Argh... working out very casual income with benefits... please help!

pinkie_pie

I'm a uni student and in receipt of a bursary. I also receive CTC (full amount) , HB, and pay no council tax under CTB. My kids incidentally also have free school dinners.

I've just taken on a bank position doing care work. I don't actually want to do much in the way of shifts, I took it on more to keep in touch with them for when I graduate and hopefully then be offered a permanent position (fingers crossed).

I think I need to do a minimum of a shift a month though to keep the position (around 8 hours a month). Any idea how this would work affecting my benefits/tax credits etc? I have already agreed to two shifts this month, so that week I'll be doing 15 hours - but I'm also doing a sleep in shift (like being on call but in the building) which is basically like an on call fee and not much at all! No idea what that counts towards! Thanks

Benefits_Bod

The following assumes you are a lone parent.

HB/CTB is affected by income. For lone parents, the first £25 per week is disregarded from earnings. After that, it's a quesion of whether your income exceeds the "appicable amount" (this is the amount the government says you need to live on).

In simple terms, for every extra pound of any type of income taken into account above the "applicable amount", HB decreases by 65p and CTB decreases by 20p. In other words, a total of 85p for every pound if you are on both HB AND CTB.