Does this figure sound right? Wages+working tax&child credits.

[NexusSix]

Lone parent to 5 and 7 year old

I have just started 20 hours week job take home £130 week. I don't earn enough to pay tax.

Tax Credits today told me I am entitled to £423 month in working tax and child tax credit. I will also receive £132 month in Child Benefit.

My total income therefore from wages and benefits and their father's contribution is £1095

My rent is £525
I don't know yet how much housing benefit I would be entitled to, or how much childcare help I'd get on the government childcare voucher scheme. I have some savings, and they calculate the interest for every £300 pounds of those savings as income.

Does that total income sound about right?
Obviously I can't afford to live on that unless I have housing benefit help.

It also means I'm very clearly worse off going back to work than staying on benefits.

[SurlyCue]

It also means I'm very clearly worse off going back to work than staying on benefits.

You dont know that yet as you said yourself you dont know what housing benefit or childcare help you will get.

[WipsGlitter]

The voucher scheme is a salary sacrifice scheme ie it comes out of your wages before tax it's not really additional. You can get childcare tax credits though.

How much is their father contributing?? Not a lot by my calculation!

[WipsGlitter]

Do you need childcare? Can you fit you work into school hours?

[Pinkandpurplehairedlady]

Was that over the phone or the award letter? I thought the rates were higher than that. Try putting the figures into turntous.org to see what they come out with, their calculations are normally accurate.

[alabastergirl]

If you go to entitledto website that will give you an idea about housing and council tax benefit.

[NexusSix]

wips I don't earn enough for the salary sacrifice option of childcare help, and my work doesn't run the scheme anyway (and won't. I asked, even explaining it benefits them, they just said they don't have the time or resources. They don't need to attract parents to their vacancies anyway, they have a high enough constant staff turnover as it is )

Their father contributes £5 a fortnight compulsory via CSA. I didn't request this, it was automatically seducted from his bemefits.
He pretends to have no income selling online and has claimed benefits for nearly 30 years.

No, I can't fit work around school hours. I start at 9 so they have to go to breakfast club for an hour which costs £18 a week.

I'll try those website calculators again. Used them an awful lot and they're never consistent though.

I couldn't really work out the award letter. At first it seemed to read around £900 a month in working tax and child tax credits, bu when I rang them, they said it's £423 a month.

[SurlyCue]

Do you work every day? That seems like an expensive breakfast club. Ours is 50p each child.

[NexusSix]

Ok, that TurnToUs calculator takes my income back up to the £1400 a month rate or thereabouts .

Maybe the tax credits woman on the phone just didn't know what she was talking about.

[NexusSix]

Surly Yes, it's £2 per child from 7.45 to 8.40 or £18 a week paid in advance. It's Ofsted registered and run from my child's junior school.

I had no idea there's possibility of cheaper ones. I thought this was cheap! Others are £20 a week for both kids. But this is convenient as it's hosted at their school.

[KissMyFatArse]

You should also qualify for housing benefit, prob around £200-£300 I'd imagine

[HelpMeGetOutOfHere]

I would imagine that you'd get most of your housing paid as well and possibly most of your council tax.

I was better off on tax credits than jsa when h and I had a brief break. I have 3 dc and received £157 a week in tax credits, salary of £160 a week and cb was £47 a week. My rent was covered by hb (£880 a month ) and my council tax. This was two years ago though so I have no idea if that would be the same now.

[Pinkandpurplehairedlady]

I think the figures on the award letter are probably the correct ones. I'm in a similar situation and get around the amount from your letter. Have you checked you bank account? They normally make the payments faster than they send the letters

[Biscetti]

Depends how much your savings are, but you are entitled to (iirc) 70% of your childcare costs, paid to you (WTC, childcare element). If your savings are less than £6K then you'll also get HB paid - don't know where you are, but you will receive your LHA amount for 2 beds minus a relatively small amount.

[SurlyCue]

Wow that is expensive (imo) ours is the school one too. Perhaps we are just incredibly lucky to get it so cheap.

[M27J5M]

You can apply to tax credits for childcare costs, they'll pay up to 80% of your costs, I used to get working tax credit,child tax credit plus my childcare element of working tax credit! Don't qualify for it anymore as I work less than 16 hours!

[M27J5M]

And your breakfast club sounds about right to me, that's similar pricing to the 1 at DS school, it's not the school that runs his tho it's a local aftercare company that come in and do it!

[NexusSix]

Will hopefully have an update soon ... just hanging on the tax credits line (again..)