Anyone living on just lone parent benefits?

[Jess32]

That is: Child tax credit, Income support, Child benefit, and housing and council tax paid for.

I get £117 a week in my account. Sounds like a huge amount. But when you factor in the electric (£130 a month) water rates (£25) credit card repayments, from years ago (£50) broadband (£16) phone bill (£25) nappies (£20) bus fares (£40)..

Although £50 a week, plus milk tokens is more than enough for food, I still seem to run out at the end of every week. And there is non left for savings/extras.

If anyone else out there is managing on this amount with NO outside help I would be grateful for any tips. I know most of you work, I will be doing too when my daughter is at school. Do you plan your meals? Do you manage to budget to take your child to toddler group?

Your broadband and phonebill seem a lot does that include line rental aswell. We are with sky and pay £16.50 for the TV which comes with free phone and broadband and £10 for line rental. We pay £5 extra for the phone so we get unlimited uk landline calls anytime.

if you spend that much a month on bus fares would it work out cheaper to get a pass? or walk more places? unless it is raining i will walk with DS in the pushchair to places anywhere up to 4 miles away.

Nappies - would switching to cloth nappies be an option. You can get some cheap second hand ones on here and although the initial outlay might seem a lot it works out much cheaper in the long run.

Have you been on uswitch to check you are with cheapest energy providers?

Are you already on a metre? If not think about switching to one. It could work out a lot cheaper with only 2 of you in the house. If you ring up your water supplier they will be able to work out if it would be cheaper for you or not.

We use Lidl/Aldi/Netto for for half price fruit and veg, breakfast cereal (we get aldi's version of shredded wheat and no sugar/salt muesli) tinned beans, chickpeas etc, olive oil (we decant it into a spray bottle so you use less), fresh herbs, tuna, tinned tomatoes, noodles, free range eggs, cheese, milk, plain yogurt, frozen fish, free range chicken, dishwasher powder, washing up liquid, washing powder. Then we go to Asda for unrefined sugar, wholemeal flour, wholemeal pasta, brown rice, salt free pasatta, free range butter, porridge, free range butter, bread (you could make your own if you wanted to be really good and were able to get a cheap second hand bread maker or you might even get one on freecycle), spices, bouillon powder, breakfast cereal if we've been to Lidl rather than Aldi as they don't do shredded wheat or no sugar/salt muesli and other stuff you can't get in Lidl/Aldi/Netto.

Keep all leftovers for lunch next day/to give dc for their dinner/freeze.

Each week look at what you have left before you go shopping again and meal plan. try to make the most of what you have and only buy the extra things you need to make the meals on the plan for the next week.

if you are inclined to buy takeaways when you can't be arsed to cook then cook things in bulk and then put into portions and freeze so you can reheat those instead of buying a takeaway or ready meal.

Eat more meat free meals. We do this to save money and what meat/fish we do buy comes from the market.

I get more as I get working tax credits and money from a part time job, but I pay mortgage and council tax, plus a loan to cover old debts caused by exH's crapness.

I spend about £30-40 on food though. I shop monthly for the majority of stuff and try to just top up with bread milk and a few veggies through the month. I plan meals so that I don't waste veg and eggs etc.

I tend to buy the bigger packs of mince and chicken and make up big batches and freeze it. I am much more aware of portion size and try not too make too much as I was wasting loads before. Things like rice and pasta now I have measures and only cook the right amount eachtime.

I bulk buy if I can if it is cheaper for stuff like pasta or but cheap own lable on stuff like rice or bread.

I make big batches of soup with what ever vegs are on special offer or work out cheapest. I take these to work in a flask as any catering on site is expensive where I work.

I don't buy much snack stuff, perhaps the big value pack of biscuits once in a while. I only buy diluting juice not bottles of fizzy stuff (apart from coke for my weekend whisky treat sometimes). I get stuff like super noodles and spaggetti hoops when on special offer as they are handy for when I need to do quick meals.

Just looked at your electricity amount, seems high, are you paying arrears. If not it might be somewhere tolook at reducing, but will depend on your heating etc.

Oh meant to say my food bill is for me plus an 9yr and 12 yr old.

If you go out for the day take sandwiches rather than buying something. Every wednesday we are out all day and I always make something for our lunch and we eat it in the park. The only time we'll have something in the cafe is if it's raining and we can't sit in the park to eat our lunch. I usually just buy one thing and share it with DS.

Your broadband bill/phone does seem really high. I get free b band, and free calls after 6 for 21.99 a month. I'm with Talktalk.

Your electric sounds awfully high just for the 2 of you. I have 2 DDs, plus me on a prepayment meter and I spent about 40 month on it. (very frugal living)

All I live on is income support, 20 a week from a job which is deducted, child tax, child ben and some 16 a week maintenance.
I also have to contribute over 60 a month for my rent.

How much is your gas? and how much is putstanding on your credit card bill?
Would you be better off getting a budgeting loan to pay off your credit card and then pay the DWP back INTEREST FREE?

And I agree with Nappy addict - take sandwiches! Much cheaper if you make them than buying them! I often tell the girls that I could buy a whole loaf plus marg for the cost of a teeny sandwich in a packet!

All we seem to live on is pasta, potatoes, lentils, rice and value sausages!
But we get by - and we have a mini zoo here too!

Thanks for all your advice!
-Am with B.T. for phone and broadband, it costs £33 a month for broadband, free calls all day to landlines and rental but I spend another few pounds calling mobiles as noone in my family has a landline. I kind of trust the company. Can't change it for at least a year.
-Electric tarriff is a notoriously expensive one called THTC. It's unchangeable though, and involves storage heaters. Don't have gas. I am extremely careful with my energy consumption and have explored all deals possible. There isn't much you can do at 16.72p per kWh fixed rate. It's cold down here too!
-I am grateful for your sharing of your food shopping habits, thanks for the insights. I will shop around more in future. As for budgeting loan, I am already paying one back hence why I get less income support. I don't have a TV.

All in all it looks like one big shop a week would benefit us, much as I have resisted it. Then you can prepare ahead for days out and snacks, and freeze what's left. Not that I have a microwave - can you defrost things on a hob?

Am I being ungrateful? Is it actually quite a lot to live on comfortably, if one is very sensible and organised? A pound doesn't seem to buy what it used to.

Will look into getting a bus pass, good idea nappyaddict!

jess it is possible to live comfortably on the amount. i feel it's you electricity that causing it. if you stayed elsewhere your electricity would be half that.

as for defrosting. let it in fridge overnight the day before. it'll be defrosted for use the next day. but if you need it for lunch next day you will have to put it out freezer on the morning before or it wont have defrosted.

If I need to defrost something for dinner then I get it out in the morning and leave it on the side. If I need it for lunch I get it out the night before.

Why do you get £117 per week? The government says you need around £180 week to live on, and this is what you should get when you add up child tax credit, IS, and child benefit.

You dont say who your energy supplier is but British Gas do an Essentials tarriff for low incomes. Other providers SHOULD (as in been told by Government they should) do them as well but you may have to badger them

oh yeah, why you only on 117???

She said her income support is reduced because she had a budgetting loan which she is now paying off.

Even so, there is a max amount of repayments they can take from your income support. It certainly is not about £60 a week they are taking off!!

OP come back and tell us please why you only get £117 as it seems you are being underpaid.

I get 117 too how much you suppose to get?

Hmm, I was on IS for a few months (just started back to work earlier this month, tho still getting it as working less than 16 hours)

I got 48.60 allowance from IS (single mum, one kid, and there was a deduction for maintence from dds dad) £48.05 from CTC, £18 ish for Child Benefit so in total roughly £115 a week..

....how the Sam Hill does anyone support children on £117 a week?

I am amazed, impressed, and a bit humbled at the resourcefulness shown here....

hmm, been thinking, are you sure you are using storage heaters right? I suppose £130 is ok-ish considering its heating and lighting, but still think it seems a lot!

Very carefully, retiredgoth! Needs must and all. You can get extremely resourceful

Hi again!
You know, in a way all I wanted was this

"....how the Sam Hill does anyone support children on £117 a week?"

Thank you retired goth! Though I seriously count my blessings, that we get anything at all. In many countries I would be forced into work. I have to say, I do prefer free range stuff and pure stuff and perhaps this is why it doesn't seem to go so far. At times before I had the baby I was living on a lower wage, comfortably. I could even, shock horror, afford the occasional pair of shoes... imagine that.. have been in the same one pair of boots for three years!

PS - I only get £12.95 a week taken off. The worst shock is when your baby turns one and they deduct £15 a week, and half your milk tokens. I cannot for the life of me work out the logic in this. A baby starts needing to eat real food, and is in more expensive nappies therefore we need less money.. are they meant to develop farming skills at that age or something?

Anyone else on my tarriff THTC?

oh dear. "I'd be forced into work" sounds lazy doesn't it. I meant I wouldn't have the luxury of spending every waking hour with my baby over her first precious few years...!

Thanks for the defrosting advice btw everyone. You may have saved us some tummyache!

We live in a two bed flat with storage heaters, and after having them on all winter last year we got into a lot of debt. This year they have only been on a handful of times when it has been cold in the flat despite us wearing a couple of jumpers. It is not an ideal way to live but it is the only way to keep us out of debt.

Is there anything that you use that could be using a lot of electric (such as a dryer?), and are you paying any electricity debt?

May I ask what the £40 on bus fares is for? It seems like an awful lot. Could you walk the distances, or maybe get a bike? If you're using the bus to do a number of food shops in the week have you considered having groceries delivered?

DO you have surestart in your area? A lot of their activities (or possibly all) are free. Our local toddler groups are only one or two pounds so are fairly do-able financially.

I agree with the above in regards to looking at how you shop, where you shop, what brands you buy etc. I'd also suggest trying frozen veg instead of fresh (if you have the room) as it's both easier to shop for with little wastage, and often cheaper. It's also good to try local markets for fruit & veg as some are cheaper than the supermarkets.

Do you have a mobile at all? It might be worth checking what networks the people you are calling are on - some networks do free mobile to mobile calls for people on the same network.

Hope some of that made sense, it is getting late and my brain is at half function

Jess32 - often buying pure stuff works out cheaper so don't stop doing that. cooking big batches from scratch and freezing them into portions works out much cheaper than buying frozen ready made stuff from the supermarker and is much yummier too. Do you have a market near you with a butchers? They usually do really good deals and you can ask advice on the cheaper cuts of meat and how to cook them. Also 60-80% of what you eat should be fruit and vegetables. Only 20-40% should be meat/fish and potatoes/rice/pasta/bread. A lot of people get it the wrong way around and end up spending a fortune on meat.

Hey Missanthrope. I think you're right about storage heaters. I turned just two on last night (for about eight hours each) on medium setting, no other appliances were running at the time. It cost exactly £2.79 in electricity - I checked on my meter. So the problem might go away in summer - I honestly cannot abide getting me and my daughter dressed in a cold house. I do have a dryer but it uses less than a pound, once a week, and stops the house getting damp. Am not paying off debt, but the tarriff rate is high.

I live five miles from the nearest shop; there is nothing here but houses, all baby groups are in town too. I do walk in often but it's along a main road with no pavement much of the way and a corner notorious for crashes. With this ice it would be precarious. I wouldn't move for the world though.

We don't have surestart here. I don't have a working mobile any more. But thanks for the tips, will look out. Good idea about the frozen veg nappyaddict, I don't have any except peas!

sorry but those amounts are wrong.

With 2 children, the total amount you should get is
approx £90 child tax credit
approx £60 Income support
approx £30 child benefit and then on top of that you can keep the first £20 of any maintenance you get off childrens dad.

go here to work out your tax credits (this will tell you how much you will get between now and April, so work it out to a weekly amount) :

www.taxcredits.inlandrevenue.gov.uk/Qualify/DIQHousehold.aspx

and here tells you that a single parent gets £60.50 Income Support per week. :

www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/JCP/Customers/WorkingAgeBenefits/Dev_015271.xml.html