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.

Keep looking for alternative housing OP- something might come up.

If you can’t reduce your costs further the only thing you can do is make more money. What is your job?

The easiest way to make more money in my sector is to change company. Usually they will pay more to fill a position. But this depends on what sector you’re in. Can you apply for promotions/ take overtime etc?

Plenty of people are under accommodated , including those with mortgages. Even councils are deeming dining rooms, bedrooms large enough to be partitioned etc.as extra sleeping spaces. For people needing to claim the Housing Costs Element of UC, renting a property smaller than your Local Housing Allowance entitlement is a way of being able to afford your rent. Whilst things may certainly not be a luxury, they can be unaffordable

It's absolutely awful that we have people working hard, paying their own way and we are suggesting not watching TV to save a few quid a month. I've no suggestions that haven't already been mentioned op but I feel for you and hope that citizens advice can suggest something or cheaper housing comes up in your area

If you don't have one already I'd recommend a dehumidifier for helping clothes to dry. Ran overnight, next to the airer, mine takes a litre or more of moisture out of the air.

I have a Beko condenser tumble drier and you don't need to have it plumbed in as the water collects in a plastic vessel inside it that you empty into the sink every few weeks. After drying the clothes overnight with the dehumidifier, it doesn't take long in the morning in the tumble drier.

Housing... with the help to buy scheme, you only need a 5% deposit. You would need 2/3 grand on top though for solicitors, survey etc.

You have my deepest sympathy. It seems you are doing your best and budgeting as well as you can with so little room for error. Life should get better when we kick out a government that wants people to live like this, and has made political choices to leave you in this position. Change will take time but having seen how things improved from 1997 I do believe it is possible. You seem to be doing a wonderful job raising your son in very difficult circumstances and I in awe of that.

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Lots of people will (correctly) say that it doesn't pay out in the massive way it used to, but I very easily follow the daily offers to make £10/day for about 20m effort. Tax free, adds up to £300/month. The only caveat is that offers can be skewed to the weekends, but it is very easy to follow and well worth it IMO.

Help To Buy doesn't exist anymore, shared housing still does and is a far better scheme anyway. People can claim UC help with the rent and most service charges side of it too

Can you desist with your talk of unaffordable luxuries - it's offensive. OP works hard to support herself and her child and lives in the 6th richest nation in world. She should not need to:
-sleep on a sofa in the living room.
-have to contemplate sex work in utter desperation.

It's shit, OP, and I worry that it's actually not going to get any better because the economy has been run so far into the ground by the Tories that it's hard to see what can practically be done to make things better now. A change of government might help - let's hope so anyway. You should be able to live off your salary if you're - as you are by the sounds of it - qualified and experienced in your field, and earning more than the average wage, the problem being of course that the average wage in this country is an absolute joke that's been vastly outstripped by the cost of living.

On a practical level, I would suggest getting a convection heater and just using that to warm the room you're in to keep energy costs down - they are fairly cheap to run, certainly cheaper than heating the whole house. I WFH and it's what I do in winter so I don't have huge energy bills. I also have a heated blanket for my knees, electric blankets for all the beds, and a heated clothes airer (that costs 8p an hour to run). BTW I am also a single parent earning what is a decent salary by most people's standards and I think it's MADNESS that we should be resorting to this.

OP, you can buy a condenser drier, this takes the water out of the clothes and collects it in a tank which you manually empty every 4-5 cycles. No need for plumbing in, or for your landlord to even know. It's a stand alone appliance that requires nothing more than a plug AND if you avoid the heat pump condenser dryers and get a traditional one, they also produce heat in order to dry the clothes. My bedroom was always toasty after a cycle had finished. Also consider electric under blankets if you don't already have them. I have them on my bed but also under a throw cover on my sofa. Works brilliantly and costs pennies to run.

@updownleftrightstart Council tax is a 50% property charge and a 50% 2 person occupancy charge which is why there is only a 25% reduction. It originally meant if a property was empty (second home) then 50% could be charged. This has changed over the years due to new powers for local councils to charge higher amounts on empty properties especially when it affected tourist towns.

@TwentyTwenty20 Firstly I am sorry you are in this shitty situation. The one suggestion I have which will cost you nothing but you might see some money released is the £30 underpayment of council tax. Am I right in thinking it was for a previous year/years? You have listed the £150 for this year as a separate item. I would email them, explain you are struggling with the cost of living but wish to keep paying. I would suggest stating you are able to pay £5 a month freeing up £25 for you. State CoL rising costs and lack of accurate child maintenance payments as your reason. Comment on how you have always paid the £30 and in the future you could look to increase, you don't have to but it shows willing. They may try to raise you up to £10, I don't know but it is worth a shot.

Questions first though? Do they have a liability order (it went to a magistrate's court?) Did you complete an income and expenditure? How long ago was this arrangement made? I used to work in council tax and we honestly would bend over backwards to help people. On current years there is not a huge amount we can do but previous years we had leeway to reduce payment amounts and I am sure it would apply to CoL situations. They just still want money coming in so you should be able to negotiate lower payments.

Britain has a housing crisis. I’m sorry for anyone who is having to deal with all this.

Like a PP, I would suggest you may have to think about a one-bed flat and a sofa bed for the living room. I’m not suggesting that in a “A two bed house is a luxury, you know!!” (It really isn’t) kind of way. More in the spirit of “This is shit, but given that your situation is what it is, reducing your housing costs in this way is probably less rubbish than not being able to have any heating on in the winter etc.” I’ve experienced being cold and having no heating in the past, and it’s just the worst feeling in the world. If it came to a choice, I’d rather do a savage decluttering and move to a smaller place if it meant I could be warm in winter.

It’s shit, isn’t it?

You can't manage on that as it leaves no money for emergencies which inevitably come up - boiler needs fixing, cat needs vet etc - or even for the sort of basic house maintenance you need to do to avoid bigger problems down the line. It also leaves no money for any leisure activities and if you're a single parent working hard you bloody well deserve a nice holiday and a few nights out. What's the point even of living otherwise? This country has become such a grim and depressing place over the last decade or so.

I'm sorry about your situation which sounds dire but where is the child's father in all this?

That's irrelevant. If he's not in the picture, he's not in the picture.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that the OP doesn't watch TV, more that she thinks about getting best value from what she pays.

I suggested she consider whether she needs a TV licence because many people don't because they rarely or never watch live TV or use the BBC iPlayer and it's quite an expensive way of getting TV services especially if you don't use the bits that you have to have a licence for. It's only a few quid a month, but you could get basic Netflix, Now etc for less.

The streaming services are also more flexible and do offers/free months etc so you can chop and change. Take the free Disney month, watch it for a while then cancel. Move onto Now TV, usually a deal to start then watch it, cancel it, then they'll give you a cheap deal to stay. If you don't watch TV much in the summer, because you're out and about more, cancel it for a while. Or watch stuff on Youtube for free.

You could easily half what you pay for 'TV' over the year, which is £80 ish freed up to pay for other things. Like a tyre, or towards Christmas or whatever else isn't currently included in the OPs budget.

@Freshstarts23 I don't see it as judgey. It's likely single parents suggest it obviously OP is looking for every little help. Have you challenged CMS? I'm going through the same thing you describe OP with my child's father... only he does pay money.... but according to HMRC they don't have this on record. Its a variation you need to ask for, then court stage. It's lengthy but I've just had a court letter through after waiting months! And still no clear plan.

My landlord would go nuts and probably evict me if I got a lodger.

What a terrible suggestion, both for the OP and for the tax payers who you seem to think should fund it.

But that's the problem today, with benefits being viewed as a lifestyle choice rather than a safety net.

Yes - pretty sure sub-letting without your landlord's permission is contravening any tenancy agreement and would get you kicked out.

It is very relevant.
If he's not in the picture then OP needs to contact Child Maintenance Services.

https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-service#:~:text=You%20must%20have%20a%20child,if%20you%20already%20have%20one.

You’re not alone - you are an absolute trooper doing it as a single parent as well. The sheer cost of fuel, food, gas and electric, water and everything else needed to survive is a joke. It won’t change unless we have better leadership in this country. I think they’re trying to get us all to adapt and try and earn more but playing catch up is not working and the gap is getting bigger and bigger. More people not being able to keep up with the cost being mental health issues.
Each month we get deeper and deeper into our overdraft. My husband works for a private multi million pound company and they have said they will raise the hourly rate by 0.36p.. what the fuck. He works 12 hour days Monday to Friday plus 6 hours sat-sun. I’m working full time in retail and we don’t have two pennies to rub together with a 2 and 3 year old at nursery. Our mortgage is going from £590 a month to £920? It’s so sad and such a desperate situation. It makes me so angry. I wish I could give you some advice but I don’t have any because there’s no one for anywhere to go. More and more people using food banks each week. Not enough for demand. NHS broken. Where do we go from here? I don’t know..

Oh give over. We've got the worse benefits in Europe - nobody sees them as a lifestyle choice. The Tories have channelled many more billions into their own pockets that has ever been spent on benefits - and strangely there's always money for that. It's not the OP's problem to worry about how public money is spent. I'm so sick of this tedious - inaccurate - right wing rhetoric about benefits being a drain on the country. In reality, the main benefits drain is pensions, but nobody is suggesting we stop paying those even though it's a massive crisis waiting to happen.

The OP doesn't need to worry about the tax payer - she's got her own life to sort out and she needs to focus on that. If she can make more money working less and claiming more benefits (doubtful but maybe) then yes, that's the sensible thing to do.

More info here;

https://www.childsupportlaws.co.uk/court-procedures-for-obtaining-child-support.html#:~:text=Receiving%20A%20Court%20Summons&text=This%20summons%20states%20that%20the,the%20payment%20of%20child%20support.

We can assume she's already done that. Plenty of men manage to avoid paying child support - it's easy, just say you're not working. They don't chase.