For context I am a single mother to a disabled 3 year old getting limited maintenance from her dad. We survive day-to-day on work I do 12 hours a week, IS, CTC and CB. I can’t work more due to DDs SN meaning I need to be able to drop everything and be there for her as she is often admitted to hospital with infections or spiked temperatures. She also has weekly appointments; it’s not unusual to have 3 appointments in a week. Her dad is neighing on useless pops in to her life for a couple of weeks at a time, moans about my apparent ineffective parenting then buggers off again complaining that I’m living the life of riley and he pays way too much maintenance. I spend £300 a month on Nursery fees which is worth every penny as it’s an amazing Nursery which DD loves but I have to work as many hours as I can to keep her there.
I took out a budgeting loan from IS of £800 (the full amount your entitled to). I now don’t need it for what I originally planned to use it for. I can pay it back early but it really doesn’t make much difference as a portion of my IS will be taken every week until it’s paid so either way it goes back into the pot.
So WIBU to use a bit on something for myself? Apart from £5 a month on a phone (which is almost as old as DD which I don’t begrudge at all) I never spend any money on myself. I’m still wearing clothes I bought as a teenager (I’m late 20s now). I’m not thinking a huge amount maybe £100 or so on some new clothes or some nice bath stuff. I am planning to also keep £100 or so back for a decent Christmas present for DD so it’s not all to spend on me.
Prepared to be flamed and told to hand all the money back to DWP.