New job & carers allowance

[Sprogonthetyne]

I've been a full time carer for the last few years but after some improvements in DS I have been able to find a part time job that fits round his needs. The pay works out at £175/week, which is over the £132 you can make before losing carers allowance. However I could potentially still qualify if I ofset my earnings against some of the allowable expenses.

In this situation which of the following would you do?

A. Just accept losing CA, anything else would be playing the system (take home £175)

B. Increase childcare by £45, so still get CA (take home 175-45+69=£199)

C. Make £90 pension contributions, which are 50% deductible & keep CA (175-90+69=154 but also improve pension, which is currently quite poor)

Pension one sounds best for you long term. Do you need childcare?

Pension for sure.

We'd need some, but could cover it for free if we claim 30 hours. For option B. we would just use the universal 15h and pay for 1 day so the bill would be £45/week.

Pension

If this is an opportunity to improve your pension provision that sounds wise.

Thank you for the response. To be honest I was leaning towards the pension option, as it has been entirely neglected while I've been at home for the past few years, but was worried everyone would be horrified that I was even thinking of working the system like that.

C seems very sensible.