I’m not missing something here am I? Universal credit, renting and saving for a deposit.

[tiredconfusedhungry]

Keeping it a bit vague. I’m separated, STBXH and I were looking at figures last night and we’re not going to come out with much to put towards a deposit. We’re looking at around £15k each, I’d need a deposit of around £60k - £70k and that’s to buy a 2 bed house.

We’re in the South East and house prices here are high, rent is high. We’re already in the ‘cheaper’ part, moving further away from where we are puts us in prime commuting land and would be more expensive.

Anyway, it’s likely I will end up renting and saving for a bigger deposit. I did a calculation on entitled to (based on no savings) and I could get some help with rent, which is great. It means I could save some money each month and then hopefully buy after about 4 years.

But now I’ve looked into it further, if you have more than £16k in savings you aren’t entitled to any help. Which I do understand, but it then means that after all essential bills and costs are covered, I’d have about £200 left a month. Which doesn’t go far with 2 kids and certainly wouldn’t leave me anything to save.

So essentially I’m never going to be able to save a deposit am I?

Have you looked at social work apprenticeships? I’m not sure if everywhere offers them yet, but you essentially get paid whilst you do the degree, it’s been great for people I know who have done it. Or possibly frontline. I know you say that you don’t particularly want the job, but you must have lots of skills and experience, and you can do lots of different jobs with a social work degree. Otherwise maybe look at bursaries for retraining in something like occupational or speech therapy, there are sometimes options there. Or probation I think can offer training/apprenticeship type schemes. Best of luck x

It may have been mentioned already, but if you really want to become a social worker you can do it as an apprenticeship and get paid throughout.

(oops, completely missed the very last post above.)

But they will still be better off financially by 45p for every pound they earn

No one is worse off working more hours on UC

That depends on how much it's costing you to do those hours. UC can make you work up to 90 minutes away from home. A day at work in the school holidays could cost me £18 in transport if I have to travel to our out of town site and use the train, and whatever childcare costs are incurred. At say £5 per hour for 2 DC from 8am - 6pm that's £100. It will often be more than this depending on area etc. UC may not pay all of it especially if you earn more but let's say the worst case scenario costs wise is about £33 in costs. If you are paid for 7 hours at £12.21 (and UC can make you accept minimum wage) per hour by the time that is reduced for deductions and then again for UC reduction you are lucky to break even and could very possibly end up worse off. No one who is hard up enough to need UC is going to make themselves worse off to appease middle class hand wringing about principles. Food on the table and a roof over your head is the major concern.

This is only if you migrated from tax credits. It is absolutely not the case for new claims.

I think they shouldn't have allowed that rule. It feels totally unfair to those who didn't have tax credits.

This is where the system is wrong

to lose 50% seems unfair when tax is 20%

after tax, ni and deductions take home is 0.32 in every pound. 12 minimum wage becomes 4! Factor in high childcare cost and or a expensive commute and then lucky to break even.

Especially if you are expected to take on jobs 90 minutes away. If that is by train, that could be a good £30 (at least) for peak times. A huge chunk of your pay.

The system needs to change. It is ridiculous that people can be better off working part-time than full-time and are thus trapped in a situation they can't improve. I can understand that it's not sensible to expect people to opt into changes that will make them worse off, but it is also wrong that people are working full-time for the same money as others are getting for fewer hours.

Ah yes, you're right, we migrated