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 🙌🙌

Midlands England

The Work from Home Hub on Facebook has a post about finding term time, home working vacancies which could be worth a look? https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1FoRSQfKvn/

Yes OP with a disabled child you often need to accept that this is your full time job and anything else is a bonus. And yes, definitely be savvy in knowing how to crunch the numbers so you are staying under CA threshold but maximising UC work allowance and pension contributions. Also look into Help to Save account, government give you a 50% return after year 2 and 4, all you need to qualify is that you earned £1 in your previous AP.
Caring is often for the duration of a child's life, so very important not to burn yourself out thinking that you must work in order to "pay in". I very much see my paid work (approx 40 hours pcm) as my self care and the voluntary work I do is me "paying back".

Have you a children with disabilities social worker and have you had a carers assessment? Look at local offer short breaks online for your council and start asking what your dd can access eg holiday and after scholclubs for SEND or a one to one support . Look at what local charities offer as well for out of school. She is young now but some have wait lists so start investigating so you can have school holiday cover. Especally as she gets older and will benefit.
Join local parents forum and ask around what other kids access.
You can ask for direct payments to employ an assistant you choose.

Eg https://www.facebook.com/share/16YS8MG3di/

Works perfectly? So the cleaner is off in the holiday with zero income? How is that perfect!

Many cleaners are cash in hand or doing cleaning as they only need to work up to 16 hours per week. If you are on UC and have young DC they will reduce work comittments over the summer as they know it's very hard to find part time child care in summer months.

I wonder if, ultimately, training as a teacher might be a longer term goal. You have such excellent life experience. Teachers and other parents of disabled children would have more advice, but if you become a TA and look for opportunities to become a Higher Level TA, with lots of SEND experience, whether ultimately there might be options for you to do the full training, possibly to teach at a special school (not necessarily- just wondered if that might appeal). It would all take a long time - frankly, likely decades - but ultimately would lead to a decent pensionable career. Your teaching career might never look particularly ‘standard’ but would be amazingly valuable I think. Apologies to any teachers who are reading this with steam coming out thinking ‘that’s impossible!’

Just wanted to say that I think @Milbie’s post is one of the most amazing things I’ve read on here. And I’ve been here a long time.

Look for Remote Charity Jobs on Indeed and Charity Jobs websites.

You have a huge amount of transferrable skills as the parent of a SEND child and organisations will.value your expertise.

I didn't add my experience up as having career relevance - but it got me an unexpected new career 🙂

OU is no longer free for those on benefits unfortunately. OP could do an Access course with them for free (free for everyone with income under £25k) so that's definitely worth doing as it's a gentle broad intro back to studying. And they have Carer's Scholarships which cover full fees for a degree course if you're awarded one, but they only award10 per year (but 3 of those have to be for under-25s though).

Hi @StuckOrNot regarding UC - have you checked that you're getting the disabled child element and at the right amount? If your child is getting DLA higher rate care, this is £495.87pm. You mention Carer's Allowance (which is deducted in full from UC) but are you getting the 'carer element' of £201.68pm added to your UC?

If you don't routinely have a look at your UC payment statement, it's a good idea to do so. I work in this area and often see UC payments which are missing elements/ money and it's often the disabled child element and the carer element. If anything is missing, it needs adding and you may be entitled to backdated lump sums too.

https://contact.org.uk/help-for-families/information-advice-services/benefits-financial-help/universal-credit/backdating-of-the-disabled-child-addition-and-carer-element-of-universal-credit/

Because you've got a child and you rent, you're entitled to a UC work allowance of £411 pm - so if you earned just that every month, those earnings would have no effect on UC: you'd get the maximum UC you're entitled to. So it's only monthly earnings above £411 which will start to reduce your UC.

You can have savings of up to £16K and still receive UC. Whilst savings over £6k do reduce UC, they don't reduce it very drastically.

I just checked and I'm getting an allowance for a disabled child but it's £158 rather than the £495 you've said! I think it's based on middle rate care (which she used to be on a few years ago) rather than higher rate! Well that does change things! Another £337 a month would make a massive difference. Wow really good to check these things. Other than that I think it's right.

Ok so your DD has been on DLA high rate care for a number of years, but UC is only paying the lower disabled child element of £158.76? Amazing!

You're entitled to the higher rate of £495.87pm going forward but please make sure you get it backdated correctly too - you could be owed a few hundred pounds or thousands (depending on when your UC award began and the date when your DD became entitled to DLA high rate care)! See the contact link for more information about backdating.

I'm really pleased for you - as you said, the extra monthly amount will make a big difference and I'm sure any backdated lump sum would be really useful too!

This is a good point. You don't need Carer's Allowance to get the UC carer element. And the Carers Allowance does mean you have to keep a close eye on your earnings to prevent them going over the Carer's Allowance threshold. There are no earnings conditions affecting the carer element.

If this is in error you will be eligible for a back payment.

Contact welfare rights at your local authority as they can access your file, so a better than citizens advice.

She'll still be a carer (and entitled to UC carer element ) - so she'd still have all the carer protections in UC.

She just wouldn't get the separate Carer's Allowance benefit (which is deducted pound for pound from UC so of limited benefit)

Bank care job. You can choose your hours and work on a Saturday. It could open up other avenues such as nursing/AHP later on when she’s a bit older. Or go back to uni and do a healthcare degree, you should get a loan and £7k grant a year you don’t need to pay back, plus a childcare grant that covers 80% of childcare costs during the degree

Can you contact the cms? £100 is very low. He would be better working full time.

This is a good idea. I sometimes see shifts for 8-12, the bank have released 10am till 2pm shifts too. Options to do nights if your DDs father helps out more. Saturday you could do 7am till 8pm. Or 7am till 3pm.

If you join an education agency they can sometimes fit you into shorter days as supply until you find the right school. Financially is that any better money than your own business though and would you have enough time for that?
Your ex needs to step up big time in the holidays. Is he good with her? Id firm up he needs to do more of that.

Also have you asked school about short breaks and checked your sen local offer? There is stuff about it’s often just so hard to find.

Youre doing well op and you have a smart head on your shoulders. This is really hard.

Also make sure youre getting everything youre entitled to.

I’ve been on Mumsnet for over a decade and this is the most inspiring post I’ve ever read. Milbie you are extraordinary.

I know it's so frustrating, there's no reason he can't work full time except he's bone idle. If he worked full time and did a couple of school runs/helped more in holidays, it would massively benefit me! And him too - not sure how he's happy with earning so little with the capacity to do more. That's what really bugs me - I'm here trying to work as hard as I can and be clever about making the most of the time I do have while also caring for DD, meanwhile he CAN work more and chooses to be a bum. One of a million reasons we are no longer together. This man used to be proud of being a hard worker when we first met, but just got so lazy along the way smh

I agree this story really inspired me to keep trying even if it seems pointless. @Milbie you're amazing 💪💪 thank you so much for sharing your story and motivating us through the tough times

This alone is going to be such a game changer! Feel like a weight has been lifted, thank you so much for pointing this out. Actually mind blown.

Yes I work every Saturday at McDonald's. Plus extra in the school holidays. It works out well. They are pretty flexible.