How likely are we to qualify for universal credit?

[Otterses]

I'm actually quite embarrassed to be asking this

I've been advised we could qualify for some help with our nursery fees. Household income of 39k, me working part time while retraining, and DH full time. Really struggling to get by, hence why we're applying just to see.

The site doesn't recognise either of our identities and also wants to us to book interviews, which is fine, I just feel guilty wasting everyone's time if there's no chance we'll qualify!

I'm not sure how it works on Uc with childcare but from what I've read it's a pain. You need to pay it upfront and claim it back and upload invoices/ receipts etc and it all has to fit in with your assessment period. I think your total UC amount would include childcare element then it just reduces y wages the same as with other elements. I may be wrong on this, its the only part of Uc I don't really know much about but they don't seem to make it easy.

Have you tried the entitledto website?

You are not going to get UC with a household income of £39k. Fact.

But, you may be entitled to tax free childcare. Have a look at the childcare choices website

I have just done a claim for UC and got told we aren’t eligible for it :(. Our household income is £37k

Tax free childcare is a possibility. UC is unlikely with that level of income

It's unlikely at 39k sorry. At 24k we only get a very small top up.

I think you need to be at an income of under 16k for uc. I could’nt claim tax credit on an income of 29k for child care.

I thought it was too good to be true! God knows why they say that you can earn up to £47k with one child then

Already doing the tax free childcare scheme, which is making a bit of difference. It's just months like this month that seem to cripple us, I don't get paid when DS is off sick, so all it seems to take is me losing three days off work with him to wipe out the tiny amount of savings we manage to makes (just to be clear DH is currently deployed, so childcare falls to me). I've had four days off this month already with him, so I'm already going to be in the red from pay day next month it's not the kind of job where I can make up hours either.

Sorry this sounds like such a pity party! Any ideas as to how I can boost my income a bit would be more than welcome seeing as UC doesn't seem likely.

You can still get UC with high wages if you had quite a few kids and high childcare and high rent . It's all about whether the total of all the elements you are entitled to are cancelled out by your wages ( which reduce it at 63p in the pound).