How do I get out of being skint the rest of my life?? Disabled child, single mother

[StuckOrNot]

Hello lovely people, I could really do with some help!!

My DD (6) has a disability, her father and I were married but divorced when she was 3. Unfortunately, he was absolutely useless and offered no support, I was caring for 2 children essentially and lost all respect for him, so chose to split. Best decision of my life I feel, my life is much easier now that I am not in a relationship with the lazy git, but I have realised financially, I am fairly screwed?? Please help me to make a plan to not be skint the rest of my life!

Due to my daughter being disabled, she goes to a special school. The school day is 8.45am-2.45pm. There is no wrap around club, no holiday club. At all. Child's father works the most annoying job - a split shift meaning he only works part time (only gives me £100/month child support) and yet can NEVER do a school run. He is still living with family since we split. He also never wants to have her any extra in the holidays. He does have her every Saturday. I am at my wits end because how on earth am I meant to get a job around these hours?? I have been working self employed, trying to run my own small business for the past 3 years but I'm only managing to make £400 a month on average and obviously, not being employed, I'm not getting any paid holiday or pension contributions from an employer. Also my earnings are irregular and this sometimes throws my UC off and some months I am worse off than if I was not working at all - overall there is very little gain. I am 30 and am really starting to panic about retirement. I know it's a long way off, but my daughter may need to live with me through her adult life and I am not sure how I am supposed to work around this. Even if I get a job within the short school day, I am stuck when it comes to the holidays. My parents are unfortunately not in the best health the last couple of years and my siblings live too far away (and work full time anyway) so can't help either.

I don't own my own home either (me and ex-husband were saving to buy but didn't manage it before splitting and all savings went in the divorce essentially), so again am quite worried about what retirement will look like for me. I am currently on universal credit and carer's allowance, while my daughter gets DLA. I am managing month to month, being frugal (don't have a car, cheap rent atm, no subsciptions etc.) but long term, I have no idea what to do. Is this just my life now? I just don't want to accept this is it. I feel like I'm fairly clever/capable and would be more than happy to work, but just feel so stuck. Please help give me some inspiration - even if it's a very long term slow plan! Thank you 🙌🙌

So true. It’s such a joke. In any case my friend is luckier than most because he can’t get a ccj and still keep his career. So she basically just uses a solicitor when he messes up contact / child support, invoices him for the solicitor costs & threatens him with ccjs if he doesn’t pay.

Op sorry if you said it but what is your business? I honestly think that might be the best way to go

I'm in a similar situation RE working hours to fit around a disabled child. I need to go back to work soon and I'm essentially pinning all my hopes on being able to get a TA or support position at the same school my disabled child attends. I can't see any other way to make a half decent living where I can be around before/after school and all of the holidays. I wouldn't be able to magically teleport to a job at another school at 8am and still drop him at his school at 8:45am. Or pick him up at 3:15pm and still be working at another school at 3:30pm. So it literally has got to be a TA job at his school.
For us, this is by far the biggest impact on our family of having a disabled child. The money we spend on changes to our home, equipment, therapies, psychologists, consultants, specialist clubs and activities etc absolutely pales into insignificance compared to the loss of my career.

Sen childminding? Just thinking, could you care for a child after school with needs similar to your daughter?

This is pretty much my situation. I am lucky in that work haven't kicked up a stink yet, but I will probably be dropping down to 15 hours in the new year so i can claim carers, and I know it is going to cause problems. The main issue I will have is potentially in September his days at college will change, and I'll need to swap days again. It's really rough trying to balance the two. I'm not sure how much gaps on my CV will matter, as essentially this isn't going to change. No idea what will happen once he gets to 25 and doesn't have the right to stay in education, but I guess that you just have to take it as it comes.

TA work is often advertised as ‘full time’ as this is their ideal but very often schools struggle to find people (as very often the best TAs do it because they have caring responsibilities elsewhere) so it’s always work asking about PT - especially as you have Nursery and SEN experience

@StuckOrNot it’s a long thread so I don’t remember everything I’ve read here - but is it correct that you have no qualifications beyond GCSE? If that’s the case then there’s your answer.

Make use of whatever time you have to get on to an Access course. You could progress from that to a degree, whether online or part time. Contact your local college and find out what’s available to you. If your business makes a billion dollars next year that’s great - but you do really need knowledge and qualifications to compete day to day - even to get a TA post.

I suspect looking after two kids with high needs would be impossible with only one adult and you wouldn't be able to charge enough to make it worthwhile. It would have to be about £20 an hour to cover your costs and time.

Sorry if I missed this but whereabouts in the country are you OP?

Hi everyone sorry I haven't had time to reply to everyone today. This thread has been really helpful and given me a number of options to consider which my burnt out brain was too fried to do alone, so massive thank you to everyone for all your ideas. Given my own skills/experience/personality, part time TA is the idea that stands out the most, which I can keep an eye out for jobs and in the meantime try and do some training for to help me be a better candidate when applying. I think long term if I do bits of training e.g. specialise in SEND, that's probably my best bet at getting a better hourly rate over the years to come too. Also I guess there will be some sort of pension option which I've been quite worried about. Thank you all for your understanding as well and solidarity to all those of you going through something similar!

I'm very sorry for the position you're in. I have some experience in this so know to an extent how you feel and am sending my best wishes for what it's worth xx
Given you say you're looking at long term - could u look into part time courses to gain some qualifications while your daughter is at school? This would open up a wider range of options and opportunities for you in terms of work and hours. You should also look into any respite services that may be provided, I'm in Ireland so unsure where exactly to look in the UK but I'd say the NHS is a good start and charities. Charities may also have people on board that would be experienced in child minding. Best of luck xx

Have a look at the OU - they do scholarships for carers where they will fund all the tuition costs of your degree. All OU courses are part time (even if you study the equivalent of ft credits) so UC isn't affected. It's a long game but with potentially much better scope for higher wages than going directly for a job now.

Make sure you understand the rules around Carer's Allowance, UC and working. I've been able to optimise a pt salary, UC and Carer's Allowance by paying a big chunk into my pension (as CA disregard 50% of pension contributions when working out the maximum earnings).

In the same position OP, my ds has now left school and requires more care now as he is at home FT. I haven't worked since before he was born, but I've done lots of volunteering, post grad qualifications and any free training that comes my way I always avail of it.
As a carer on UC you have no work comittments and a work allowance of £411 per month if you have housing costs, it's just over £600 if you don't. This is so much better than income support, which allowed you to earn £20 a week. You can earn approx £180ish a week on CA, so avail of this 'free' money and do anything in the meantime that suits your hours.

Oh this is really helpful, thank you. Can you explain what you mean about pension contributions please? would it be smartest to stay a little below the CA threshold, still get UC and then do what pension wise? I've started paying into a sipp - am I meant to be telling CA about this? Or do they just go off pay slips?

This sounds like what I need to do, thank you. Got to make the best of it and just take what comes up when it does! And train/study in the meantime. It does feel like I'm best off earning just below the threshold for CA, since the second you go over that you lose the whole allowance (all those stories of backdated overpayments terrify me!!) I think I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to work as much as possible because I don't want to feel like a dosser, but it's just leaving me exhausted. Maybe I just need to accept I will work 2-3 days and allow myself the other days she's in school for housework, plus rest and seeing a friend now and again (not had much time for that lately). Thinking more about squirrelling a bit more into pension if it looks unlikely I'll ever be able to save to buy a house. Thank you everyone 🙌

I feel for you. I like your attitude of just going with the flow to an extent - it's hard to give up on dreams and ambitions but we have to be realistic I suppose and look after ourselves! Hope you're okay and finding a meaningful balance. It's a long road with SEN kids I feel, they could go on to assisted living or similar one day, but who knows, might be further down the line. Hope it all works out for you.

It's the mental side of it too isn't it - I know there is so much I could do, would love to use my brain more and help to feel I'm doing my bit to contribute but we are just stuck. I hope you find the perfect TA job!! Sounds like you've got a really practical plan (which I think I'm going to copy!) xx

I could only ever run my own business. I tried a bunch of the usual ones and then settled on niche professional service for academics (basically doing some grunt research work) which kept me going for ten years.

Once my son was an adult in 24 hour care in his own home I retrained.

In your shoes I would be looking at something g you can do from home and ideally set hours. So think remote working. For a while I had a great job teaching remotely - back in the very early days of the internet. There should be more options now and you may be able to retrain into a remote job.

If artistic /into beauty could you do something like a nail tech? That’s a great home business.

I was looking back the other day and wondering whether I would have been better off just not bothering to try and collecting Carer’s Allowance instead. Are you getting the rate of DLA etc that you are entitled to? Does your daughter get school transport?

I was able to find odd bits of childcare at times but it was difficult.

Open University free if you're on benefits. I did OU when kids were younger (also on CA).

I was despairing about returning to work after more than a decade out of the workplace. I applied for a job in the civil service and my job is part time, term time only and flexi hours between 7 am and 7 pm.

Above average pay and generous pension which you could pay extra into, thus avoiding more tax. You'd need to check this but I think if the CA £180 earnings limit doesn't include pension you could whack huge amounts into your pension and still be eligible.

In addition to term time working I also get annual leave too 🙂

If you have enough energy you could work part time (not every day though to avoid burnout) and do OU in evenings, depending on funding availability.

if you have a TA background - and could potentially get back into this, I’d look at training as a dyslexia assessor or teacher. It will be a long road and will involve ££ initially. But you could offer the assessment part whilst daughter at school and you can write up any time, evenings etc.
SEN advisor - ive had apt for help with tribunal and EHCP at night - so you could work when daughter in bed.

I also work from home and have reasonable adjustments for my caring duties and my own disability 🙂

This is amazing! Great to hear such a positive story. So happy for you that you got something that works so well around the time you have availabile

This is such a useful thread. Thanks for starting it op. Hoping more people pop in to share their stories of being able to work wkth a disabled child because I am currently unemployed and working out what direction to attempt to head in next. The pension info is very useful.

I put Carer on my CV to cover all the time I wasn't in paid employment. Unpaid work is work.

You could be an advocate for other SEN families - lived experience is what the organisations look for. By the nature of the job you could get flexi hours etc.

What part of the country are you in @StuckOrNot