Does anyone have the answer?

[thezoo]

Hi i need some advice please

I am not working enough hours/ few hours to be able to claim anything at the moment but we are unable to afford to pay the bills

Tomorrow i am going to see my DR i was supposed to see her friday but couldn't make it so she called to check on me, during the call she said she would likely sign me off work but i still had to come in first.

I am unable to claim JSA, Income Support and am not able to claim Maternity Allowance for several weeks yet for various reasons nor are we able to claim Housing Benefits, Tax Credits etc

My Question is this

If i am not working and am signed off sick by my doctor am i able to claim any sort of benefit? eg SSP or something?

Or

Do i need to claim JSA (even though i wont qualify for payments) and then present them with my Dr's sick note to be able to claim?

Thanks

How much do you earn per week? Do you have a partner, if so how much do they earn? These things will affect what you can claim.

Also is the reason for being signed off illness or disability? Will it affect you for more than 12 months?

I had earnt £300 a month but after this coming weekend nothing the joys of seasonal work
He gets £950 a month

our bills not including food or petrol come to £1100
petrol to get him into work for a month £60 or more not often over £80
this leaves us with £120/140 a month to buy food just about doable for us if we are careful

We've been through it all with Job center and citizens advice etc and they all just say that as he earns so much we dont qualify and were i have worked a few hours a week (that stop's coming Sunday) we didn't qualify for JSA and even though i qualify as of next Monday the price of petrol to get in to the meetings is going to cost more than i will be getting

and to be honest every interview i go to all i get told (after sideways glances at my bump) is that we are unable to take on a pregnant woman due to health and safety and all the risk assessments we would have to do,and this is after wasting £10 or more on petrol to get there out of the food budget

My doctor would sign me off with stress/anxiety most likely until i can claim maternity in late January or February

Do you think its better to claim the JSA first even though i wont get paid this week then hand in my sick note or would i be likely to get something different?

Sorry im a bit clueless at this worked solidly since 16 never had to do it before so not a clue what i should be doing

Thanks for your help

You may be eligible for ESA, however the CAB/job centre should have looked into this for you. SSP is only paid if you are working but signed off sick, earning over £109 per week.

Your bills seem incredibly high at £1100, are any of them debt repayments? If so you may need to negotiate with your creditors to say you can't currently meet your repayments.

Are you renting? If so you should be able to claim a small amount of housing benefit on just your partner's salary.

Put your details through the benefits calculator here and see if it flags anything else up.

Just an aside, employers aren't allowed legally to discriminate against you for being pregnant, so if you had actually been told you were turned down for this reason you need to lodge a formal complaint with their HR department. How far along are you? Can you not disguise your bump a bit and simply not mention your pregnancy?