I have asked my friend if it is okay for me to ask for advice on her behalf.
Basically, my friend is 50, single and living in a rented property. She has brought up 3 DC on her own.
She works very hard in a minimum wage job, and has worked for the same employer for the last 15 years. She works full time.
When the DC were young, she received child tax credit, working tax credit, housing benefit and council tax benefit. Her ex has never paid maintenance, although she has fought hard for it for years to no avail.
As each child left full time non advanced education, the 2 older children have been fortunate enough to find employment, and the youngest has just left full time non advanced education, and is looking for work.
When the older children were living at home, and were working, they contributed to the bills, but now they have left, and her youngest is not yet in work, my friend finds that she is only entitled to £1.50 a week of working tax credit.
She still receives housing benefit, so pays £81 per week towards her rent.
So she has net pay of £216 per week, gets £1.50 wtc and after paying her rent and council tax (pays council tax in full) is left with £111.50. Her travel costs to and from work are approxiametely £50 a week.
This leaves my friend with £61.50 to pay everything else with. She is completely dreading the new council tax bills due out shortly, as she gets no help at all with council tax.
Her youngest has just begun to claim JSA but has been told his claim will take 6 weeks to process, and it has only been 2 weeks since he submitted his claim.
When he gets JSA, he has offered to pay as much as he can, although my friend isn't sure how much to ask him for, since he will need some of the money he gets to help him look for work. He is happy to contribute I might add.
My friend lives in the back of beyond, no public transport (not much else either) so relies on her car to get to and from work.
Can she get any more financial help?
She is very proud, but is very desperate, and does not want to give up her job if at all possible.
She has already cut down on the majority of her outgoings, so her outgoings are her gas/electric - £80 a month, her water bill - £25 a month, mobile phone - £5 a month PAYG, (no landline because she can't afford it.), car insurance - £28 per month, car tax, MOT worked out monthly is - £21.25, then her luxuries as she calls them, her tv licence - £37.62 a quarter and her window cleaner - £6 every 4 weeks.
This leaves her with just over £20 a week for food. There is no money for repairs if anything goes wrong, and no money for replacing anything.
She is currently looking for a part time job to run alongside her full time job, but have any of you got any other advice.
She is getting quite down and is permanently exhausted. I think this is due to her circumstances partly. I explained that things would look better when her son got his JSA and then a job hopefully, but she is worried about when if he decides to leave home. She says there is no hope for her, and she will spend the rest of her days lining the pockets of the rich whilst barely scraping a living.
I can assure you she is usually upbeat and positive, but the grind of week in, week out poverty is understandably bringing her down. 
Any advice?
AIBU?
AIBU to think there must be more help for my friend than she is getting?
spongebobandpatrick · 05/03/2013 17:40
Lucky isn't a word I would use for anyone in this situation. It sounds quite dire to me.
I'm not saying some people aren't worse off, but people in this position will be paying rent for the rest of their lives, no chance of ever releasing any equity.
It just sounds crap to me, yet inevitable for many many people.
Come to think of it, if people who worked full time were not entitled to housing benefit, how would all of the single people on national minimum wage with private rents cope?
I wouldn't imagine many people get any pleasure out of paying high rents, and I would think most people would prefer a lower rent on a decent home if they could get one.
Private rent 2 bedroomed flats where I am are being rented out for £800pcm, it is unusual to find a 2 bedroomed place that is much cheaper in the private sector.
Even 1 bedroomed flats in the private sector are asking for £650 a month. How would someone on minimum wage afford that with absolutely no help? 
My friend has been told her rent will be increasing year upon year until it is 80% of the average private rent anyway, so if this is nationwide then I predict more and more people will end up claiming housing benefit just to have a roof over their heads.
Thanks for all of the advice.
She says she is trying to move, but rents closer to the town are even more expensive, so she's not sure how much better off she would be, but she has applied to move and is on the exchange list.
catlady1, she receives housing benefit because her rent is £106 a week. Housing benefit pays £25 a week towards her rent. If they didn't, she would have no money for food or other essentials.
Paying all of her rent would leave her with less than nothing to live on for food and other essentials actually.
She is in a HA flat, yes.
I don't think she can retrain with no money. If she was on means tested benefits, she would get some help towards the cost of college I'm assuming, but for people who work full time and are on a low wage, there appears to be virtually no help, hence asking on here.
She just feels in a no win situation.
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