent etc it is just things like food, leisure activities etc that I need an idea of what is considered normal.
Also with this funding it's a case of they want to be sure we can afford to pay the difference in fees rather than to see if we financial need the help. We already meet the financial criteria. Thank you

Gruach yes it's not direct to the school.

There is no 'normal' , it will vary depending on income / interests/ hobbies etc so it's an impossible question to answer .

If you put down what you don't spend you probably commit fraud so I would not recommend that. You need to go through tyour bank statements and write what is honest, not what you guess otherwise you could potentially even be failed for fraud!

(jailed not failed)

That's no possible, it's not a school bursary in the traditional sense we don't need to show bank statements ever. And like I said we need to provide a prediction based on our new income not say what we have spend in the past.

Why is it not possible to extrapolate what you are likely to pay for hols etc based on your new income?

I mean, surely it's common sense not to say to the school that you intend to spend 10k on a winter break to Barbados - first class flights

Maybe I have confused things by using the word bursary. It might be be better if I start a new thread.
Basically this is the situation , the organisation providing the funding want is to provide an estimate of our financial outgoings from September. We already meet the criteria for the bursary. We just need to show that we will be able to pay the difference in fees. We know we can however I have seven children so it looks unlikely that we spend so little. For example we spend £70 a week for grocery shopping for nine. That sounds slightly unbelievable so I wondered what the average spend was, the same for clothes etc. Does that make more sense?

I'd actually just supply redacted bank statements. Easier all round. If they don't believe you, presumably they would ask for some vouching anyway

£70 per week for food for nine people is rather unbelievable. You should start your own frugal living blog! That works out about £1.20 per day per person. How on earth do you feed a family on that for three meals?

Oh God, mouldy - do we really need to hear a litany of recipes involving sucking the bones of the legendary mumsnet chicken

Ha You are right!
But I can't see the bursary providers finding that figure believable even with chicken bone sucking

Agreed! Hence why I think they won't believe any figures like that so best to just provide the statements.

Yes I guess bank statements may be the answer though that would only show previous spending.
I won't bore you with recipes but we cook from scratch, love lentils and my youngest dc are 1,2,2,3,4 so don't eat much.

Lucky you seven. Two of mine are 2 and 3 and eat like horses. Rations tonight!

I'm very impressed with 7 DCs that you are actually sorted enough to be filling in the forms in the first place.

Best of luck with the application

Gobbolino yes am sure it won't last , my older two have good appetites.
Thank you, my dd has ads and the school we are looking at would be perfect for her. The lea refuse to fund it so this organisation is our last hope. Dd won't cope at a large state mainstream school, but is to high functioning for a special school.

*asd