Pregnant with 1st baby. Do we get anything? what about the £190 grant?

melly1980

DeeMarie89 wrote: »

ugh, I was responding to several posts. Quoted yours as it was the one I responded to first. Perhaps use common sense to work out that o was not just answering your post?

not really, I have every right to think that you are responding to me when quoting me and using the term "you".

Perhaps you should have took your own advice and applied some common sense and split your post up or at least highlighted the fact that it wasnt aimed at me.

meds12_2

DeeMarie89 wrote: »

Thanks so much! I'm going to go look into it now

I actually know a particle physicist who studied at Birmingham (from West Midlands too). She works for CERN, and is lovely enough to have come into my school (I'm secondary science teacher) and talked to my kids about her work. If you need any advice I'm sure she would be happy to have a chat with you, and maybe give you a few pointers.

gauly

meds12 wrote: »

You surely wouldn't get any council tax or housing benefit on that income? Aren't tax credits taken into account when working out things like that? How about school lunches? What on earth are tax credits supposed to pay for if it isn't your basic bills?

I had a look and you would almost certainly qualify for housing and council tax benefit. So, based on a £700/month house in our area you would qualify for about £53/week housing benefit but no council tax benefit. However, I realised that I added in the working tax credits twice in the previous calculation, so the corrected version is:

Income on £43k with 4 children (from next april):
After tax/NI £31,459
Benefits: £0
Total income £31,459

Income on 2x£7k with 4 children:
After tax/NI £14,000
Working tax credit: £760
Child tax credit: £10,735
Child benefit: £3,146
Housing benefit: around £2.7k
Council tax benefit: £0
Total income around £31,341

Any further corrections welcome - this is very interesting!! You don't get free school meals if you get Working Tax Credit, but you might get help with prescriptions, dental costs, glasses, etc.

One of the above comments said wisely that you won't have 4 children forever and will be much better off later in life - worth bearing in mind, I think.

meds12_2

gauly wrote: »

I had a look and you would almost certainly qualify for housing and council tax benefit. So, based on a £700/month house in our area you would qualify for about £53/week housing benefit and full council tax benefit. However, I realised that I added in the working tax credits twice in the previous calculation, so the corrected version is:

Income on £43k with 4 children (from next april):
After tax/NI £31,459
Benefits: £0
Total income £31,459

Income on 2x£7k with 4 children:
After tax/NI £14,000
Working tax credit: £760
Child tax credit: £10,735
Child benefit: £3,146
Council tax benefit: around £2.7k
Housing benefit: around £1.5 k
Total income around £32,841

Any further corrections welcome - this is very interesting!! You don't get free school meals if you get Working Tax Credit, but you might get help with prescriptions, dental costs, glasses, etc.

One of the above comments said wisely that you won't have 4 children forever and will be much better off later in life - worth bearing in mind, I think.

Don't you just love the joined-up thinking of our masters? We should pop this in an email to Mr BroadShouldersDave Cameron and see what he has to say.

Blue22

gauly wrote: »

I had a look and you would almost certainly qualify for housing and council tax benefit. So, based on a £700/month house in our area you would qualify for about £53/week housing benefit but no council tax benefit. However, I realised that I added in the working tax credits twice in the previous calculation, so the corrected version is:

Income on £43k with 4 children (from next april):
After tax/NI £31,459
Benefits: £0
Total income £31,459

Income on 2x£7k with 4 children:
After tax/NI £14,000
Working tax credit: £760
Child tax credit: £10,735
Child benefit: £3,146
Housing benefit: around £2.7k
Council tax benefit: £0
Total income around £31,341

Any further corrections welcome - this is very interesting!! You don't get free school meals if you get Working Tax Credit, but you might get help with prescriptions, dental costs, glasses, etc.
.

Thank you for your calculations and making others aware. I wonder if you would mind doing one more calculation to emphasise how equal families are. A single parent, again with 4 children, earning 7k for 16 hours work (with same CT and LHA as above)

fannyanna

My husband and I have a large household income (£60k gross). We're currently trying for a baby and when the time comes I will be claiming child benefit as I am entitled to it. We've paid our taxes (just under £15k) so we will be claiming what we can - regardless of what other people think.

However I believe our case proves just how unfair the welfare system is.

You could have another couple with a household income that is less than ours but as the main provider earns more than £43k (hope I've got that amount correct) they are unable to claim child benefit - absolutely STUPID!

gauly

Blue22 wrote: »

Thank you for your calculations and making others aware. I wonder if you would mind doing one more calculation to emphasise how equal families are. A single parent, again with 4 children, earning 7k for 16 hours work (with same CT and LHA as above)

The quick benefits calculator I used says you would get more Working Tax Credits (£3,622) and obviously you have £7k less income, so I make that about £27,963 but I suspect you would qualify for more council tax and housing benefits because the income is lower.

AnxiousMum

I wonder if any of the 'powers that be' have actually sat and worked out various scenarios.......in our case, if I were to continue working, my OH was to stop working - we'd actually be better off and he earns in the region of £32K per year! The only difference I can see in claiming as a single income of around £16K per year and two of us on that same income, would be the working tax credit I'd be able to claim as a singleton - and that's only £20 per week that I pay for breakfast club - wow would life be alot less stressful trying to juggle everything - and my 19 yr old would benefit greatly through university! Reading things like this, I'm glad that we both actually enjoy our jobs, and see that there is more to working than just the paycheque at the end of the month.

Blue22

gauly wrote: »

The quick benefits calculator I used says you would get more Working Tax Credits (£3,622) and obviously you have £7k less income, so I make that about £27,963 but I suspect you would qualify for more council tax and housing benefits because the income is lower.

Yes my quick mental calculation also gave this family a total cash income of around 31k. I just wanted it highlighted so others could see how unfair the system is.

gauly

Blue22 wrote: »

Yes my quick mental calculation also gave this family a total cash income of around 31k. I just wanted it highlighted so others could see how unfair the system is.

It probably is around £31k with the extra housing/council tax benefit but that was too complicated to work out!

And I think I might have got it wrong (or at least not completely right on the last calculation). I thought council tax benefit was easier to get than housing benefit but I ended up with £0 for council benefit, but £53/week housing benefit? Anyone else want to have go on entitledto? I used a 4 bedroom house costing £700/month and £1,500/year council tax.