Self employed benefits following surgery

[shouldhavecalleditoatabix]

I'm not sure if I'm posting in the right place but after some advice. DP and I have always worked so never had to make any kind of claim for benefits. DP has a physical job and is self employed. I have a comfortable income of circa 40k. DP tops up household income but is not the main earner. He hurt his back at the beginning of this year and has been told he needs back surgery which is fairly significant (herniated disc and stenosis of the spine) and will render him unable to work manually for around 3 months (assuming everything goes well). On my salary alone we can just about survive but it will be very tight. We aren't big spenders and don't have a lot of debt (recent credit card with balance of 2500 due to house move)

Things have unfortunately come at the wrong time. We bought a house (our first home) two months ago and are installing new heating/ wiring etc so this year is costing us more than normal. We have exhausted our savings on the move and these investments so we don't have our normal buffer.

In reality, DP is likely to be offered the operation within 9 months so we do have some time to plan however there are certain things we need to do in the house to make it habitable and we are currently paying rent on top of mortgage so the work has to be done so we can move in hence we will not be able to save much over the next few weeks or months.

DP does not have insurance that would cover planned surgery (yes I know) so he has no scope there. Would we qualify for any financial assistance or benefits for the period he is unable to work?

Benefits tend to be based on household income so you may not qualify due to your salary

Could look into ESA

www.gov.uk/employment-support-allowance

@dementedpixie

Could look into ESA

Yes maybe ESA? But only contribution based not income based.....it’s just under £75 a week

Likely to just be ESA at £74 p/w. As long as he’s paid enough NI in the last 2/3 years.

New-style ESA. He's likely to be eligible if he paid NI contributions throughout the tax years 2018-19 and 2019-20. It's not much though; £74.35/week.

How long will you be paying both mortgage and rent? I assume you are making your new house habitable as quickly as possible so you can move in and stop paying rent?

@AnotherEmma we are doing it as fast as we can so yes we are looking at 2 months max from now. It's our doing in many ways and I am not complaining at all. I really just wanted to know what help is out there. If it was me (Employed PAYE) we would be fine as I get full sick pay for 6 months. There is such a huge discrepancy with self employed. Because we have been fortunate enough to never need it, the benefit system is completely alien to me.

Your post comes across a bit defensive but I wasn't criticising at all.

The reason I ask is that if you only have 2 months left of paying rent, you will then have more money to play with, and can save hard in the run up to his operation.

It's true that there is very little financial support for self-employed people so you do have to factor in things like insurance and savings into your budgeting if you can (not easy if you have just bought a house!) Definitely something to look into when he's recovered from the op:

www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/personal-insurance-when-youre-self-employed

Also look at MoneySavingExpert for some good advice on how to reduce all your outgoings and make sure you are paying no (or as low as possible) interest on your credit card debt.

This might be helpful too www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/tools/budget-planner

@AnotherEmma apologies if I came across defensive. I wasn't actually feeling that when I responded so I think I probably just lost the tone in translation. I'm grateful to you for responding so thanks. You are of course right that once we stop paying double bills it will make a significant difference. In truth we don't earn enough to carry on paying both but we had some savings plus a small cash back amount from the mortgage which has covered these 2 months. We won't actually be much better off financially when we've moved, we will just have no savings again. Especially once we pay for the new boiler! I

But yes, the reality is we need to start planning for loss of income ASAP as we know it is coming.