How can i survive on £39.25 per week from the Social?

murtle1981

Hammyman wrote: »

£40 a week is enough to put food in your mouth and light and heat a home. In other words, the bare essentials. So you're going to have to get rid of the internet access you're obviously paying for, mobile phone, Sky TV, fags, beer and all the other none-essentials people seem to think they can live without.

Yes, but what about the OPs mortgage etc? Yeh, they only needs essentials like food, heating etc but is a roof over their head not essential??
Unless thay stay with family or friends to be able to save a bit of money...

Oldernotwiser

murtle1981 wrote: »

I dont think that anyone who is in work would want to manipulate things to get the sack, especially in this day and age...:(

That's very naive. People who want to chuck their job in will get up to all sorts of things to try to be able to claim benefits!

tcr_3

murtle1981 wrote: »

Tcr-has that changed cos im sure it used to be (and im going back a few years) that if you quit, became intentionally unemployed, you couldnt sign on for anything up to 6 months but if you got sacked, you could sign on straight away no problem??

Mm, don't think so. They always investigate the reasons for a person's dismissal, they did that under the old Unemployment Benefit regime too, pre-1996.

Could be any number of reasons for losing your job, staff cutbacks, factory closures ... stealing, assaulting a colleague. They need to check out the reasons the employer gives, see what the ex-employee says. There's a lot of unscrupulous employers out there too, DWP don't assume the employer's always telling the truth. It's all down to "balance of probabilities", nothing's ever cut & dried.

HappyMJ

lynzpower wrote: »

Is it just you living in the house? Could you get a lodger to help bring some money in?

The DWP don't like this. You would be bringing money in i.e having an income and they only allow you to keep the first X (i think £20) per week then they deduct the rest pound for pound from the benefit you get. It's pointless. It can work if rent and you are on a tenancy agreement and can get 2 agreements set up with the landlord and each tenant pays the landlord 50% but even this doesn't bring any extra money in as it just pays the rent which would have otherwise been paid by Housing Benefit. arrghh!!! The trouble I had with this....not worth it.:):)

lynzpower

But hes on a mortgage? So it wouldnt affect HB/ LHA?

AsknAnswer2

He still wouldn't get any help with his mortgage unless he had been entitled to an income based benefit for at least 13 weeks. Only then can SMI be awarded - which only pays interest, none of the capital.

HappyMJ

lynzpower wrote: »

But hes on a mortgage? So it wouldnt affect HB/ LHA?

It does affect the JSA payment. If he charged £60 per week there is a £20 disregard then his JSA hardship payment would be reduced by £40 to nothing and then as he now isn't getting a JSA payment he would not get SMI.

It doesn't work and if someone has an example of this actually working then I'm going out and buying a 5 bedroom house charging up to 4 lodgers to stay there (£60 a week each that'll be a comfortable £240 per week) quitting work (i'm self employed so no sanction) and claiming JSA and SMI on the maximum amount of £200,000.

vintagegirl

Hammyman wrote: »

£40 a week is enough to put food in your mouth and light and heat a home. In other words, the bare essentials. So you're going to have to get rid of the internet access you're obviously paying for, mobile phone, Sky TV, fags, beer and all the other none-essentials people seem to think they can live without.

youre right but its not enough to actually pay for the home you have to light and heat....not much good if the op loses his house

richard9991

HappyMJ wrote: »

It does affect the JSA payment. If he charged £60 per week there is a £20 disregard then his JSA hardship payment would be reduced by £40 to nothing and then as he now isn't getting a JSA payment he would not get SMI.

It doesn't work and if someone has an example of this actually working then I'm going out and buying a 5 bedroom house charging up to 4 lodgers to stay there (£60 a week each that'll be a comfortable £240 per week) quitting work (i'm self employed so no sanction) and claiming JSA and SMI on the maximum amount of £200,000.

the disregard for jsa is £5 pw not £20

catz1ct

You should put a claim in for Council Tax Benefit if you haven't already as well.