Benefits and work?

[ilovechocolatebiscuits]

So my husband is leaving the army in July so we are just looking at our options. I've found a job for 25 hours a week (around £275-300 a week) and my husband has found full time but childcare is so expensive it makes sense for him to stay at home and look after our daughter. She is 1 and full time childcare is £1400 a month, if he works part time (16 hours) then we would only need to send her 3 mornings a week which is about £500 a month.

We have bought a shared ownership house which is around £400 a month mortgage and £400 a month rent plus £80 ground fees a month.

I put all these details into 'entitledto.com' and it said we would be entitled to £500 a week? Surely that can't be right?!

Someone help before I go insane!!

[Hemily24]

Hello! Assuming you're over 25 based on those figures you'd be entitled to about that per MONTH :) you'd be on universal credit so if you're paid by an employer weekly/four weekly budget accordingly as the 'periods' catch 5 and 2 paydays respectively which decreases your entitlement. If hubby worked too you'd be able to claim childcare costs but his earnings would be taken into consideration too.

[AnotherEmma]

If you want to check you could try a different calculator such as Turn2Us. But if you've put all the figures in correctly, it will be right.

On Universal Credit you will be entitled to:
Standard element (rate for couples assuming you're both 25+) £498.89
Child element £231.67
Housing element £400
Childcare element £425
Total £1555.56
And there will be a deduction for wages (but not pound for pound, you get to keep some of your wages). Assuming you are earning about £1770/month (net) between you, £287 will be disregarded (this is the "work allowance" for parents claiming the housing element), which leaves £1483. 63% of this will be deducted, £934.29.

So £1555.56 - £934.29 = £621.27 per month

This is higher than your figure so maybe one or both of you is under 25 or maybe you estimated higher wages than I did?

[ilovechocolatebiscuits]

Thank you @AnotherEmma
We are both under 25, my husband won't be 25 until 2021 and I'm not 25 until 2024.

[AnotherEmma]

Ah, in that case the standard element is £395.20 and the total is £517.58 (monthly).

Don't get me started on how unfair it is that under 25s get less!

[ilovechocolatebiscuits]

@AnotherEmma thank you so much for your help! And I agree, that is really unfair!!