My partner and I have a fairly low income. We both work, him full time and me part time as I have a young daughter. Both of us have permanent contracted hours. Both of us work overtime but the overtime is not guaranteed nor consistent.
I work in a primary school and during the (many) school holidays, I am only paid for my contracted hours which are 12.5 hours per week. So for example say I earn £500 in July because I’ve worked more than my contracted hours, in August when there is no work for the entire month, my wages for that month will be around £200, so quite a big difference.
Someone mentioned to me that when applying for universal credit, I should state my contracted permanent hours instead of the potential maximum I work with overtime as I rarely work an entire month without some kind of school holiday overlapping and so isn’t a true reflection of what I actually earn. Does that sound about right?
I’m just wondering as the most I’ve ever earned in a month is £650 and the least is £200 which is a significant gap. Plus I can’t really average it out because there’s no consistency to my overtime/time off. One month I might get £400, next month £550, next month £450, next month £375 etc.
It’s been a long time since I applied for anything but we are really struggling at the moment so just want to see if there’s any help out there while my partner has been told there’s no overtime at his workplace for at least the next 6 months and I’ve got the six week holiday creeping up on me.
Sorry if that all seemed a bit rambled!