JSA (IB) refused - Rental income too much, yet no money to live on! Advice welcomed.

briona

Hi again!

Have you looked at the local Gumtree sites for jobs? There’s one for both Bristol and Bath. Beware as not all of the jobs are genuine but there may be something that’s worth a look

http://bath.gumtree.com/
http://bristol.gumtree.com/

Also, have you tried making greetings cards? Being in the Bath/Bristol area, there are loads of nice shops that may be willing to sell some cards for you for a small cut. The cards could be made quite cheaply. I’m thinking a nice photo – landscapes, flowers, kittens, cakes (!) etc – glued onto a piece of card. You could pick up some pre-creased card from various online stores, or from a specialist art shop, along with appropriate sized envelopes. You can even buy cellophane bags to package the cards in.

As an example from the links below, 50 5x7” cards and envelopes cost £8.70, making the unit cost a mere 17.5p. 100 cellophane bags (138x186mm – approximately 5x7”) cost £4.88, giving a unit price of around 5p. Add to that the cost of reproducing a few photos (approx. from 7-10p each from online retailers like Snapfish or Photobox) and you could produce cards for less than 35p each. At that cost you could sell them to the shop for around £2 allowing them to mark up to £3, which still keeps the cards affordable. You won’t get rich doing it, but a few pounds here and there may tide you over in leaner times.

http://www.liz-craft.co.uk/card-making-scrapbooking-catshow/cardblanks-white-5x7.html
http://www.liz-craft.co.uk/cellophane-bags.html

Still working on finding some art leads for you!

Briona

EdInvestor

I can see the reason for the BTL mortgage, though it's not a typical BTL - it's because she has no income: owner occupier mortgages require an income.

If you can't get a job, isn't the student loan scheme the normal source of cash?

LizzieS_2

EdInvestor wrote: »

I can see the reason for the BTL mortgage, though it's not a typical BTL - it's because she has no income: owner occupier mortgages require an income.

If you can't get a job, isn't the student loan scheme the normal source of cash?

I was thinking along the same lines:

High Street - no good as then p/t salary would not cover mortgage on its own.

Self-cert mortgage - could account for rental income there, but the mortgage rate is likely to be higher than the remaining BTL option.

p1an0player

briona wrote: »

mark up to £3, which still keeps the cards affordable.

ouch, a card costing more than half the hourly minimum wage?

KoalaElf

EdInvestor wrote: »

I can see the reason for the BTL mortgage, though it's not a typical BTL - it's because she has no income: owner occupier mortgages require an income.

If you can't get a job, isn't the student loan scheme the normal source of cash?

I guess that is the reason I was offered a BTL mortgage - having read various bleurb online I remember that I wasn't surprised to be offered a BTL, which means I never really questioned their decision.

I am not a student anymore so a student loan is not a possibility. [I have spent it all on house renovations and maintenance]

Ive just had another terrifying thought - when my student loan comes up for repayment in April, my rental income will presumeably be again classed as part of my overall income. Which means I can only earn £1560p/a before I reach the £15000p/a threshold for paying back my student loan. [i.e. if you don't earn over £15,000 you don't have to pay it back - i think it even gets written off after several years - crazy eh?!]

I thinking im going to try and set up as a B&B or something, or see if I can rent elsewhere and become definitively classed as self-employed. Otherwise it's as though my income is paying for other people to live off me [I pay all their bills and so on!] I don't mind my own income that I can spend on my own living costs means I have to repay my student loan - but if all of that income goes on paying for the tenants part of the bills, it hardly seems fair when you rationalise it. Does anyone see where I am coming from?!

LizzieS_2

KoalaElf wrote: »

Does anyone see where I am coming from?!

Not really, the house is about the size a single person would buy anyway (2 bedrooms), so in effect the tenants are helping you out.

flossy_splodge

Have you thought about going to an Agency and asking them to look at your CV.
No disrespect but 'careers officers' are often out of touch.
My Agency now has permission from me to use or not the info I supplied on my Cv as they seem to be able to judge way better than me what is required and I do actually end up getting work!:T
Just a thought. Good Luck

KoalaElf wrote: »

Yeh - got all excited when I saw a position advertised for a Art / Photography technician at a local school, but I didnt' even get offered an interview! [I've had my uni's career department look at my CV and they can't see a problem with it]

Yeh - I think i might try out the volunteering thing, it would help my confidence I suspect. :j

Thanks for the suggestion.

KoalaElf

LizzieS wrote: »

Not really, the house is about the size a single person would buy anyway (2 bedrooms), so in effect the tenants are helping you out.

I don't quite see how. They all consume more electricity than me, since they are not so concious about the bills. They all have several consoles, computers huge LCD TVs in their rooms, and always forget to turn the lights off no matter how much i remind them!

I would simply wear several jumpers if it was me but I cannot turn the heating off all the time if I have tenants here. I also have to pay yearly gas checks, credit checks, advertising fees, landlords insurance, a faster internet package than I would have for my own use, TV license for each room [that is now included since TV licensing tried to fine me for other people not having licenses last year], extra maintanence costs because tenants simply don't look after the place as well as I would on my own [I have had to get a plumber out several times because of blockages I was not able to deal with and a tap that people kept tightening to the point it broke].

I could of course not do the rent all inclusive - the problem with that being I may end up in the same position I did before - with everyone 'unable' [or not willing] to pay their share of the bills, and me, as the homeowner being held responsible.

Anyway this house is somewhere between a 2 and a 3 bed [depending on how generous the estate agents are being], with two reception rooms - this is wayyyyy bigger than i need for myself. Only 3 years ago I lived in a studio flat the same size as my bedroom with another person. A studio flat in this area can be had for £120k at a rough guess. If I had bought that with my deposit of 100k, then I would be paying just over £100p/m mortgage interest [and that is assuming I was still on this BTL interest rate of 6.69% which would be unlikely if I was the only person living there - I suspect they would offer me a residential mortgage at a lower rate]

This would of course be *much* more manageable and my bills would be tiny in comparison [I have calculated something in the region of £150 at most] When viewied in that light my tenants are doing anything but helping the situation!

KoalaElf

flossy_splodge wrote: »

Have you thought about going to an Agency and asking them to look at your CV.
No disrespect but 'careers officers' are often out of touch.
My Agency now has permission from me to use or not the info I supplied on my Cv as they seem to be able to judge way better than me what is required and I do actually end up getting work!:T
Just a thought. Good Luck

I take it you mean a jobs/temp agency? [sorry if that sounds silly, but there may be some CV agency somewhere I haven't heard of or something!] The temp agencies I have been to seem overworked and not terribly helpful about that kind of thing. Maybe I went to the wrong ones or something ^^

And thankyou for wishing me luck.

foxxymynx

KoalaElf wrote: »

@ briona : Your suggestions are all greatly appreciated and sensible. I graduated in Fine Art [yes i know - eek!] and I am attempting to get started in the photography industry since that is the most 'commercial' skill I have acquired on my course. It is not an easy thing to get into - like any creative industry it requires networking and potentially working for free at first.

Just a suggestion (I know that it'll only make a small difference for the time being) but could you sell prints on ebay of some of your work? Maybe try local shops too. Snapfish are cheap with getting prints, you own the copyrite, sell a few prints, a few framed prints etc etc Set up a website with them too (watermark all pictures that go on the internet though ) offer your services as a photographer on the same site etc. I'm sure there's grants that you can get from somewhere to start your own business too, so if it turned out sucessful, there's good opertunities for you.

Good Luck