Universal credit whilst on maternity leave?

[MissLux]

Hi ladies 💐

I’m expecting my first baby in 3 months and before I found out i was pregnant i never really knew much about the maternity part after the birth of the baby.
Was mostly baffled about the figure you're supposed to live on, pay bills and raise a baby whilst on maternity leave when I spoke to HR.
Employers are basically low key trying to put nee mums back to work as not many people would be fortunate enough their husbands compensating for the loss of (almost a whole!) salary..

Anyway, rant about that aside, my actual question is am I entitled to claim UC after my baby is born until I get back to work ?

Im contracted on 37.5hrs a week (Work for the NHS emergency services - shift work)
Never claimed any type of benefits. My salary is ok usually but maternity pay will only cover like 2/3 of my rent.. How do you survive on that?!

Thank you in advance ❤️

The assessment period is based on the days of the month I.e. 30-31 or 28 like in Feb
so if yours starts on the 1st for example, it’s always till the last date of the month

So with the weekly wages is a bit different because some months have 5 weeks and it’s a mess.

im paid monthly from work so it’s very straightforward but in your case it would be a headache but I would still suggest the 1st if I’m honest (or the 2nd if on weekly wages)

once or twice a year (because of the 5 week months) what will happen is HMRC will have more wages reported and that will decrease your UC for that month but nothing you can do about it unfortunately

unless you change your wages to monthly. that’s all about you can do to help the situation

so bear all that in mind.

I wrote a message a year ago and I completely forgot about this plan:(

I didn’t claim any uc as thought I wouldn’t be able to, ended up borrowing from others to get by and a bit of rainy day savings.

now feeling really bad as my mat leave has now ended

Thanks everyone for any advice.
I’ll have 1 month paid leave, after baby due- I’ll have my maternity payments.
Im living in rented accommodation ( room in shared house).
when is the best time to apply for UC and house benefit? (What max amount of incomings (maternity payment) acceptable? ( as single parent)

@DianaL you’re best off starting a new thread

Hi congrats first of all

there is no income threshold per se as it’s all dependant on what you are entitled to.
How they calculate it is that Your income gets deducted from your entitlement and what’s left is yours to keep. There’s a bit more to The calculation but that’s the simple gist of it.

if suggest you apply on the 1st of the month as it’s easier to keep track of everything but again it all depends on what your situation is (I.e How and when you get paid from work, when your bills come out, etc)

I applied on the 1st of the month and my assessment period is 1-31 and I get paid from UC on the 7th.

If you choose to apply for example on 25th - your assessment period would be 25th-24th and you would get paid on or around 30th-1st of the month.
hope that makes sense
PS Housing benefit is included in UC as an element and you can’t apply for it separately. It’s all bundled up together in one UC payment