Financial drop due to no childcare this lockdown.. practical ways to cope?

[mumbadger]

So in the first lockdown I used a combination of annual leave, flexible working hours and the fact ex husband could help with the kids more as he had a period of furlough to keep my hours in my job. (already part time since second child was born and needed regular hospital appointments as well as ex husband being unable to help so full-time for me was not feasible). This lockdown I'm out of annual leave. Still plugging away working from home and flexible with hours when meetings / clients dont dictate but I'm physically and mentally only just recovered from mostly working after kids in bed for long periods of 2020 and the kids need my support through other upheaval in their lives. I felt lucky to have the options previously and grateful to work within a supportive work team even if home life was a bit of a nightmare i still had a job and got paid. But keeping up is not realistic now.
This lockdown exh is not really available/ increasingly unreliable, im out of annual leave etc. Looks like i will need to take unpaid parental leave. Furlough not an option as I work in public sector.

So realistically to take care of the kids this time im getting a pay cut for the next couple of months minimum. Its a financial hit from not a great starting point tbh but i know im far from alone in this.

I'll go through all my bills to minimise costs today, rationalise everything possible..

Then i need to bring something else in financially to avoid / slow down sinking. With no childcare and minimum time to throw at the financial situation..

Ideas to cope?

Am i missing something?

Sorry to hear about your situation.

Would the temporary drop in income make you eligible for any benefits?

Could you have a chat with your employer about temporarily reducing your hours and spreading the financial hit over 12 months? Or borrowing annual leave from next year?

I’m sorry. It’s such a difficult situation.

Thanks for suggestions. Already receive some tax credits and will update those, although its slow so i wont have clarity on that for a few weeks i suspect i need to check all of my eligibility again. Reduced hours option beyond parental leave (i.e. to make substantive changes to my permanent employment contract) would be harder i think and my manager was not keen on the idea when we spoke this week (it has longer term implications for me and the team as i think would be hard to claw hours / resource back in future even though we are bloomin swamped.. Not least as I expect more public sector cuts will hit us in due course.). Good idea in principle as seems like this will rumble on for a while.