Tax Credits cuts - don't know what to do

Panda_Pie

I feel your pain Emmyroo ... 12K salary, single parent to one, tax credits now basically just there to cover the little ones nursery fees =[[

dodger1

EmmyRoo wrote: »

Hi,

We both work, earning about £45,000 p.a. gross between us,E. x

How much of the total does your husband earn?

poppy10_2

EmmyRoo wrote: »

I'm glad you don't feel that you are skint on a similar income to ours, but perhaps you don't have as much expenditure as we do?

Well yes, I think that's a key point. Currently you are concentrating on the income side of things, but it may be more worthwhile looking at your expenditure and seeing what can be cut back. Posting an SOA will be very helpful in this regard. As others have posted, on a joint income of over £45k you really shouldn't be struggling so much to make ends meet.

shaftola

45K is a lot of money,

bubblegumcola

You are on a decent income compared to many other families. People survive on far less with larger families. You need to go through your bank statements and see what things you can 'do without' for a while. We've had to do it. On a sheet of paper write down essentials on one side and non essentials on the other...you'd be surprised what you can do without. As for the childcare, are you lucky enough to have any family nearby who could help out? We have 3 kids, mortgage about £50 less than yours and our income is way way less than yours, around £26k and both of us work, we were on over £40k a few years ago. We are really struggling just now, but we don't have childcare costs. Another option is to downsize your home?

bubblegumcola

Looking at your first post again- you say you live frugally, as do many of us, so why not post a breakdown roughly of your outgoings for the month so we can understand better? See where any of us could suggest a saving.
Thanks.

teabag29

wow...if you are struggling as a family of 4 to live off 45k then theres not much hope for the rest of us. We are a family of 6 and my hubby earns 18k a year. As a previous poster suggested could you not write down your incomings and outgoings and then we can see where you could save money

Sixer

Sympathies, OP. Money worries are awfully debilitating.

£830 per month is an awful lot to pay in childcare. I make that £191 per week (dividing by 4.33 and assuming a calendar month). Especially for your 18 hour working week. Could you look at a different job with weekend or evening hours? Or working from home? With tax credits now only covering 70% of childcare, that means you need £250 per month in take-home wages to even break even, and that's before travel costs.

teabag29

or maybe get a relative to look after the children when your at work?

Emma285

I sympathise with you as we're in a similar boat. My weekly tax credit payment has dropped by £60, and our joint income is under £30k and our outgoings seem to be higher (same childcare costs but bigger mortgage). Whilst its easy to comment and say you should be able to manage - most of us live our lives based on what we earn and to suddenly have less money every month is horrible.

I'd definitely recommend the SOA route as there are some nice people on here willing to give their advice about your budget - I did one a while back and found it quite useful.

What I think the most outrageous thing is I've not had any notice from the tax credit people, so i've had no warning other than some news reporters saying that middle income earners could be worse off by up to £200 a month. Don't they normally write to us before april with a notice of award for the following year? I've certainly not had one this year, but was sure i've had them in the past?