what can I do?

[LariyahSpen]

Hopefully this won't be too long winded. Basically me & my partner are absolutely poor and I can't see how we will last the rest of the month.

He works full time but is on a low wage, his take home is about £1100 per month after tax. We have an 8 month old & I am currently not working, I was receiving maternity benefit SMP which stopped last week. Now I bring in zero. We were receiving tax & working tax credits of £68 per week but when we filled in the new tax form it came back that they had over estimated our benefit so until January we are now only reviewing £16 per week.

We have tried to apply for housing benefit & council tax reduction but are not entitled apparently. I have spoken to someone from the Job Centre who has said the only other thing we can apply for is JSA which means I'll have to start looking for work actively. I have started but the work would need to be in the evenings & due to partners job I could only do two evenings per week and the weekend, positive there may be bar work or something I can do. There is no one to look after my child if I was to work day times.

Literally though we have about £40 in the bank most bills are paid but we haven't managed council tax this month. My partner is hoping his mum may help us out with this.

I just feel like I'm drowning and there is just no way we can live on this??? Trying not to even think about Xmas as its not something we can afford ATM.

I just want to exhaust all options before I start thinking WTF are we going to do??

Does anyone have any experience of this?

You need to consider some daycare for your dc so you can be more flexible in your job search. Childminder might be cheapest and flexible. Retail jobs for Christmas and sales will be recruiting now. If you worked enough hours you could get ctc and wtc to offset some of the cost.

Thanks, that something I'm happy to consider...I'm having a meeting this week at the Job centre to see how the child care thing works. If we needed to pay for childcare out of our own pockets we could not afford it at present so would tax credits/working tax hell cover this?

That's *

Probably not entirely but you would also have additional income. If you got Smp do you not still have a job to go back to?

If you pay your council tax over ten months, ask the council to change it to twelve months. It's not a huge saving but it will help long term. Ours went from £148 to £125 ish which helped loads when DH was long term unemployed. I haven't changed it back now he's back in work, the way I see it is the difference covers the cost of my car insurance DD.

Shop with a list and be strict!! Before you go to the checkout, look through the trolley and put back anything you've added on the way round or anything you really really don't need. I fed the five of us on £40 a week for a long time, it was hard but it is doable.

Oh, and go through your bank accounts and check every direct debit, and cancel/reduce anything you don't need.

Charity shops for clothes, make do and mend, never say no to hand me downs!

It will be hard, but you can manage. Prioritise your bills, I'd say council tax is at the top of the list, some of the others are less important.

I don't understand why you are entitled to so little in the way of tax credits and other benefits. Unless you were earning quite a lot before you went on materniity leave and that year's salary is being used to calculate your benefits. I''d go and see somebody at the the citizens advice bureau. It's not clear if you have rent to pay as well out of your DH's salary. But an evening or weekend job would certainly help and then there wouldn't be the expense of childcare.

You need to pay council tax first, rent/gas/electric/water next, then other bills.

Council tax is a priority bill, because you can't negotiate on it and you can be prosecuted fur non-payment.

What are your basic costs? If you have mobile phone contracts, sky etc now is the time to review those.

Do you not have a job to go back to? As others have said you need to consider daytime work too and look into claiming childcare tax credits to help cover the cost. Are they basing your wtc and ctc on last years joint earnings? If so then ask for it to be looked at based on this years earnings which will be significantly less, you can also take off smp from your estimate.

Do you have anything you can sell to raise a bit of cash? Any of the baby bits you dont need any more?
And get your benefits double checked by CAB.
Hopefully you can find a part time job in a supermarket or pub during the evenings.

look into a discretionary housing payment, most councils do these and they can be issued for 6 months at a time (monthly payments) to help towards rent costs

Thank you for all your replies I appreciate it. There are some avenues mentioned that I wasn't aware of so will be looking into those.

I have moved away from where I was working so far that's it's just not feesable to travel into work so looking for another job is next step.

As your child is under 5 and your partner is on low wage I would have thought you would be entitled to Income Support as opposed to JSA.

I make a similar salary to your partner and receive a low amount of Housing benefit, working tax credits, as well as 70% back on childcare costs. I have two children and I am a lone parent so not the same situation as you.

I suggest checking entitledto website to make sure you are getting all the support you can. Good luck.

'As your child is under 5 and your partner is on low wage I would have thought you would be entitled to Income Support as opposed to JSA.'

No. That is only for lone parents.