Family of 3- How much to live on?

ironman1

What is the sure grant? Neither of us have had kids before. Well I hope so! Anything we can get I'll go for.

Would be nice if we got the £190 Grant but that looks touch and go. Anything will help us as we do want my Girlfriend to have around a year off work to bond with the baby, plus it will be in our favour money wise I'd have thought

Indie_Kid

ironman1 wrote: »

What is the sure grant?

it's to pay for baby things, such as a cot and a pram.

mum2twinsx2

how many weeks is she now? as you can get the health in pregnancy grant from 24weeks and 1day pregnant. Someone made me aware of that when i was pregnant.
I wouldnt stock up on nappies other than newborn/size one just yet as they may be a brand you don`t get along with and end up with tons. At the moment amazon are doing 108 pampers new baby nappies for less than £10 and free delivery.
Ebay is great for clothes. Join netmums aswell you can buy stuff local too you cots etc quite often cheap;)

ironman1

Just had a look on my phone at this Sure grant , it seems to be for those already claiming benefits etc. We both work and my gf will be working till late March so that looks unlikely unless I read it wrong.

Indie_Kid

ironman1 wrote: »

Just had a look on my phone at this Sure grant , it seems to be for those already claiming benefits etc. We both work and my gf will be working till late March so that looks unlikely unless I read it wrong.

You can also get the SSG if you receive more than the family and new baby premiums on tax credits. You can apply up to 3 months after the birth. Many who are expecting their first child have to do this.

mum2twinsx2

ironman1 wrote: »

Just had a look on my phone at this Sure grant , it seems to be for those already claiming benefits etc. We both work and my gf will be working till late March so that looks unlikely unless I read it wrong.

Once you have had baby recieving taxs creds etc you may be entitled to it. I recieved mine when my twins were nine weeks old.

JoJoB

ironman1 wrote: »

Just had a look on my phone at this Sure grant , it seems to be for those already claiming benefits etc. We both work and my gf will be working till late March so that looks unlikely unless I read it wrong.

Ok, when I got the Surestart grant (2 years ago) my husband was earning 18K and I had earned £8k the previous year. We were not eligible for working tax credit.

However, when baby came along in April we became eligible for child tax credit. Not much initially as tax credit calculation is taken from your previous years earnings. This is why you must ring them back after the initial assessment and say you want to register a change of circs.

So my situation was this:
previous year earnings: £26K - claimed ctc on this figure
Got confirmation of ctc payment (lowish, about £50 per month)
Rang them back to register change of circs for the coming year.
Re-assessed on earnings of husband's 18k only, declared my maternity pay but this is disregarded, wasn't going to return to work so my earnings for the coming year were declared at £0.
New CTC assessment comes through the post for about £200 per month.
New CTC is higher than the basic CTC thus making me eligible for Surestart grant - so I send off the tax credits paperwork to the surestart grant people pronto (there is a time limit on applying for this so make sure you get all your tax credits applications ready as soon as baby arrives).

Bear in mind that your tax credits for the first year will be higher than for the rest of your baby's life as you will be getting the new baby premium - so they will reduce once baby turns a year old.

cte1111

I would stop overpaying your mortgage and instead put that money into the best rate cash ISA that you can find.

The reasons being:
It acts as a buffer if you find it hard to get work for any reason
You are likely to be more short of cash in the next year or so than in the future when things have settled down and hopefully you are back to 2 full wages so there is plenty of time to work on reducing the mortgage

ironman1

Yeah the overpaying days are done for a bit. We did the target on the Mortgage board of over £4,000 this year and we've overpaid nearly 8k since we started the op's last July. At the moment we have £7k in an ISA and nearly three thousand in another savings account so we do have a bit behind us.

I won't be overpaying the mortgage next year , not monthly anyway.

poppyscorner

JoJoB wrote: »

Ok, when I got the Surestart grant (2 years ago) my husband was earning 18K and I had earned £8k the previous year. We were not eligible for working tax credit.

However, when baby came along in April we became eligible for child tax credit. Not much initially as tax credit calculation is taken from your previous years earnings. This is why you must ring them back after the initial assessment and say you want to register a change of circs.

So my situation was this:
previous year earnings: £26K - claimed ctc on this figure
Got confirmation of ctc payment (lowish, about £50 per month)
Rang them back to register change of circs for the coming year.
Re-assessed on earnings of husband's 18k only, declared my maternity pay but this is disregarded, wasn't going to return to work so my earnings for the coming year were declared at £0.
New CTC assessment comes through the post for about £200 per month.
New CTC is higher than the basic CTC thus making me eligible for Surestart grant - so I send off the tax credits paperwork to the surestart grant people pronto (there is a time limit on applying for this so make sure you get all your tax credits applications ready as soon as baby arrives).

Bear in mind that your tax credits for the first year will be higher than for the rest of your baby's life as you will be getting the new baby premium - so they will reduce once baby turns a year old.

What Jojo has posted above is exactly how I got the sure start grant.

When I got it I was earning about 17.5k a year and ex OH had a small wage too he was in charge of childcare.

The limit was 12weeks back then as in you had to claim it before the baby was 12 weeks old tax credits can be quite slow for some people and if they are you have to send in the application for the sure start grant before the 12 weeks limit minus the tax credit claim if you have too.

They will initially write and say you're not entitled if you havent supplied tax credits award notice but if you forward this to them as soon as it arrives they will reconsider it and award it to you even if that point is past the 12wk period as long as the initial claim was in before the cut off point if that makes sense.

It was honestly a godsend to us at the time as we hadnt been able to afford some things like a cot for example and this paid for it.

At the time as a rule of thumb we were told that if we received tax credits of more than the basic element then we would be entitled to it I can't remember how much that was or is now but others should be able to tell you (I no longer claim tax creds)

Have you put all of your figures through www.entitledto.co.uk as you would find an estimate for your tax credits on there and it can vary but mostly it is about right.

HTH