Littlewoods Bingo Players Back Peter Andre

Littlewoods Bingo players have been polled to see who they support in the long running battle between Peter Andre and his estranged wife Katie Price –and Peter Andre has come out overwhelmingly in the lead. The poll, which was taken by players and visitors to the Littlewoods Bingo main site, found that a staggering seventy one percent of people were in support of Mr Andre in the battle, compared with just six percent who were in support of his ex-wife. Twenty four percent of people said they did not support either one of the couple, who split up this summer after four years and two children together. They had met on the set of a reality television programme in 2005, had married in a lavish ceremony and had both a son and a daughter.

The circumstances behind the split have not been revealed, but Littlewoods Bingo players are still in support of Mr Andre. This is likely to be because he has refused to talk about the situation in case his children see the newspapers, which is a very different response to Ms Price, who is better known as glamour model Jordan. She has been pictured behaving badly since the split, and has been vilified by the press.

Peter Andre’s behaviour on the other hand has made him a favourite with the public, as the Littlewoods Bingo poll proves. Littlewoods Bingo chose to run the poll because its players were most likely to be the kind of people who would read celebrity magazines and therefore be interested in the story. It seems that the Littlewoods Bingo poll reflects very much a nationwide public feeling. Online bingo sites target the same demographic group that celebrity and gossips magazines do, that is, young to middle aged women. The results of the Littlewoods Bingo poll appear to reflect the feeling that the magazines have recently portrayed, in supporting Peter Andre over his badly behaved wife.

Debt Doesn't Have to be a Hopeless Situation

There are a number of ways in which you could be more efficiently managing your debts. By seeking debt advice you could benefit from money saving tips and budgeting advice. Your advisor may even suggest a professional solution that will help you get out of debt.

Firstly, you need to ensure that you know exactly how much money you have coming in and going out of the household financial pot. It may help to draw a line down the centre of a piece of paper and list all of the income you receive in one column (wages, benefits, tax credits, pension or other source of income) and in the other write down all of your expenditure. Include rent/mortgage, utility bills, food, travel to work and other essential items, but leave out payments towards your unsecured debts. Unsecured debts are those that are not secured against a property or assets and include personal loans, overdrafts, credit cards, store cards, catalogues etc.

Once you have taken away the money you pay towards your priority payment, any amount remaining is classed as your "disposable income". This is the realistic amount you have available to repay towards your unsecured payments.

If the minimum amount you can contractually pay towards all of these balances (i.e. the minimum payment on your credit cards, store cards etc) is less than the disposable income figure, you could probably do with some basic budgeting and debt advice to help you cut back on your expenditure or for ways to boost your income. If the total amount that you are contractually supposed to pay towards all of your unsecured debts is more than your disposable income, then you need to seek some impartial debt help from a specialist provider.

A specialist will be able to go through all of your accounts and help you regain control of your financial situation. They may recommend some simple tips to ease your situation, or in some circumstances they may suggest a professional debt solution.

Professional debt solutions

There are a number of professional solutions that can be used to help alleviate finances and prevent debt problems from getting any worse. These include Debt Management Plans (DMPs), Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) and Trust Deeds.

Debt Management Plans (DMPs)

A Debt Management Plan is a way of simplifying finances and making repayments towards debts more affordable. This is done by gathering the payments towards your multiple unsecured balances and joining them into one single payment. This payment will be the disposable income you have remaining each month, and will be paid towards the company providing your DMP. They take away all of the hassle of dealing with many creditors, as you just make one payment to them and they then distribute the payments amongst the people you owe money to on a pro rata basis. They will also act on your behalf to try and reduce or freeze the amount of interest and charges on your account - to reduce the total amount of debt that you have to pay.

The single monthly payment covers all of your unsecured balances - thereby simplifying your finances as you just make one payment each month. It is also always affordable for you, because if your priority payments or your income changes, then your monthly payment is reduced or increased accordingly. This means that if your wages drop or you are made redundant and have less money, you pay less towards your debts each month. The amount you pay is always your disposable income (until you can contractually begin making the minimum payments again or when a DMP is no longer necessary), so will always be affordable to you. If your wages then increase you can raise the monthly payment and pay debts off quicker. Payments towards the outstanding debts are rescheduled over a longer period to make them more affordable - so you still repay what you owe but in a way that is more convenient for you. Because of this, a Debt Management Plan is considered a flexible debt solution.

An IVA works in much the same way as a Debt Management Plan, in that all of your unsecured balances can be repaid with a single affordable monthly payment, but it is repaid over a set period of time. Usually this is within five years. It involves a legally binding contract between you and the people you owe money to, which is drafted by a qualified Insolvency Practitioner. They will also be able to provide IVA advice and support throughout the term. The contract protects you from your creditors changing their payment demands or the terms of the agreement. Once the IVA is complete, you walk away from all of the remaining unsecured debt - which could mean that a large proportion of the total amount owed is written off.

There is less stigma attached to an IVA than bankruptcy, as your name doesn't appear in the local press or the London Gazette, and you are less likely to have to sacrifice your home or other assets. You may have to remortgage to release equity in a property, but this will only be an agreed affordable amount and you remain in your property.

IVAs are a great alternative to bankruptcy for many people, as they also allow your career to be unaffected. In some professions such as the police force, accountancy or other jobs that require the handling of money, you cannot continue to work having been made bankrupt.

A Trust Deed is in effect, an IVA but for people living in Scotland. Many of the details are the same; however the repayment period is usually much shorter - normally a Trust Deed is repaid within three years. As with an IVA all unsecured balances are gathered into one monthly payment, and an agreement is drafted by an Insolvency Practitioner that provides protection from changing creditor demands.

All of the above professional solutions can be offered by reputable debt advice organisations like The Debt People or Chiltern.

Mecca Bingo are famous for their large numbers of promotions, which often see both regular and new bingo players reaping the rewards of signing up to the site. meccabingo.com is one of the largest bingo gaming corporations in Europe and often runs promotions that allow players to claim free games and win large cash prizes. Mecca runs a particularly wide variety of promotions on Fridays, with a significant influx of people playing who will have just finished work and want to relax. The fact that it is Friday will often make people much more relaxed, and therefore more likely to go online to play bingo or gamble. Here are a selection of the promotions and prizes that are being offered on Friday’s at the site.

Firstly, Mecca Bingo offered customers a number of chances to win the significant sum of £500. The £500 jackpot was given away every hour, for four hours. Mecca Bingo are also offering a free hour and a half of bingo from 7pm in the evening which is considered the prime time for people to sit down at a computer and play bingo.  The free games at seven o’clock are given away in the Dancing Queen bingo room on the site. These offers are always open on Fridays, because of the spare time that people are likely to have on Friday evenings, which they are unlikely to have at any other point during the week.

In a separate promotion that will run throughout September, £12,000 worth of jackpots are expected to be given away. The cash prizes will be given out for games that have been played on Fridays and Saturdays throughout this month. The prizes will be won from games that have been played between seven and eleven o’clock in the evening, in three of the site’s bingo rooms. These rooms are the Key to the Door, Two Little Ducks and Legs Eleven.

Managing your finances is a tricky job, especially when you have mounting debt problems. Here we outline some of the professional solutions that are available to help you get out of debt, and where to seek some impartial debt advice.

What is debt management?

In a literal sense it means “the management of your debts”, but debt management involves simplifying your finances and making debts more affordable for you. This could be anything from budgeting correctly to prioritising debt payments, or using an increasingly popular solution – the Debt Management Plan (DMP).

DMPs are for people who are struggling to repay their consumer debts (such as overdrafts, personal loans, store cards and credit card debts), or for people who are continually going further in to debt each month. A DMP enables all of your unsecured debts to be gathered into one monthly payment – which makes finances simpler. Repayments are then rescheduled over a longer period of time to make them more affordable.

The single payment that is made each month is paid to your debt help provider, who then distributes this on your behalf to creditors on a pro-rata basis, minus any costs. This means that the more of your debt that the creditor is owed, the more they will receive of your payment.

Because a DMP is a non-legal agreement, there are no legal fees to pay and you do not have to put your property up as security. The other advantage of a DMP is that they are incredibly flexible and can be altered should your financial situation change. This means that if you find your income dropping, the monthly payment can be reduced accordingly. Likewise, if your income increases your monthly payment can reflect this – so you could end up repaying debts quicker. The flexibility of a DMP also means that if you no longer have debt problems you can stop using it altogether – so you can use the DMP to suit your circumstances. In short, you are put back in control of your finances.

The most important thing when considering a DMP is that you first seek impartial debt advice to determine whether one is suitable for your situation. If you decide to go ahead, your expert adviser will go over you finances with you to fully understand the level of debt that you are in. From there they may be able to offer you some initial budgeting and debt advice that could alleviate your problems. They may also be able to advise you on whether you are spending too much money or if there are ways to boost your disposable income – as you may not be receiving all of the benefits or tax credits that you are entitled to.

After this assessment, your adviser will be able to work out your disposable income (how much money you have at the end of every month to pay off your outstanding balances). This is done by working out your total expenditure for each month including priority payments – like rent/mortgage, travel, food and utility bills – then subtracting it from your total monthly income. The remainder is called your “disposable income” and is how much you have to pay off unsecured debts. This will be distributed to your creditors by your adviser; all you have to do is make a single monthly payment. They will also try and have interest and charges reduced or frozen.

There are other professional debt solutions available, depending on how much debt a person has and their level of disposable income available to pay towards repaying debts. One such solution is an IVA. It is similar to a DMP because your unsecured balances are put together and paid off in one single monthly payment, but it is different in that it is paid off over a fixed period of time (usually over 5 years). Once the IVA term is complete all of your remaining unsecured debts are written off. A Trust Deed is similar but is only for those people living in Scotland. Trust Deeds are generally repaid over a three year period.

With all of these solutions, creditors should stop sending demand letters and calling at inconvenient times to chase debts, as all contact will be done via your debt help provider.

Before deciding on the appropriate debt solution for you it is essential that you seek impartial debt and IVA advice from a reputable provider, such as Chiltern, The Debt People or Hamilton Locke. This is so the solution you decide upon is the best one for you and helps you to get out of debt in the shortest time possible.