LHA has been reduced so going to struggle - what's my best option?

ElleWoods

Good suggestion but I don't have childcare to do an additional job.

PasturesNew

Some random ideas - you only need £12/week.

1] Could you take in foreign students, 2-3 days at a time from local language schools, that's not sub-letting and for 2 students sharing a bedroom for 4 nights you might get £120. You'd only need about 6 bookings/year to find that £50.

2] Start doing online surveys, they take quite a few months (maybe a year) before you've got enough to cash them in, but once they start paying out you could be getting £50 every 2nd month.

3] Look at crashpadder.com - could you offer a bed for the night to people looking for more affordable solutions than a B&B? A lot of people are doing this when they have interviews in areas away from home and are on limited budgets, see how much people are charging in your area, at (say) £17/night you'd only need 3 a month.

4] Is there anything you can make/sell, some skill you can use to make this extra money. Anything from rug-making to recording audio books as a freelancer. It'll take some time to build up, but if you start now then within a year you should be making your £50 odd per month on a regular basis.

5] Do you have offroad parking, near to somewhere that's difficult to park, such that you could offer to rent your parking space to people? There are websites for this.

6] Do you have a semi-decent car you aren't using every day, so you could 'rent' it out to local people who need an occasional car. Check out whipcar (I think it's called that).

Do all of the above and ask the LL for a rent reduction and this time next year you could be quids in.

ElleWoods

Some interesting ideas but I can't have anyone stay in the 3rd bedroom - not only is it the size of a postage stamp but I don't have a bed in it. I need to buy a single bed for my son soon (he's currently in a junior bed which he's outgrowing) so can't afford to buy another one for the spare room. Also to be honest the thought of some stranger in my house with just me and my 4 year old fills me with dread. So it's a no to that one, even if it pays £1000 a month.

I'll definitely look at the surveys thing - will have a search on MSE to see if I can find some info about doing them as I can do them while my son is in bed in the evenings. I already sell what I can on ebay and the like - there's hardly anything left in the house left to sell. A few months ago I fancied watching 'Speed', the film with Keanu Reeves, as I knew I had bought the DVD years ago. So I had a look and it turns out I must have sold it when I had my selling old DVD's phase a few years back. I only own about 2 DVDs now! I can sell the odd thing I find lying around in the house but I don't really have any marketable skills - I wish I did and regularly rack my brains as to how I can make extra cash.

puddy

start checking on freecycle for the bed, try not to buy one

puddy

what about baby sitting?

ElleWoods

Funnily enough, that's where I got his junior bed from Puddy!

ElleWoods

I have a 4 year old at home, I can't go out to babysit.

Thrugelmir

Cuba_Cat wrote: »

My son's 'father' pays only £12.50 per month but that's another thread. He never bothers with my son - has never even seen him - so he's hardly likely to cough up more. It took the CSA 3 years to get that out of him.

Still worth pursuing. As it doesn't you anything.

Eton_Rifle

Does the landlord have any other properties of the right size that may be vacant soon?

ElleWoods

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Still worth pursuing. As it doesn't you anything.

I have been pursuing it - for almost 5 years. It took 3 years of me chasing the CSA on a fortnightly basis, providing them with all my exes details such as d.o.b, phone no, bank account details, did my own research to find out where he'd gone to live with his bit of stuff so I could give them his address because they couldn't be bothered to do their own job themselves - I even wrote to my MP three times to get her to encourage the CSA to get their backside into gear. All that for £12.50 per month. Then as soon as I found out he had a new job, I started fighting for him to be reassessed - which took another 18 months. He's now been reassessed but since November I've been fighting (spotting a theme here, yet?!) to get them to enforce the payment of the increased amount. Apparently it takes them 12-20 weeks to do this - well the 20 weeks are up on April 20th so don't worry, they'll be getting yet another call from me. But what's the point because next year when they close my case and I have to pay to reapply, I won't be able to afford the application fee so from then on I'll get nothing via them from him for my son. Bleeping joke.

Apologies for the rant but it winds me up that a/ 'men' like him get away with paying jack all for their kids and b/ people think I haven't chased the CSA enough, like it's my fault that he doesn't pay. The stress of that situation contributed to me being diagnosed with stress, anxiety and mild depression 15 months ago. Oh, and it does cost me - I have to phone a premium rate phone number every time I call them to chase my case. I know you're only trying to help and encourage me Thrugelmir but believe me, I have done and will continue to pursue it, but believe me, unless you've experienced the the complete and utter incompetency of the CSA you can't even begin to imagine how totally frustrating and demoralising it feels to constantly be banging your head against a brick wall. I've come close to telling them to forget it many times because it's just so upsetting to be constantly fighting, fighting, fighting.