How could I afford to live on my own?

[Milliemoo52]

Hi, I'm having a lot of issues with my partner and started to consider ending our relationship. We own our home and have a 1 year old. My partner brings in more money than me as I'm only part time so I can look after our son and then when I'm at work my mum does the childcare. If I did decide to leave him, would there be any benefits that could help me with bills etc. I would want to own a home rather than rent but I don't know if I'd even be able to get a mortgage on my wage. Any advice would be appreciated

Look on the entitledto website to see what benefits you'd qualify for. He'll need to pay child support. If you know his salary you can check how much it would be on the CMS calculator.

If you jointly own your home you might be able to stay in it if you can afford to buy him out and afford the mortgage. He might want to buy you out or you might need to sell. Depends on your circumstances.

The amount of benefits you would be entitled to will be higher if you have rental costs. Universal credit would not pay towards the cost of mortgage.

it will depend on you wages how much you can get. Do you have scope to increase your hours? UC will pay up to £646.35 towards registered childcare costs each week (eg I pay £760 for nursery and get £646 towards that)

Go onto the entitledto benefit calculator

As a single parent you'd be entitled to universal credit so check how much.
Do you claim child benefit - if not then start.
Check the cms rate for your son.
Look at council tax and remember not only single person 25% reduction but the amount will come down if you are low income too..
If the house is sold the amount in the bank would affect your UC. But if you're buying then you have a 6 month ish grace period where it can sit in your bank account and not affect it.
Go to a mortgage broker and see what you'd get.

I'm in the same situation but here is what I've done.

I work 24 hours a week, my youngest is still in nursery until September so I get 30 hours and pay the rest. When it's the school holidays my eldest goes into holiday club, I take holiday or their dad takes holiday. Whatever childcare I pay for I submit to Universal Credit and they will pay back a percentage.

In September I'll increase my hours and work a bit over 30. I'll be using after school club twice a week so again I'll submit that to UC and they will give me some back.

I currently live in my mortgaged house but the plan is for my husband to buy me out and remortgage to raise the funds. This should give me a bit over 40K so my plan was to put 30K down on a shared ownership house and get a mortgage for the remaining amount I was short for for the share. However despite going through a mortgage broker I couldn't find anyone to lend me the 10K that I needed because I didn't earn enough and was paying childcare costs on top, they all came back saying they wouldn't lend anything. Luckily I have family to lend me it, otherwise I would be stuck because I can't increase my hours without using childcare. I would have ended up renting, my Universal Credit would be stopped because of the 40K from the house and I would be using that to live on, I would never be able to buy again.

I will be paying £300 rent and £100 for the money I've borrowed making my housing costs £400 total. I couldn't rent a one bedroom flat for that so shared ownership is cheaper and there is a bit more security but I do have to pay a service charge every month to the housing association and I'm still limited to what I can do with it so no major modifications. It's the middle ground between buying properly and renting.

The downsides are that I'm moving to a smaller house, the kids will be sharing a room indefinitely and I have to rely on UC getting my money right every month or I'm left short.

I've no idea what the future holds, I need to find a better paid job because minimum wage isn't enough to live on in the future but for now one step at a time.

I hope I'm doing the right thing, there is a lot of issues in our marriage and despite counselling it isn't going to get fixed quickly if at all so whilst I have the opportunity to buy somewhere in my area I need to do it.