Benefits and work?

[ilovechocolatebiscuits]

So my husband is leaving the army in July so we are just looking at our options. I've found a job for 25 hours a week (around £275-300 a week) and my husband has found full time but childcare is so expensive it makes sense for him to stay at home and look after our daughter. She is 1 and full time childcare is £1400 a month, if he works part time (16 hours) then we would only need to send her 3 mornings a week which is about £500 a month.

We have bought a shared ownership house which is around £400 a month mortgage and £400 a month rent plus £80 ground fees a month.

I put all these details into 'entitledto.com' and it said we would be entitled to £500 a week? Surely that can't be right?!

Someone help before I go insane!!

Hello! Assuming you're over 25 based on those figures you'd be entitled to about that per MONTH :) you'd be on universal credit so if you're paid by an employer weekly/four weekly budget accordingly as the 'periods' catch 5 and 2 paydays respectively which decreases your entitlement. If hubby worked too you'd be able to claim childcare costs but his earnings would be taken into consideration too.

If you want to check you could try a different calculator such as Turn2Us. But if you've put all the figures in correctly, it will be right.

On Universal Credit you will be entitled to:
Standard element (rate for couples assuming you're both 25+) £498.89
Child element £231.67
Housing element £400
Childcare element £425
Total £1555.56
And there will be a deduction for wages (but not pound for pound, you get to keep some of your wages). Assuming you are earning about £1770/month (net) between you, £287 will be disregarded (this is the "work allowance" for parents claiming the housing element), which leaves £1483. 63% of this will be deducted, £934.29.

So £1555.56 - £934.29 = £621.27 per month

This is higher than your figure so maybe one or both of you is under 25 or maybe you estimated higher wages than I did?

Thank you @AnotherEmma
We are both under 25, my husband won't be 25 until 2021 and I'm not 25 until 2024.

Ah, in that case the standard element is £395.20 and the total is £517.58 (monthly).

Don't get me started on how unfair it is that under 25s get less!

@AnotherEmma thank you so much for your help! And I agree, that is really unfair!!