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Original poster

Am I the only person in the country who didnt know about child benefit?!?!

53 replies

KimmyLB · 20/02/2019 23:16

Hello

I just found out today we could have been claiming £20 a week for my son who is almost 17 months old, and they can only backdate it 3 months.

I had previously checked on the stupid, unhelpful gov.uk website about our eligibility for benefits but we weren't eligible for anything as we arent a low income family. Not one midwife, health visitor, birth register official, friend, family member, ANYONE mentioned it to us. I'm so angry with myself for not knowing what everyone else just somehow seems to know for some reason. Why dont they give it to your automatically when you have a kid? Why dont they tell you? Apparently it is all in a bounty pack at the hospital. well I'd been awake for 2 days when i have birth and was so exhausted i couldnt walk to the toilet and then I had 5 days in hospital trying to get baby to breastfeed... so had more important concerns than reading through a bounty pack full of adverts!!

Anyway i just wondered if I'm the only one. I feel like such an idiot and we've lost out on £1000 which would have been very very helpful Sad

OP posts:
jinglebitch · 20/02/2019 23:22

Yes, I'm afraid you probably are! . It's been on the news a lot over the last 4 years or so, as they capped it; but aside from that my parents got it for me and I'm 47, so I knew about it from being a child. Used to be called Family Allowance?
Try not to beat yourself up about it, enjoy your baby boy.

Jenniferb21 · 20/02/2019 23:27

The lady who gave me my bounty pack told
me to make sure I claim it as she handed it to me. Aside from that I don’t think anyone mentioned it to me. I already knew about it but only because my mum told me about it ages ago.

Don’t beat yourself up there’s nothing you can do about it.

Enjoy your baby and see it as a little bonus now each month Smile xxx

GypsyRoseTea · 20/02/2019 23:29

If you aren’t low income you still might not be eligible

RebeccaCloud9 · 20/02/2019 23:30

Are you definitely eligible? We claim it (can't remember why but there is a reason!) but dh had to pay it back somehow through tax. Sorry that's vague! But as you said you're not a low income family, you may be earning too much anyway.

WatchingFromTheWings · 20/02/2019 23:30

You're not the only one! Someone posted on here last week saying the same thing. Her child was waaaaaaay older before she found out, 6 or 7 I think.

ineedaholidaynow · 20/02/2019 23:30

How much is your income? If one of you earns in excess of £50k there are rules about claiming it.

Boobiliboobiliboo · 20/02/2019 23:31

If you aren’t low income you still might not be eligible

Earning up to £50k covers most of the U.K. population.

WeAllKnowDave · 20/02/2019 23:32

Even if over £50k you should still claim it as it gives you a tick in the box for your national insurance/pension payments.

LifeBeginsNow · 20/02/2019 23:32

The other thing to watch out for is tax free childcare. Now I didn't know about that and I've lost our on a year and a halfs help. 20% of each months childcare could've been paid by the government and they wont backdate at all!

AdoraBell · 20/02/2019 23:37

No idea, but I knew about it from my mother and older siblings.

Now that it has changed, threshold imposed, I believe that if you are over the threshold you can still claim and it gets taken back via tax, but it pays your NI contribution while you are not working.

And you don’t need the Bounty pack for the form, you can get it from the Post office and you might be able to apply online now.

BackforGood · 20/02/2019 23:40

Well, I'd say you were in a tiny, tiny minority, yes.

If you aren’t low income you still might not be eligible

Child Benefit is for all, up to higher tax payer level, so it is available for hundreds of thousands of parents who aren't low earners.

AnnieAnt · 21/02/2019 00:04

I believe if one of you earns over £50k-ish, then that earner has to repay some/all of it. We stopped claiming a couple of years after the changes came in as I was having to put the payments aside so I could give them to DH to repay in his tax return.

I never had a bounty pack but knew about child benefit as it was a massive help to my parents and was reminded by community midwife, who I'm surprised didn't tell you (might be worth feeding this back to them).

I only continued to claim due to concern about being 'lost' in the system due to not working at the time. Having recently checked my pensions record, I have received credits in any event, as a carer of an under-18. I am working now but they had a record of me for those years when I didn't work/didn't claim child benefit.

Boobiliboobiliboo · 21/02/2019 06:39

Even if over £50k you should still claim it as it gives you a tick in the box for your national insurance/pension payments.

You only need that if you aren’t earning more than about £8k a year.

StealthPolarBear · 21/02/2019 06:41

"WeAllKnowDave

Even if over £50k you should still claim it as it gives you a tick in the box for your national insurance/pension payments."
If the op isn't working, surely?

CosmicCanary · 21/02/2019 06:55

Sorry OP I think you maybe the only one who didnt know.

Didnt your mum ever collect the family allowance from the post office?
This is my earliest memory of child benefit.
She had a payment book with our names in it and the post office master used to stamp it and pay her.

I am surprised the benefits checker didnt flag it up. I use all of them for work reasons and they all show CB alongside other benefits.
At least you know know and it is backdated 3 months so not all bad.

BlueEyedPersephone · 21/02/2019 07:02

If your partner earns over 40k you may not benefit as your partner would have to pay it back as tax. Talk to CAB they will confirm if this is the case

hugoagogo · 21/02/2019 07:07

I think no-one mentions it because it's assumed everyone knows about it.
Maybe that has changed a bit over the years as people get it paid into bank accounts and it no longer being universal.

Boobiliboobiliboo · 21/02/2019 07:07

If your partner earns over 40k you may not benefit as your partner would have to pay it back as tax.

It starts being repayable (tapered) if one party earns £50k and is completely repayable at £60k. Would take a very non-standard tax code to make it repayable at £40k income.

RuthW · 21/02/2019 07:10

Im 50 and remember my mum getting it. You were told. It was in your Bounty back.

StealthPolarBear · 21/02/2019 07:10

"
Today 07:02 BlueEyedPersephone

If your partner earns over 40k you may not benefit as your partner would have to pay it back as tax. Talk to CAB they will confirm if this is the case"
I think it's 50k and would also apply if the op earned that much too. I hate on these threads how the assumption is that the woman doesn't work or earns a pittance.

Panicmode1 · 21/02/2019 07:10

You should definitely register a claim, even if you don't receive the money. As a SAHM with a DH earning a big salary, I have registered years of pension credits for my state pension. You get credits until your youngest child is (I think) 12, so it's definitely worth doing, even if you have missed some months.

StealthPolarBear · 21/02/2019 07:12

And if you do work there is no benefit to registering if you aren't eligible for the money!

NotMyUsualTopBilling · 21/02/2019 07:21

We were given a "new baby" pack by the registrar when we registered both of my kids, this contained a few small gifts (lullaby cd, bedtime story sort of thing) and it had the child benefit forms in it.

I just assumed everyone got this!

anniehm · 21/02/2019 07:24

They give you the form at the hospital as part of your discharge information but it's not a health matter so it's not their responsibility to tell you about benefits. If one of you earns over £60k you don't get anything, if one of you earns £50k+ its reduced

Annandale · 21/02/2019 07:28

I'm a bit mystified how you could never have heard of it - It's on the news periodically. It's like never having heard of pensions! My mother used to tell me about lots of financial stuff, family allowance being one of them. She explained why it was the first and only benefit paid to mothers (Not any more of course). It fed me for many years.

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