To ask for help

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for starters I just want to say im not asking for any money or personal help off anyone.
DP is signed off work sick, on £87 a week (grand!) I'm self employed so no work in equals no cash. DP's money was paid in yesterday, We were able to take a tenner out of it as anything more eats into this weeks bill money and then would leave us in arrears and in trouble, we have no food (Well, 2 cans of beans and 4 slices of bread) £1.50 of electric and zero gas (and zero emergency) i've tried calling cab but got no answer so i assume they dont open on saturdays tried calling job centre was placed on hold then cut off twice but will try again soon to see if they offer any form of emergency help. we can't afford the interest rates on payday loans and our credit ratings are terrible so would be touch and go anyway... can anyone please help by offering help, advice, suggestions or experience. thank you.

You should be able to get housing benefit and possibly something in council tax benefit if that still exists. If you phone up and ask for the form tomorrow or go and pick one up, it should be backdated from tomorrow's date when it comes through.

Ask CAB to do a qualifying benefits check for you. They might not be able to do it tomorrow but they might make an appointment for you to go in at a later date. CAB, your GP and midwife should all be able to give you vouchers for the food bank.

1. Food bank. Go and ask.
2. Did you pay tax last year? Spend 30 hours on admin/social media a week on own bus. and claim working tax credits
3. Meal plan to zero food. . I bet you have more in than you think.
4. You can claim jsa if self-employed instead. Just stop 'working' and tell them no work.

www.entitledto.co.uk

That's a good calculator, and will give you a starting point.

£35 per month is not anywhere near enough to live on.
Hopefully CAB can sort something out today.
There must be more than £87 per week that you can claim, like others have said, housing benefit and JSA possibly.

Let us know what CAB say.

On another thread, someone else mentioned hourly tutoring as a way to get some money in when pregnant. Exam season is coming up and your sciences are probably rather good given you've got into Medical School so you may be able to get some work at GCSE or A-level.

Apologies, posted above on the wrong thread!

Hi OP were you able to be referred to a food bank in the end? The Trussell trust runs lots of them in conjunction with churches and community groups so it's worth getting in touch with them.

www.trusselltrust.org/foodbank-projects

You may be able to claim a one of maternity grant of around £500 since you are self employed and won't be entitled to maternity pay from your employer. Speak to your midwife who can refer you.

As others have said investigate working tax credits and anything else that you might be eligible for.

www.gov.uk/benefits-credits/tax-credits

www.gov.uk/browse/benefits/entitlement

Do you live in or near a university town? The reason I ask is that they are often good employers and will employ people from a variety of backgrounds and often need people on a casual temp basis to do back office data input/admin work which would be perfect for you to do whilst pregnant. They also need cooks/cleaners and manual workers too so worth looking. Brook Street temping agency often recruits on behalf of universities.