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.

havent read through and it's almost not relevant, I.e. not sure you could afford a tumble dryer or whether it would make sense for you anyway but you said the landlord won't ' let you install one'. Well you can get condensing ones which require no installation so don't let your landlord be the reason you don't have one.

sorry everything is so crap at the moment 💐

When my sister divorced she rented a one bed flat and did sleep in the sitting room on a Sofa bed and her two boys shared the bedroom. It really was not ideal but she did it for about 2.5 years and that really took the heat off of her. They had lived in a three bed house with garden before that they lost in the 1990’s when there was a housing crisis and lots of people defaulted on their mortgages. She knew it wasn’t forever. It may be crap but the alternative of being cold or sliding in to worse debt when things go wrong is much more frightening,

Op may manage but it’s the kind of small amount left over that’s when things go wrong she could slide in to deeper debt very easily. This then has an awful cumulative affect.

Speak to your water company. I pay £32 a month and we are a family of 4, I would expect to be paying less than that in your
position. Maybe they need an up to date reading.
we also use olio a lot for food which lowers our food bill, we are around £200-£250 for all four of us and a cat.
have you considered a sim only deal? Mine is with lebara and I pay £6.90 per month, my partner is with giff gaff and pays £12 per month. £20 is a lot.
do you have Netflix subscriptions? I would consider buying a fire stick, not watching bbc I player and just watch via the apps on other channels and cancelling your tv license, this is what we did.
when is your internet contract up? Because your internet is definitely somewhere you can save, virgin for example so regular deals between £18 and £24 a month and they have tariffs specially for people on UC. So you may even get it cheaper.
definitely claim back the childcare costs from UC, or work out which is best and see if it’s better to use tax free childcare (you can’t do both I don’t think).

Sorry, had to interject. You think she is able to reduce her food shop (including cleaning products) from £160-200? Are you completely stupid or just living in a different country? That’s for her and her young child - of course she can’t cut it down!! I am a lone parent too and struggle to get my weekly shop for less than £50pw, and that’s with shopping in Aldi, all unbranded. Honestly, think before you make suggestions.

OP, I’m really sorry to hear that you’re in this position. Mine is really similar and I find it so tough too. I recently applied for the Household Support Fund from my local council as I had about £3 left for food for myself for the week and they basically laughed at me and told me I needed to budget better. Hopefully though yours might be more sympathetic so it’s worth a shot. But I fully agree that on an income like yours (and mine which is almost exactly the same) we shouldn’t need to be going to our local authorities begging for help. If you find a way to take it to the streets please do let me know!!

I have no other suggestions but wanted to say I think you’re doing brilliantly and your son is really lucky to have you. Keep your chin up xxx

Not a good idea.

Some people get addicted to gambling through this.

For context we as a family of 4 onlY bring in about £600 more than you.
our mortgage is £1000, and we feed 4 of us, we also pay for ballet termly and swimming lessons monthly for the youngest and guitar lessons termly for the oldest.
uniform we also get from the second hand shops at the schools as much as possible.
food we olio a lot which helps.
times are so tough, but I see a few areas I think you can cut back on while your reduce the debt. x

I don't think we can assume anything, that's why I asked OP the question.

This is the problem with some MN threads, people assume all sorts of stuff, go off at a tangent about it and then we get a drip feed.

And yes, CMS do chase ; https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/find-information/money/child-maintenance/chasing-child-maintenance-payments-cms/#:~:text=The%20CMS%20has%20several%20options,you%20what%20they%20already%20owe.

Hmmm. They don't. I have plenty of friends with ex husbands who claim to be self-employed earning no money and therefore can't pay child support/pay a risibly small amount. Everyone knows it's bullshit and they're working and earning decent salaries, just not declaring it or getting accountants to hide it, but the CSA don't investigate.

And that is a disgraceful situation. You should not have had to. A separate room to sleep in is not a luxury (studio flats notwithstanding).

Which areas? She's already had professionals say she can't cut back any more. Where do you see that she can make cost savings?

God I don't know what's wrong with this thread. £1000 is a lot but even in the North it's the same issue. A private house on my street went for £1500 it's not pish but it's close to town centre.

OP you are doing a fab job. I don't know what else you could cut back on. A TV save of £80 per year isn't worth the cut back and you need to heat the house otherwise you will end up with mould and people need to dry their washing!!

That's £40-£50 per week to feed two people and cover cleaning /washing ect, how much further do you think she can cut it !

Forgot to add his dad earns over 40k a year but works for his friend and declares 16k a year so I get a whopping £7 a week from him.

What a selfish, greedy b***. I'd be inclined to shop him to HMRC if all you're getting is £7/week to bring up his child!

The only thing I can think is that your rent is the highest expense (naturally). Would it be possible to move somewhere that's less expensive to live?

Or sharing housing costs as a pp has said sounds like the most obvious/quickest way to dramatically reduce your outgoings which you've pared back as much as you can. Not sure what impact that would have on your benefits though.

Then dob them in to the Inland Revenue.

My exH was living with his GF and her mother after we split up but claimed he couldn't pay me anything because he had rent to pay.

I dobbed them all in to the IR and IR contacted them about it. It took a while but apparently the IR wanted to see a rent book which no-one had. I don't know the result of it all but exH moved out into a bedsit quite soon afterwards.

I've also known people who worked for the Tax Office who work as investigators, so yes, they do act on info that people give them.

You can report people anonymously.

@Uggtrending OP you are doing a fab job. I don't know what else you could cut back on. A TV save of £80 per year isn't worth the cut back and you need to heat the house otherwise you will end up with mould and people need to dry their washing!!

Totally.

I have a similar amount of my UC and wages left each month. One child. I'm actually managing to save some money each month despite doing up an old house. Some bills/costs are higher for me but here are the expenses I don’t have:

£1100 rent
£100 fuel
£150 Council tax
£130 childcare costs
£20 life insurance
£20 phone bill
£25 Internet
£30 gymnastics
£30 water
£51 car insurance
£50 credit card
£160-£200 food/toiletries/cleaning products/stuff for my empty unfurnished house
£10 breakdown cover
£30 for underpayment of council tax
£5 contents insurance
£106 loan (family court costs - he got no contact so do not regret this)
£13 TV license
£60-70 gas and electric

The various kinds of debt and keeping a car (plus service, MOTs ) adds a massive overall amount to your outgoings, OP.
I have no debt to service and I don't drive as I'm aware that both would be financially ruinous for me.

As I said in my previous post, water rates vary a lot across the country. Me and DH are paying £30 a month now (meter and being pretty frugal) but 6 years ago where we lived we paid over £40 a month (also with a meter and being frugal).

It is a disgrace that you are in this situation op. I'm sorry. It sounds like you are doing an amazing job under the circumstances. It shouldn't be this hard to live a reasonable life in the uk, a wealthy country.

Keep looking for somewhere cheaper. Also, while it might not be for everyone, do you close frienships with any other single parents? As if so, a house share might be an option and cheaper over all for both parents.

I am surprised the IR took any action to be honest. I have a neighbour who is claiming benefits for supposedly being too ill to work but is working cash in hand between 3 and 5 days a week. He has being doing this for 5 years. I have reported him to HMRC and benefits people numerous times and nothing whatsoever has happened.

@notahappybunny7 not pay for a tv license? But we watch tv. So that’s not an option.

Does your little one go to his dads or family? Could you work then? I know he only pays £7 a week but it he's caring for him in that time you could save on meals etc

Report fathers undeclared earnings to HMRC.
Don't listen to the fools saying "get a lodger" money is important but your son's safety is more important. Also where would the lodger sleep? It's a two bed apartment who wants a random stranger sleeping on the living room sofa? Some good advice on here but also some ridiculous stuff.
I'm sort of in the same situation privately renting only 675 a month but the landlord is trying to sell if he sells it there is NO WHERE round here as cheap as this it's all 1000+ . Council list applied for and we're saving for a mortgage whichever of those takes the least amount of years maybe even decades.
Im sorry I have no advice other than reporting the father but if it helps knowing lots of us are in similar situations and your son will remember having a loving mum which is most important ❤️

Rent

Where I am it's not. 1000 is crazy. 395 where I am

Hi op how much rent is on your UC statement? I've just done a calculation with £600 rent (saw you mention that was your LHA) plus single rate and one child and think you should be getting more after deductions especially if you're claiming childcare too.