Cost of living. I'm having a meltdown tonight.

[TwentyTwenty20]

I put my heating on for an hour or so this morning because I forgot to dry my son's school uniform, and my landlord won't let me install a tumble dryer. It cost me an extra £2. I didn't put my heating on until January last year. We lived under the duvet until then. I got my son changed under the covers. I used to just get in the bath and stay there in the evening to keep warm. I'm a lone parent, I take home £2100 a month and get £140 UC, £96 child benefit. My rent is £1000 a month. Council tax £150 with SP discount. Electric, gas, petrol, car insurance, Internet, school uniform, food, life insurance, water bills, £130 on before and after school clubs so I can work, then there's failed MOT which I had to put on a credit card which I'm paying off, tv license, phone bill etc. Then there's life and scraping by so my son can continue his gymnastics hes been doing since he was 2. Council is awful and you can't apply for any of the cost of living stuff unless they have 'identified you'. I've done income and expenditure with a professional and they've said I've pretty much cut back as far as I can. They fine tooth combed my bank statements. How is the amount I make not enough? I have applied for 6 cheaper houses in the last month and none will rent to me. I'm 400 and something on the list for council housing. 10 years ago I was on 18k a year and comfortable and saving.

Will this ever get better? That's a genuine question because I can do all the cutting back I can but if I keep getting knocked back for cheaper housing and higher paid jobs I just don't know how I will go on. It is no life and I don't enjoy getting out of bed in the morning anymore.

:( I missed that.

The government could actually do something constructive for the cost of living crisis by dealing with absent fathers who refuse to contribute to their own children.

Do you need life insurance now? It's a nice to have, but if you don't have a mortgage then it could be just an unnecessary spend

I was going to say the same but if the father is so feckless the OP probably wants to make sure that there is some money available for her child if something happened to her.

I think you should be able to manage on that amount of money with careful budgeting. Your debt comes to £186 which is a sizeable amount on an already tight budget. Once that is paid things should improve.

£2100 + £140 + 96 = £2336 (total income)

Less £2140 (outgoings)

= £196.

Well done to you for holding it together for your son. I really don't see how you can cut costs any further, it is pretty much on the bare minimum. It is awful that 2100 only gets you this far. I don't know whether there is any way to increase your income in the longer term, whether there are any additional qualifications to go for or a side business but appreciate most things will be quite time consuming.

It's disgraceful OP and you have huge sympathy from me - I've been there and it sucks. Really hope things start to look up for you soon and for all the people who have been talking about taking to the streets please have a think about signing up to the enough is enough campaign (www.wesayenough.co.uk) It's all about fighting against the cost of living crisis and it lists upcoming events that you can go to and show your support.

Initially is there anything you don't need, outgrown clothes and toys etc that you can sell on Vinted or FB marketplace? Then put that towards the credit card which will give a bit more wiggle room each month.
I sometimes do surveys in my spare time. Some sites are rubbish but some are pretty good and would get you enough to just make things that bit easier.
Things are stacked against single parents and it's unfair. The council tax reduction should be 50% for example, and the fact your ex can get away with paying so little is awful

I am sorry it's so shit, OP. It's hard for so many people and the worst is that there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.

Few things that I have found helpful:

• Use some apps, like TooGoodToGo, and Olio for free or heavily discount food items (if you live in a city or big-ish town)
• Local "buy nothing" facebook groups - I have gotten things like lightly-used school shoes, school jumpers, some toys and books through sites like that. I once even got a beautiful dress in my size someone was giving, and we get our toddler's bed through one a few years back
• Sell items you no longer need on Vinted or Ebay (I make about £30-40 a month selling items which DC has outgrown)
• Ask for a payrise! I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but women often feel iffy about asking for one and absolutely should!
• File for more flexible work if possible, and work from home more to save on fuel/car costs, and possibly wraparound care costs too. Even going to the office 1 day less a week can reduce your expenditure
• YouTube is full of great little hacks on how to improve the insulation of old houses by easy free/v cheap fixes. I live in a Victorian terrace too and found some of them very useful

Also, look for a better paid job (I am sure you are!) if possible at all

Good luck!

I agree, it's scandalous.

In my area, it's almost impossible to find a 2-bed place for less than £1,300, but the max that is eligible for UC/HB is a tad under a £1k. I've just calculated that if the OP's full rent was eligible, she'd be getting £691 a month in UC.

It's worth checking your UC statement, OP. I sometimes find errors in them when I do benefit checks for clients.

If you're taking home £2,100, after they've deducted the work allowance (£379), gives "excess earnings" of £1721. That's tapered at 55%, so £946.55 is deducted from your maximum UC.

The maximum should be made up of:

standard allowance of £368.74 + child element of £269.58 = £638.32

plus the housing element of however much the LHA rate is for your area (you can find this out here: https://lha-direct.voa.gov.uk/ )

If your LHA rate is (for example) £650, this would give a maximum UC of £1288.32, then the "excess earnings" of £946.55 are deducted to give you UC of £341.77.

It's worth checking if your breakfast and after school club payments are eligible, and get them added to your claim if they are. Put a note on your UC journal and ask them, and upload a copy of the invoice or whatever you get as evidence.

Also have a look at your council's website as you may be entitled to a means tested reduction. Every council runs their own scheme, but most of the councils round my way would give you a reduction.

I'd caution against Too Good to Go. It's not really a way of saving money in many cases, more about getting takeaway style food cheaper than normal, but still more expensive than making your own food at home.

If you want to cut food costs, you'd be best basing most of your meals on simple low cost home cooking such as soups, baked potatoes, omelettes and beans/cheese/egg on toast etc.

There are 11 pages of posts here and I'm sure I'm repeating other replies, but my first stop would be Citizens Advice - although even they are admitting they are running out of ways to help people because the cost of living is now so completely out of control for so many people.

That said, your local Citizens Advice can:

• provide a benefits check to make sure you're not missing out on any additional benefits or grants you could be accessing. It's not at all uncommon that they'll find some additional income for you from somewhere, no matter how small
• provide housing advice - especially in cases where landlords put the rent up and then threaten eviction
• provide debt advice and, in some cases, get some debts written off
• provide energy advice - switching supplier is less useful nowadays, but they can help you with energy debts if that is an issue

They won't be able to fix everything, but if there's any additional income to eke out of any other source, then they'll work with you to find it.

Speak to the council and see if you can get the underpayment payment reduced because your struggling and cancel the TV licence as you have internet content, any saving gained here feed into paying off your debt quicker.

I'd also consider reporting ex to HMRC if you haven't, maybe their investigation into his earnings would be more robust.

It's so sad to read threads like this. You have a reasonable wage and yet are struggling to survive, it shouldn't be like that! My mum became a single-parent family with me in the 70s. There was no minimum wage so she worked far too hard for very little money and wouldn't claim benefits, we had little money but we never felt poor, we always had plenty of food and a warm house. It seems like the UK has gone backward from what I hear and read on here, so many people finding life so hard! I don't live in the UK any more, but seems to me like wages are too low, housing prices are insane, and well, the Tories are in charge. Good luck to you all, I hope things turn around for everyone going through a hard time.

It really isn't in much of the SE and home counties, or London. And that's over a quarter of the population.

I live 50 miles from London, and it's hard to find a 1-bed place for under £1k or 2-bed for less than £1,300. We have parents sleeping in living rooms with kids in the only bedroom because they can't afford to move to somewhere with 2 bedrooms.

Rents are crippling people on low to average incomes, and it's going to get worse as landlords sell off properties because they don't want to upgrade them to meet the new standards.

Op absolutely no help but you just sound amazing. Huge hugs and sorry I'm no help. I hope things get easier for you x

Or look at Moneysaving Expert. You can get advice on most of those things without needing to wait for a CAB appointment and possibly taking one from someone who needs it most.

Do a money makeover and potentially save £1,000s - Money Saving Expert

What to do if you're struggling to pay your energy bills (moneysavingexpert.com)

Benefits Calculator: What am I entitled to – MoneySavingExpert

Rent increase rights (England) – MoneySavingExpert

One more thing I thought might help - if you are friends with any of the parents in your son's school, could you do after-school childcare swaps? One afternoon a week I pick up my DC and my friend's daughter; she does this on another afternoon (we both work compressed hours). After school club is £12 a day so over the course of the month it saves me up to £48. It could potentially work instead of breakfast club too

Turn the dining room into a bedroom and get a lodger. That's your best bet.

Constant low level anxiety + no support + uncertainty + feeling powerless is a terrible combination. You get home tired and fed up to a cold flat and no hug, you don’t know if it will ever get better or be ok, don’t know how you will cope and feel isolated. You can’t afford soft play or birthday present etc so you become socially isolated as well. Add the pressure of a suicidal relative and it must seem too much to bear.

I understand OP and I feel for you 💐❤️. I hope it does get better, that some of the advice will help and make things easier for you.

Housing is your major cost and you have two more rooms than you need - the dining room and second bedroom. As a single parent I would look at a one bedroom flat and get a decent sofa bed and fold up table for the lounge. As there is only two of you you will still have the privacy you need.
A house your size however small the rooms is an unaffordable luxury.

When I had just the one baby we rented a room in a shared house to save money didn't even have a seoerate bathroom.

OP, all housing associations have financial advisors who will be able to help you. I know many have flexibility around deposits simply because they too are fed up of housing people who could be deemed "feckless" and don't respect their properties. They proactively want to house people such as yourself

Be careful regarding tax free childcare, it's often better to stick with the childcare element of UC. As you know, no elements of UC are protected. I will remind everyone that UC should not be paying for food, nappies etc included in child care fees and there is a massive crackdown coming on this. Receipts need to be fully itemised

Re the drying of school uniform, I often wonder why easy drying, no iron materials aren't specified to uniform suppliers. For example, fleeces instead of sweatshirts, shirts instead of polos. Would make parents lives so much easier

On what planet when she has a child does she not need a second bedroom?

Comments like this genuinely shock me. Its like people don't think you are worthy of adequate living space. Is it going back to the Victorian days when the poor families lived in one room of a shared house together, and shared an outhouse? It shouldn't be like this in a so-called civilized nation!

Why would a government who likely have some of them among them do this?

Every time the government refuses to do better by implementing policies or laws that would help people doesn't then look closely at them.

I think a lot of people are overestimating what the OPs house looks like, space available etc. I'm imagining something like this:

2 bedroom terraced house for sale in Walnut Cottage, Crimbles Terrace, Pudsey, West Yorkshire, LS28 (rightmove.co.uk)

As the OP says the rooms are tiny. These houses were usually built without internal bathrooms so they've been squeezed in by making one or both bedrooms smaller, likewise the dining room could have been made by dividing the living room. Hardly palatial in size and unlikely to accommodate a lodger, which the OP may not be allowed under her tenancy agreement.