Hi folks,

I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions/tips/ideas etc.

As a result of my conviction I lost my job, as most people do.

One of the first things I did was sign up for Universal Credit.

I got my first UC award announcement today to let me know how much I'm getting which is a whopping £0.00 this month due to my final payments from my old job as its means tested. Which is fine. I've budgeted for that.

They did say moving forward moving my monthly allowance is: £642.82

Stripping everything back to bare necessities my outgoings would be: £680 (not taking into account food. This is just = Rent + Gas + Electric + Council Tax Reduction + Internet)

Ideally I obviously want to get back into employment as soon as possible but I haven't been sentenced yet so I don't feel there is much point in job hunting in the off-chance I do end up with a custodial sentence.

I'm sure I can figure something out but my biggest outgoing which I didn't factor into that cost was a loan repayment which I took out to pay my solicitor as I wasn't eligible for LegalAid at the time. My solicitor estimated my total legal costs to be around £3,000 which, regardless of LegalAid's thoughts - I really couldn't afford in a big lump sum and my solicitor wouldn't take any payment plan so I was royally stuck so I took out a £5,000 (3yr payable) loan with my bank just to give me a bit of wiggle room should the cost rise a bit.

My loan repayments are around £170pm which obviously takes my full outgoings to £850pm, again, without factoring in any food costs. So that leaves me with a deficit of around -£210 in the red every month.

I haven't spoken to my bank yet as I was just made aware of the rather low payment abut 2 hours ago when I got the email.

I'm just wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation/ideas etc.