Can I save any more money?!

Spendless

Sarah- would any income affect your benefits? Or only if it went above a certain level?

I'm thinking of a member on here who posted that she used to do a paper-round for the free newspaper in her area.

I can see that you'd be following more than one thread by posting elsewhere but i agree with what glad has said. We have people like finanial/mortgage and pension advisors on this site,who may be able to help but don't necessarily read this board.

What about a post on the relevent board followed by a link to this thread and ask people to reply on here to save you time.

Glad

Spendless wrote:

What about a post on the relevent board followed by a link to this thread and ask people to reply on here to save you time.

that's a good idea spendless

one of the jobs my relative did was to deliver the Lidl leaflets, 500 leaflets a week for £20 I think and I'm sure she said that amount didn't affect any of her benefits

Spendless

Hi again Sarah

I notice you've posted on benefits but thought i'd answer on here to try to make things easier for you to read.

I think you have a more complex situation because of your pension. My understanding is this - your pension works like any wages would, if you were to work on top of this (ie pension + wages) it would put you over the threshold for receiving CTB,School Dinners and Perscriptions?

Is the above correct?

So can you earn any amount at all without your benefits being affected due to the pension. If for example you could earn £10 a week without having any benefits stopped, we might be able to suggest something that would give you a £10 a week income.

If you can't earn anything at all without your benefits being affected, then you need to work out whether the income is greater than the loss of the benefits. I think you have already mentioned this that it isn't, but i'm wondering if we have a small amount of money to play with(that you could earn) or nothing at all.

Is this a temporary situation until you get accepted for medical school in September? (fingers crossed for you). Assuming you do get accepted do you then receive financial help (bursary/grant/loan?) or is it an ongoing siutuation until you graduate?

Yes i do think you should reapply for DLA and was it IB for yourself, get some help off somewhere like DIAL filling out the forms.

Good Luck
xxx

happy_miser

Hi sarahsaver, Regarding your water usage situation, I don't know if you would qualify for this but have you heard of the 'Vulnerable Customer Tariff? I read about this a while back under the heading 'The Water Industry (Charges) (Vulnerable Groups) Regulations 1999' ? It was amended in 2003.

Its for families in receipt of qualifying benefits or Tax Credit 1 with either 3 or more children under 16 where Child Benfit is paid; or a prescribed medical condition (flaky/weeping skin is one of these conditions).

I think you would have to have a water meter fitted (not sure how much they would charge) but the water usage charge would be capped at the average for your area, irrespective of how much water you use.

Not sure if this is of any use to you, but might be worth checking out via your local water authority.

Sarahsaver

Thanks for that, i'd bever heard of that scheme.
I even have two wells in my garden, I had thought about reopening them to see if that was a viable option, but it seems hellishly complicated.

Glad

sarah
as a family of four I'd never considered a water meter and I thought we were better off without,
but when we moved we had no choice and our bill has now halved, I know that different areas have different rates and also that you have special needs but it may be worth enquiring if any neighbours are on a meter and asking them how they find it,

Sarahsaver

I did the online calculation thing for water, and I would be worse off with a meter. Son has to have a BATH every day (not a shower) and i have to wash his clothes every day because they are full of skin flakes.
I had a meter once, pre-kids, and it was cheaper but only at the expense of hygeine:(

jellyhead

i didn't know that tip about putting a dry towel in, i'll try that. i mostly just put stuff into the tumble dryer for ten minutes when it's already dry, it stops the clothes being stiff and 'scratchy' (according to my son with eczema).

sarah are you getting oilatum for the bath and aqueous cream etc. on prescription? it's very expensive to buy. i also find that chucking a camomile teabag into the hot bathwater works wonders for eczema and using antihistamine during the hayfever season helps.

i delivered the local freebie newspaper for 6 months. it was 2 years ago and paid just under £8 a week for a round with 232 houses. leaflets were paid as extra, about a pound for each set of leaflets, most weeks there were between 4 and 8 leaflets but i noticed after i stopped doing it in october that whoever did it at xmas got around a dozen lots of leaflets in the weeks throughout december. i got ikea catalogues one week, had to do them separately as they were so heavy but i was paid £30 extra for them :-) you do have to fill in the usual forms, give your NI number etc. and they paid directly into the bank. they didn't send me a P45 or P60 but i presume they passed my income on to the tax office.

they gave me a trolley but the boy delivering a different paper just had a reflective bag, i couldn't have done it without the trolley though. i would sit at home putting leaflets into papers then trundle out with 3 trolley loads, it took a couple of hours to actually deliver them, longer to put the leaflets in but i could choose my hours over a period of 2 days so didn't have to go out in the rain etc. or if my asthma was bad. my average wage was £12-£13 a week. mind you i gave half of it away as 'wages' to all the kids who'd flock round wanting to help me lol! i preferred the papr round to my avon round - more money. i only gave up the paper round because i found a job in mcd's.

crazyhazy

Haven't read all the replies so someone may have already mentioned this. Is your mortgage on interest only or repayment, if on repayment would your ex be civil enough to sign to change it to interest only? Or even to extend the term? When was the mortgage taken out? If after 1996 you do not actually need the endowment, you could see about cashing it in (not sure what you'd need to sign to do this though), also have you been informed of a shortfall on the endowment? If you have write to them to complain and looking for compensation, everyone I know who has done this has got something. Finally, who is your mortgage with, will they negotiate lower payments for a short period of time till you can sort something else out?

Finally I notice you do your shopping online, I might be wrong but does tescos not charge 3.99 for delivery? If you are in walking distance you would save money going to the shops.

Fran

aussielle wrote:

You'd have to check this out on the benefit board with Ted, but I thought you could earn up to £15 a week, without it affecting benefit, can't remember which benefit it was though..possibly income support

If you are a single parent on Income Support you can earn up to £20 without it affecting your benefits.