Living on £110 a month

jenny22_2

hi all,
im just wondering if anyone could help think of some way to get a bit of extra money. i'll explain why.

im a married woman who lives with her parents. my husbabd lives with his parents. i also have a 1 year old daughter who live with me. the reason we live like we do is because we have £110 a month for the 3 of us to live on and this money is from child benifit and tax credits.

my other half works but has to travel so we end up using his wages to pay for the car, insurance, petrol and other bills.
he has tried several times to get work in the town we live in but there is nothing.
i have tried looking for work but with the wages id be getting we would not be any better off as it would all have to go on child care.
the other problem is im not entitle to any other benefits coz im married.

if anyone has any ideas at all no matter how small or silly they sound i will read them and seriously consider as we all want to be together and be out of the red.

shazzer22

Hello, that amount does seem very small? Have you checked that you are receiving the rights benefits? I might be wong but I'm sure you should be entitled to more?

Can you post your SOA on here and I'm sure that someone will come up with lots of tips/understand your situation a bit better

dinkylou

Sorry to hear about your situation.

Have you tried getting on the list for a council house?

jenny22_2

hi dinkylou.

we have been on our local councils housing list of 18 months and its looking like its going to be at least another 18 months before we are likely to be offeed anywhere.

jenny22_2

hi shazzer22

what is SOA? sorry for being a bit thick but im fairly new to money saver

lynzpower

Well, thats not strictly true Jenny, altho its a common misconception - prob given to you by your housing department .

If your mother or father writes a letter to the housing dept ( giving you the letter, you take it down there) saying that they are no longer willing to have you and your little un living there, and that they will be evicting you onto the streets in 7 days. Give that letter to the housing officer, and make a request for temporary accomodation. By law no housing dept is allowed to place mother and child in a hostel or B&B for more than 6 weeks, after this date you will get moved to a self-contained flat. you may need to move again, but it wil be furnished.

Where abouts are you living?

Do post an SOA? Are you getting any benefits for yourself AT ALL?

lynzpower

Statement of Affairs have a noise round the site there is a linky somewhere at the top of this page.

Its basically a list of your incomings and outgoings ( and if you have debts, what the interest rates are, what your paying a month, how much left etc)

bizzy_lizzie

lynzpower wrote:

By law no housing dept is allowed to place mother and child in a hostel or B&B for more than 6 weeks, after this date you will get moved to a self-contained flat. you may need to move again, but it wil be furnished.

QUOTE]

I thought this had all changed a couple of years back. You only get 28 days accomodation from the council no matter what the circumstances are nowadays as far as i am aware. I do know you get extra points though ( which means higher up the list) if you are having to live apart from your partner.

Good luck.

BL

Just checked with housing advice & I am wrong - Its illegal for a child to be homeless but unfortunately this normally just means an endless round or short term temporary accomodation.

lynzpower

Not any more bizzylizzy! I work in central london ( used to work in Children & families social work, now in older peoples) and the housing lack, well you can imagine.

I used to see families for more than a year being moved from hostel to hostel, in to B&B week in week out which was nothing short of a complete nightmare. When Labour brought the new law in about 6 weeks temp accomodation, I cheered. the LA i work at has had to literally hit the estate agents and buy flats ( no easy task in central london, let me tell you) and they have also bought flats in surrounding authorities. additionally, they rent ( long term - contracts are 3 years plus) flats from the private sector. Many families have been moved into these private rented flats ( called "second stage") for a few years until its projected a permanent ( council or housing association owned )flat comes up for the family.

If OP needs any further info, Im on MSN all day x

bizzy_lizzie

I'm all behind the times as usual....

Best of luck

skintchick

Hi! We do really need to know what is coming in, where it goes out, so we have a chance of advising on the financial side of things.