To be worried?

[RollonBed]

New to mumsnet, just joined purely because its all i can think about. Love reading other threads though.

Ok, so the cap comes into place tomorrow 384 pound a week. Im a single psrent 2ith 4 children. How on earth an i expected to pay rent out of this and live? I will have to pay £104 pound rent a week! Thats 280 to buy food, petrol, gas, electric, water... yes i pay monthly for these but each week i make sure i set aside 50 pound... its said some 300,000 children will be pushed into poverty and people may loose there home over it. Im so worried i cant eat or sleep!! Should i be worried. aibu to think this is such an unecessary thing gor goverment to do?

You say you need your car for school runs - fair enough... But mine is £200 per year.. why is your car insurance so expensive? Can you get a cheaper to run car?

Your Gas, elec water seem very high...?

Food also high

And rent very low, I'm thinking you can't have a small home if it is so pricey to heat. Have you looked at switching suppliers?

Do all primary school children get free school meals now? Or is it just reception, I'm sure my niece did, that should keep the food bill down

All infants get free school meals

Just infants. Or children on free school meals, which the ops children will be.

380 a week. 100 on rent. 80 food shop. 30 petrol 50 for gas and electric and water. 25 a week to the side for car insurance 10 a week for tax. I pay off a debt of other halfs 20 a week. Milk money 12 pound a week

That still leaves you £58 a week spare.

Your mobile is too expensive so you should change that.

What is "milk money?"

Why are you paying off someone elses debt? Is your name on it? If not, stop paying it.

Formula milk for the babies? Do you have the heating on 24/7?

Tell you what's keeping me awake is wondering how the fuck I am going to pay for all bills, clothing, toiletries, travel, childcare and food with £120 a week. Because hb have decided to quash the payments even though my income hasn't increased.
If I knew I wouldn't be sanctioned for quitting my job, I would resign tomorrow.

Instead I am budgetting even more and in the meantime looking for a second job.

I wish I got that a week. I earned £230 in total last week. Some weeks I get even less.

Have you checked your utility accounts to see if you've run up a surplus? They can reduce your direct debits if so.. or are you on a key meter?

What's 'milk money'? You can certainly cut down your food budget.

Look up all your bills -see what's being renewed soon. Shop around, find a cheaper phone deal. Speak to your phone company- usually you can get a cheaper deal if you stay out of loyalty. Even better if you get the internet through the same company as your phone, they would certainly try and work out a deal.

I think OP means formula milk for babies?

Aldi rocks, champagne is only a tenner a bottle at the moment and it's very nice.

OP, you need to organise your outgoings, although you still have a moderate disposable income at the moment. Get a cheaper car and a cheaper phone tariff.

Sheldon. What a lovely person your are. Purely for ur nasty self, i did actually run my own successful business from home, as a beauty therapist, makeup and henna artist and had a fantastic wage. And lived in a house with my 4 children and partner. He then decided that he couldnt handle family life anymore and beat me to a pulp left me unresponsive on the floor with 4 unsupervised children. He was then arrested but kept coming back and threatening me. he also took my two eldest children from school and took them to a hitel for 48 hours with no contact until police found him at which point he threatend to kill them and himself. Luckily police are smarter than him. My children were home and we was moved 40 miles away. Leaving a business and a home and then having to claim benefits and build a new life. Iv lived here 4 months. Do you realise how hard it is to build a customer base to run a successful business like i did and to do that with the circumstances i am in. Its not easy. So no im not some scrounger who claims every benefit going. And would work minimal hours to get more money i said if this was an option i could take i would.! Nasty people on here

OP means 50 towards bills I think. If there are 5 in a family bills will be higher than £200 a month though won't they OP?
So you probably need to add up your monthly bills and then work out how much to put by each week.
Minus rent, how much does that leave for food and petrol?
You could get some budgeting advice on here, there's a thread.... ( can't remember where....)

As for the car its needed my children go to school in a different county

Sympathies, op - it's scary when your income drops significantly, for whatever reason.

1. You mentioned debts. Are you servicing them? Speak to CAB or CAP or some debt charity near you, see if you can find a more manageable way of paying them. You may be able to reduce the amounts you pay so they aren't taking more than you can afford.

1. Phone. If you're out of contract, see if there's a cheaper deal you can move to. Money savings expert have a list of sim only deals; I pay £6/month for one of ours (Life Mobile).

1. If the LA cannot accommodate your children in a local school they should offer transport. I know you hate the thought of putting tiny children on a bus, but would it definitely be a bus? Locally, it would be a taxi, with a trained escort. The escort and driver would be police checked, and quite possibly the same people every day. Alternatively, have you checked to see if the la will reimburse your travel costs - they probably don't advertise this but it's something they may well do.

1. Keep putting that £50 aside for the monthly bills; important you don't fall behind on them. Ditto rent. But do shop around if you're out of contract; you might be able to save a little.

1. Speak to the CMS and make a claim for maintenance.

1. Take a look at your other expenses. Where do you shop at the moment, and how? I have moved to mostly lidl/aldi, and I save £30 - 80 a week by doing so, and also by simply not shopping as often. Last year, I could spend £80 at Waitrose 3 times a week. On expensive but delicious frivolities. Now I shop once a week, sometimes just once a fortnight. I go in with a list. I still buy treats, but it's treats once a fortnight not treats three times a week.

1. Write down what you're spending. Or check your bank account. I thought I was doing pretty well, but then realised I'd spent as month in three weeks on takeaways and meals out as I had on groceries for meals in. Shocking! Things aren't desperately tight, but I'm stepping that back so that if I go to a coffee shop I go for lunch, not morning coffee plus cake then lunch with more cake and then a third hot drink on top. Or I go for coffee, and come back home for lunch. And on skint weeks, I skip them altogether.

Take a look at Jack Monroe's website for some super skint recipes. Or student cookbook type places. Try reducing little things - turning lights out in empty rooms, consider turning radiators off in rooms you don't use, put all the kids through the same bath rather than fresh water each time, wear extra jumpers to reduce the amount of time you need to hear the place.

My income dropped massively a few months ago and it has been a big adjustment. But by keeping an account I have been able to see where I can save quite a bit. It's been an eye opener just how much I frittered.

Actually for me I think that's been key. The more I stay home (and away from Amazon!) the less I spend. Before, if I thought we needed something, I'd buy it. Now I leave it a couple of weeks, think about it, half the time I realise we've got something that'll work already, and I've not added to our clutter.

4 small children isn't easy. But you can do this. And if you need to use a foodbank as you get to grips with things then do get yourself referred to one - don't go hungry when there are alternatives.

Should sort out the milk issue unless they have been phased out
www.healthystart.nhs.uk/healthy-start-vouchers/do-i-qualify/

I couldn't live off that without making massive changes and doing some kind of debt programme.

My problem would be that once I've paid my debts and HP I would struggle to buy enough food, let alone anything else.

Once you get used to living with a certain amount of money it's tough when you get less, it doesn't matter if others get less than you, a financial change is always difficult so you have my sympathy there.

It should be manageable and I have no issues personally with the cap but I would struggle too with a change and my stupidly too many outgoings.

Good luck

But the car insurance is awfully high? What car do you have?

YANBU

Especially if you're new to being on benefits and still have contracts from before your income decreased (like your mobile). It's also pretty impossible to put money aside for christmas or if the oven breaks etc - hence pay day loan vultures.

This thread is horrible. You have my sympathy.

Yikes. I'm a registered nurse, work full time and take home less than that. Even when I work nights/weekends. On top of my rent (double yours) I also have nursery fees. All of which are doable from my salary alone.

I would suggest meal planning, make a menu for the week and stick to it. There's a facebook page called "feed your family for £20 a week" which is really helpful for recipes and tips.

Have you changed your gas supplier recently or looked into others? There are lots of good comparison sites to see if you'll save money switching companies.

Same with your insurance etc.

Do kids have free school meals?

It's hard not to be a bit at your post as people are working hard and going without for much less than you have. But IMO benefits are only going to go down as this Tory government continues, so it may be worth considering what skills you have/ jobs you can do to support yourself. Especially when your youngest goes to school.

It shouldn't be a race to the bottom either. Perhaps wages should be higher rather than benefits being lowered ffs. Just a thought.

I am really sorry for what happened to you OP and wish you lots of luck in the future.

I can see where you're coming from op. At least you have some warning though, our tax credits were dropped by £400 a month last year and then a further £200 a month to cover the 3 months of overpayment.
It was tough but we've adjusted.
Clothing 4 children, birthdays, Christmas, school trips etc will all eat into that £50 a week spare pretty quick and of course the op can't get a smaller car she has 4 children that need car seats!