Have just checked to see how much Child tax credit I would get If I left P....am shocked at how little....is this right?

[notanicepersonnow]

Have been weighing up options and have just checked out the CTC website to see roughly how much help i would get.

I earn about 20K a year, working p/t. Childcare bill is £600 per month.

Have no other income, I suppose p might pay child support but you cn never tell can you.

It gave me a figure of approx £100 per month, for goodness sakes!! So I earn 20K, take home about 1250 pm (after pension and tax is deducted etc), I will have to pay out 7K per year in childcare, well thats just totally impossible then isnt it.

Am totally totally despondent.

have you checked entitledto.co uk to see if you might get any other benefits and tax credits such as wtc? 20k is not an inconsiderable amount especially for pt hours - can you increase them perhaps ? Your P would presumably pay some maintenance too. Council Tax would be reduced if only one adult living there.

Hi LIZS

thanks for your reply! havent checked out the other website, will do.

I know 20K isn't a pittance but I will need to be able to pay rent, which on a two bed hs in my area is 500pm absolute minimum, even taking the recent fall into account. So if rent is 500pm and childcare 600pm I am a bit scuppered. Am sure that on my earnings i would not be entitled to much else. Am seriously worried. Going back f/t would be financially the only viable option but not until ds was approaching school age. Hmmmmm...

Is the figure they've given you for the whole year, or just until the end of the financial year (ie between now and April)?

If you have just put it oin the am i entitled bit and then pressed the do i qualify bit it only shows you thigure till apr so if it showed you 1200 (which would work out 100 a month if over year) you would actually get 600 cos it onlyshows it till end of financial year. Hope this is the case, we dont get much either.

Yes check the dates, if you used the HMRC website, the total figure it gives at the end is the ammount that would be due to you from today until 5/4/09. So you need to divide it by 8 to get your weekly figure

Oh thank you so much, that makes it much more feasable!!

You may also get housing benefits if you are renting, this will pay a sum towards your rent, you need to check your local council.

I would phone them rather than do it online tbh. They will be able to give you a rough estimate of what you will get a month for the year and then you will know.