Can someone have a look at my SOA please?

isy1011

Is your study linked to an access course with FE college? Do you receive ALG? Im sure you should be eligible for that. Can you use college creche facilities? If you use registered childminder can you pay with childcare vouchers as you would not have to pay tax on childcare then.

Your midwifery course should pay a bursary then I presume. Have you yet been accepted onto a course to study this?

chazsucks

its a distance course and ALG said i cannot claim as i'm not actually going into a college building, so there are no creche facilities either unfortunately

isy1011

That's a shame because that would have helped alot because at the moment you are not benefitting from a distance learning course at all plus you dont get the benefit of having as close a tutor support to keep you on track.

moneypanicker

Someone I know rents from her parents and the council pays her rent. Before they entered into this arrangement she checked and double checked with council and it was fine. It might be worth checking out!

Hannah_10

No Hon, you can do a SOA at any time, if those extra incommings are worth £200 a month then you're out of the woods... But in the longer term we need to look at that more too because I notice some of the things at £0 aren't sustainable.

Like clothes, the wee man is growing, knees on jeans get knackered from all the kneeling on carpets changing smelly bums, kickers go grey and lose thier elastic... A £0 clothes budget doesn't last forever! Nor does £0 entertainment (a book, a DVD hire, a pint in the pub, these are the things that make life bearable). Medical happens too, prescription charges, calpol and tixylix, new glasses, a dental check up, life does these things to us all. So even if we make the £200 I would like to see there be a lot more spare than there is for you guys, to make sure you can keep it up.

That car insurance is irritating me. Even if you're only 18 that is a hell of a lot. Too much. I don't want them to have your money I want you, your chappy and the wee man to have your money! Martin Lewis has done a whole guide on how to reduce car insurance, read this, carefully, and soak it all up Hon.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/compare-cheap-car-insurance?dd
The advice on that literally halved my insurance, so go through it in detail and take all the advice. Sort your occupation (housewives are cheaper than students or unemployed people for example), add another named driver with a long clean record (your Nan, your Dad, a friend, doesn't matter that they will never drive it), use lots of comparission engines (gocompare, compare the market, confused.com), really make a mission of it. Remember any searching you do now, ready for next month, that you will have 1 years no claims, so put it into the search engines as 1 year no claims too.

I know this probably doesn't apply but... Ever had a moped? You can use motorcycle no claims on a car, so a few weeks after I passed my car test I moved 2 years NCB from a motorcycle onto the car. Not a lot of people know that!

chazsucks

thanks i will definately check out the car insurance, i turned 21 last month but never bothered learning how to drive until i had my son, which is why i've only been driving for a year! I would love to get that down as i hate giving away that much money to churchill thank you i will read the guide

also there seems to be a lot of mixed answers about the LHA... maybe i will attempt to draw up a tenancy agreement and apply and see what happens... it can't hurt can it?

you're right about the clothes etc we aren't spending any on it at the mo as we literally can't, i used to get most of my sons clothes on ebay also sometimes carboots or when shops had sales and i basically bought all sizes up to 24 months. when he was little we got hand me down clothes from family members

i guess at some point we will be buying clothes, books etc i just didn't add it as we aren't spending money on it at the moment but it's a good point

thank you everyone you've been so helpful xxx

HappyMJ

Hannah_10 wrote: »

That car insurance is irritating me. Even if you're only 18 that is a hell of a lot. Too much. I don't want them to have your money I want you, your chappy and the wee man to have your money! Martin Lewis has done a whole guide on how to reduce car insurance, read this, carefully, and soak it all up Hon.

Totally agree here... What would it cost to sell the car for scrap and get buses and taxi's when necessary and borrow dad's car as much as possible? I think you should be able to share the 1 car between 2 people, who don't work (but who are busy with kids and education and can't work full time) just with a bit of planning.

HappyMJ

chazsucks wrote: »

also there seems to be a lot of mixed answers about the LHA... maybe i will attempt to draw up a tenancy agreement and apply and see what happens... it can't hurt can it?

You can't claim LHA when you live with the person you are renting from if that person is a close family member. If you need that clarifying try posting on the benefits board and see what they say.

Hannah_10

The other thing is, if you really can't get the car insurance down off the stupid stupid numbers it's on then I suggest another way. Get your advanced licence.

This can be very expensive, if you get an advanced instructor to teach you expect to pay thier hourly rate. Even with your own car their hourly rate could be £25. Then it still might take you 100 lessons... So getting your advanced licence through an instructor is totally out then!

Thankfully there is a better way, meet the IAM... http://www.iam.org.uk/

The IAM are a road safety charity. If you have had a full licence for 3 months then they will let you start your advanced training through them. They use volonteer "observers" in the place of instructors, thus keeping the cost minimal. The skills for life course (which gets you an advanced licence) will cost you £140. Your car insurance will then PLUMMET. The advanced is not a bit of sissying about on the motorway like PassPlus, it is the real mark of an incredibly good driver, so expect a challenge! There is no training finer outside of the police's elite Class A training (and only a tiny tiny number of police drivers are ever Class A, this isn't something they all get).

I know you haven't got £140, but I'm thinking what about your family, how about if everyone chipped in for your Christmas present? You'd be SOOO much safer a driver taking the wee man about too. Take my word for that.

Hannah_10

Your tennacy agreement would have to be right and binding, I think you should go back to the CAB with this one and say "look, is there ANY way we could do this? What about if Dad said he'd throw us out and was prepared to put it in writing? What if we get an assured shorthold tennancy? How is this done, and can we absolutly rule out everything please?"