Not eligible for benefits but struggling, what do we do?

[Nomoneyleft9743]

This is a lesson to always live well within your means.
My husband has had a good career for 15 years in senior management travelling across the world etc. His pay was enough to enable me to be a sahm raising our children and we bought a large home . We lived comfortably and could save a bit but not a huge amount (1st mistake)
Unfortunately my husband became very poorly and has been off work for 5 years now. He is still employed by the company but wont be going back anytime soon. They have been amazing and luckily for us they had group payment protection insurance so they were able to continue paying him 50% of his wage.
This was not enough for us to live on due to our large bills . We have never been frivolous, buy our clothes off vinted, no cars on finance etc. We reduced all unnecessary bills down . No holidays etc
I went back to work but due to me being off so long I could only get a minimum wage job. This has seen us through just about ok.
Now on top of everything else I have become disabled and cant work myself .I've had to leave. I am eligible and I am claiming high rate pip . This isn't even half of my previous wage.
We have 2 teenage children who need a lot of things paying for. Over the 5 years we have depleted our savings down to nothing and are now struggling . Our only option is to downsize our home but that cant happen overnight, due to the lengthy selling process.
We are not eligible for universal credit as earn over the threshold. I've got two kids at high school who want school dinners like their friends. That alone is £200 a month (£5 a day) and I can't pay it . I can hardly afford to buy us food . Is there any help for people in our situation?

Why an earth do you have two cars if both not working and disabled? Get rid of one you dont need two.
get rid of the school dinners, its just tough. Kids can bring in packed lunches.
giffgaff do really good deals for phones, i pay £10 a month for one of mine and its unlimited calls/texts/data.

Also go through the house room by room, turn off heat in rooms not used. Plug out all items in those rooms etc. I would say that’s quite a high energy bill.

Can you downsize to a point where you would be mortgage free?
We are well off I would say and I insist my DC take a packed lunch! Neither DH or I buy lunch out much either. It is healthier and far cheaper to take a lunch with you.

Could you drive kids into school? That would also save you money.

Why do you have two cars?
Definitely cancel school lunches.
Are teenagers old enough to get jobs, even babysitting?
If neither of you are working surely you can claim UC?
Review your menus - plan for the week and batch cook. Cut out meat and eat pasta, beans and rice, jacket potatoes. Years ago people used to serve bread and butter with a meal to fill every one up.

Sadly, you have to sit your teenagers down and explain the financial situation to them. We always made our situation clear to our DC and someone in our family has had to cut back quite severely and made the issue clear to their DC.

My son told me off for keep turning my tv off at the wall, he said you shouldn’t as it needs to do updates, a smart tv.

So it can do the updates when turned back on. Not a disaster.

Obviously you need to sell and downsize.

i’m disabled and I have had to.

in the meantime:

sell a car
phones are far too much, there’s cheaper deals out there
get a lodger
tell your teens if they want school dinners they need to pay for them themselves - Saturday job or babysitting or the like

One thing I have noticed on here lately is that people struggling financially somehow feel embarrassed about expensive school related things and not providing it. There was a thread about an expensive school trip too.

Honestly, we are not hard up, but a lot of the stuff the schools demand is bad value and we just do not give in to it (eg expensive pointless school trips that we can provide cheaper) or school lunches provided by an external business aiming to profit. You need to develop the confidence to say no. Your circumstances have changed. It is far better for your DC to have happy less stressed parents and live in a small home with a lovingly prepared homemade lunch. People with money have the confidence to make these choices. Often people who do not or have lost money or have generational poverty do not. You are not failing your DC, you are going to be fine, you can all just adjust. You have each other.

Yeah I came on to say the husband should try for PIP also. It's not a means tested or out of work benefit, so the fact he's still technically employed shouldn't affect eligibility. That's an extra £500 or something a month?

Move the phones to cheap payg/sim only plans as soon as you can and keep your existing handsets. See what has a good signal in your area, but you could get a plan costing £5-10 per phone. If you both adults are largely housebound, you don't need tons of data as you can use wifi. We pay £35 a month for 6 phones and no one uses their whole included allowance.

Lose a car. Consider driving the DC to school if it is not walkable. Since neither of you are working you should be able to manage it between you. This is not just moneysaving, but probably time saving for the kids and I do find being in the car is a good time for teens to chat to you. Not sure what laptop rental is. Would it be cheaper to buy a cheap laptop, or is it some cunning "compulsory" moneymaking ruse by the school?

Health/disability permitting, you are currently money poor but time rich. So look at your spending through that lens. Do things yourself instead of paying others to do them for you. When you are well, batch cook for the freezer. Plan your meals and get your food costs down. Look out for bargains and stock up on things you will definitely use. Lose the school dinners - it's a staggering amount of money compared to your household budget and your general food budget. Teens will no doubt despair and claim it's some sort of human rights abuse, but that's a rite of passage you are allowing them to enjoy and they can always earn the money to pay for it themselves.

Agree with husband trying to claim pip, and also carers allowance, as your carer. Have another look at universal credit. While your income would cancel out any payment on standard allowance, you should be entitled to LCWRA, and possibly carers element, which could make your entitlement high enough that there is still some left after income deduction (I'm not an expert, but worth looking into).

The kids will just have to suck up taking a packed lunch, it's not that bigger deal and they should be old enough to understand why.

Has your husband applied for PIP?
Have you actually applied for UC? As seems you probably are eligible
Is anyone getting carers allowance?
Did you extend your mortgage already?
Your phones and energy and school dinners etc are quite expensive
You need to list all your income and all your expenditure.

I'm so sorry 😞 I understand how terrible and terrifying it is when health problems hit you unexpectedly. I've had a neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia that was caused by some prescribed off label antipsychotic after a head injury gave me a breakdown, and I never thought it would happen to me 😢

Life, and heslth are so very precious. You take health for granted until it goes wrong.

As PP have said, you probably need to downsize, cut your cloth, and reduce outgoings loads (which you are doing). Hopefully someone else will have good advice.

Sending hugs to you and your family.💜

I think it's important to bear in mind that preparing and cooking food can be very challenging, if not impossible, for some disabled people. We don't know the level of disability the OP and her husband have, so certain suggestions mightn't be taking that into account.

Do either of you have serious walking issues? If so you can apply for the motorbility part of pip. That's virtually the whole cost of one car paid for. If you can do without the other car that's a massive saving. If you both have walking issues you may both qualify but I don't know anything about that part.

If one of you claims pip the other should be claiming careers allowance, that’s an additional £300 a month there. Then get your husband to apply for pip too then the other claims carers allowance for them, that’s an additional £500 for pip and £300 each for carers allowance, surly that helps?

Depends on what they claim pip for, cant contradict i.e both say they need help getting dressed, but both then claim carers to help the other get dressed.

I would have thought this too…it’s too contradictory to do this on so many levels…doesn’t mean it can’t be done probably knowing how things work though.

I would have thought this too…it’s too contradictory to do this on so many levels…doesn’t mean it can’t be done probably knowing how things work though.

Talk to your mortgage provider - tell them you are struggling and plan to downsize to make life easier and see if they will give you a break while you sell. That may help reduce your energy costs also let your children know / can they share a room ? How small can you go?

Check what they will let you borrow in the current circs or will you be able to buy with your equity ?

your food bill ( I assume that includes household goods? Alcohol?) is high especially with school dinners. Target 400. Lots of veggie food. lots of cheap recipes around.

Lose a car
Food bill can be reduced
Do packed lunches for school

It works if one is physically disabled and the other needs social/mental help like budgeting, socialising, reminders about hyigene etc but doesnt work if both physically disabled.

Fair enough I suppose that makes sense yes!

Definitely scrap the school lunches.
You can get a packet of ham for 90p, Wholemeal bread for 55p, 6 packets of crisps for 85p at Tescos… plus spread for sandwiches and a piece of fruit…. Add a morning snack too, but that’s so much cheaper! Even if you want to add a carton of juice. Ridiculous to be paying that much for lunches when you’re not made of money.

Our food is £100 per week maximum as a family of 6, including cleaning stuff. Out of necessity. Would I love to spend an extra £200 a month? Absolutely. I dream of salmon! But we can’t so there we go.

You don’t need 2 cars. Why aren’t one of you driving them when either of you work, that’ll save on bus fares too?
So much unnecessary expenditure and choices yet crying poverty!