Clearmydebts - new chapter to becoming debt free before moving home

clearmydebts

Dinah93 wrote: »

Is it Dublin you're looking to move to CMD? I'm starting to wonder if Dublin is a bit like London - almost a different country to the rest of the country iyswim. Limerick was shocking to see, absolutely on its knees. I thought we'd lost a lot of retailers/pubs over here but it was nothing to all the 'to rent' signs over there - there is at least a 50% town centre vacancy rate and some of the out of town centres are at about 80%. NIMs dad has made 6 figure losses in the company for the last 2 years but is able to hold out for an upturn although he's not optemistic about it being in the next 5 years. I just found it all really quite shocking, all the places NIM and I used to go to have closed down! Can completely understand your draw to go home, I'm aware this could come across as 'be wary of Irelands financial situation' but its not that at all, you know that better than anyone, I'm just curious if the recession has hit Dublin as hard as Limerick.

The recession is not really evident in Dublin city and is not really evident amongst a lot of my friends unless they were in the construction industry. Jobs for OH are few and far between but he is quite specialised so it has always been like that.

I think the west has been hit a lot harder (OH is from the west so we are there quite a bit). Certainly the pubs in smaller towns in Dublin are empty, but in other towns they aren't. It depends on the location really.

The recession has been crueller to myself and OH in the UK than it would be in Ireland. In the UK we will just about survive when my maternity runs out and I also can't afford to go back to work. In the Ireland, I don't have to work if I don't want to and we would save a good figure evry month. It shouldn't work out that way, but because of falling house prices/rent/food prices we are financially better off in Ireland. If OH could ever get a job though!

Dinah93

Thats good. I did look around Limerick and think that if the whole country was like that they'd be falling apart pretty soon. The number of abandoned building projects or completed building projects/houses was staggering - I can't imagine it here where we have such pressure on land.

Can I ask how are your tax credits less if you have 2 children rather than 1? I just can't see the government's logic in that! I had a read the other day though and I can't work out how you get £600 a month in them now either as the table said it was capped at about £2700 a year. I wish I understood them better, would make planning for the future a lot easier.

clearmydebts

Dinah93 wrote: »

Thats good. I did look around Limerick and think that if the whole country was like that they'd be falling apart pretty soon. The number of abandoned building projects or completed building projects/houses was staggering - I can't imagine it here where we have such pressure on land.

Can I ask how are your tax credits less if you have 2 children rather than 1? I just can't see the government's logic in that! I had a read the other day though and I can't work out how you get £600 a month in them now either as the table said it was capped at about £2700 a year. I wish I understood them better, would make planning for the future a lot easier.

Before this year if you earned less than £50,000 (which we did when I was on mat leave) you got money towards chikdcare. I only came up with this figure when I did for 2 children, I got nothing for just paying childcare for 1 child. I think there was a big differerence from 1-2.

Now the cut off is £40,000 so we don't qualify and next year the cut off for joint earnings is £25,000 so loads of people are going to lose out.

They also had a child element for the 1st year of a baby's life at £40 a month but scrapped that, so I was getting £80 from then until Max was 1 and then we passed the threshold of £40,000 and Max turned 1 so the £40 was cut. However, it has been cut for every baby since April 2011 so no-one gets it now.

Shocking really.... I would be paying £1080 for childcare for 2 children (for a 3 day week) and the most I would get from childcare vouchers would be £150 towards that bill. So would be liable to pay £930 a month for a 3 day week. My wages are £1040.

wendz86

That is awful about the tax credits.

Is incredible about how much of your wages childcare will take up isn't it. We are looking at paying £900 for fulltime nursery plus £250 ( although will prob be more by next year) for travel eek.

Birdie85

Good lord, tax credits and childcare costs are making me a little :eek:

Think we've decided that when I go back to work after having a baby OH will cut down his hours so he'll work 6-10pm and I'll carry on full time. Will mean that we won't need to pay childcare costs as one of us will always be home (and OH is much better at running the house than I am!) although OH will be bringing home a bit less than normal it won't be as much as nursery would cost. We may work it so he does a couple of full days and his Mum can look after the baby whilst he's at work, either way we hope that childcare costs are avoided, it'll be nice for OH to have a lot of time with the baby too, although I'll probably get jealous that he gets more baby time than I do! I could end up throwing a paddy and demanding that I only work 4 days a week so I get a day with the baby! Luckily our company are quite flexible once you've got a family to work around.

Dinah93

Wow those childcare costs are so much! I've looked into it around here and the cheapest I've found is £27.50 a day but most are around £29-£33 a day. So it would be worth us both still working by about £500 a month, if we got tax credits as well that would help, although I think we won't qualify as we earn about £44,000 between us.

Anyone know how we'd work out how much if anything we'd get while I was on maternity in addition to SMP? I'd get £337.50 for 16 weeks then just SMP for the rest of the year. NIM makes £267.69 a week after tax. Sorry to hijack your thread with tax credit questions CMD, its just all new to me.

wendz86

I think there is a tax credit calculator somewhere. You would def get £20 a week child benefit as well.

clearmydebts

Dinah93 wrote: »

Wow those childcare costs are so much! I've looked into it around here and the cheapest I've found is £27.50 a day but most are around £29-£33 a day. So it would be worth us both still working by about £500 a month, if we got tax credits as well that would help, although I think we won't qualify as we earn about £44,000 between us.

Anyone know how we'd work out how much if anything we'd get while I was on maternity in addition to SMP? I'd get £337.50 for 16 weeks then just SMP for the rest of the year. NIM makes £267.69 a week after tax. Sorry to hijack your thread with tax credit questions CMD, its just all new to me.

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/taxcredits/payments-entitlement/entitlement/question-how-much.htm


Go on to this and pretend your child is a month old and you will get a fair idea. It will go on your wages from the last tax year so it depends when you fall pregnant etc.

wendz86

boohoo checked it again for us and comes back 0

clearmydebts

wendz86 wrote: »

boohoo checked it again for us and comes back 0

Me too

Will it change for you next year Wendz, as you will have been on maternity pay?