Living as a couple, training coming to end, skint!

anewloginapparently

Hi,

Not sure this is in the right place so feel free to move it to somewhere more appropriate.

I and my partner live together in a 1 bed house that was the cheapest we could find in our city. She is a care assistant and is paid about £12k a year while I'm training to be a nurse and recieve £550 a month in bursary for doing this. Our rent is £550 and council tax and bills about £250 on top of that so we don't have very much money left at the day to do anything other than survive.

The problem is I am soon to finish my training and there is no guarentee of a full-time nursing job materialising. I could go on agencies books and pick up the odd shift in nursing homes maybe but this will require my professional registration to come through and then gain a CRB and is likely to take several months.

So how an earth can we survive in the meantime? I'm looking for work but there really is nothing out there at the moment, and as I say anything in my field will take at least several months to come through.

Once my bursary is stopped we'll have to just live off her salary as I won't be eligable for JSA is my understanding as she is supposed to support me! And as it's a 1 bed house (and again in a couple) I won't be eligable for LHA either!

Her salary is about £800 a month so once our rent and bills are paid we're going to not have a penny left for food or anything!

Please can anyone help with this situation? Neither of us have family we can move in with either so I really don't know what we're going to do.

The really annoying thing is once I find full-time nursing work we'll be fine as my salary will be reasonable for us to survive then, it's just the next few months that are going to be impossible.

merlin68

You can apply for housing benefit and JSA. Just done a rough check on HB as it depends on area, you need to go on your councils website. But it came up with about £70 a week. Also if one of you is over 25 you can claim working tax credit.

anewloginapparently

My understanding is that I won't get anything from JSA because of her earnings, I just did the entitled to calculator and it says we'll get £45 a week tax credits and £17 a week Housing Benefit which is better than nothing but still £60 a week isn't much for two people to live off when my girlfriend needs a travel pass to get to work, feel sorry for her that she's working full-time hours but all her money is going to keep me!

Thanks for your help though.

merlin68

You can get JSA for 6 months. Which isn't affected by earnings. Can't you get a partime cleaning job? Fast food restaurants always want staff. Theres no room to be fussy after all.

anewloginapparently

merlin68 wrote: »

You can get JSA for 6 months. Which isn't affected by earnings. Can't you get a partime cleaning job? Fast food restaurants always want staff. Theres no room to be fussy after all.

Thanks, I applied to work in a couple of restuarants and fast food places but not heard anything, I guess they could see from CV that I probably wouldn't stay too long.

It's kinda ironic that I gave up a good career in IT to train as a nurse to put something back and might end up cleaning! But as you say needs must, if they don't also take one look at this bloke with my background and think I'm over-qualified too!

karenx

merlin68 wrote: »

You can get JSA for 6 months. Which isn't affected by earnings. Can't you get a partime cleaning job? Fast food restaurants always want staff. Theres no room to be fussy after all.

Only if enough contributions have been made and depending how long they have been a student they might not of paid enough. So income based wouldnt be an option as partner works

Oldernotwiser

merlin68 wrote: »

You can get JSA for 6 months. Which isn't affected by earnings. Can't you get a partime cleaning job? Fast food restaurants always want staff. Theres no room to be fussy after all.

The OP has been a student for 3 years so won't have paid the appropriate NICs for JSA,

Oldernotwiser

anewloginapparently wrote: »

Hi,



The problem is I am soon to finish my training and there is no guarentee of a full-time nursing job materialising. I could go on agencies books and pick up the odd shift in nursing homes maybe but this will require my professional registration to come through and then gain a CRB and is likely to take several months.
.

You won't need your professional registration to work as a care assistant and, if you apply now, you'll speed up your CRB.

Most people in your situation will already have been doing some shifts in a care home or working on a nursing bank, which would have made the transition easier.

Darlyd

OP register with http://www.advantagehealthcare.com/ (excellent pay) And Your OH could do this too. There are so many different agencies out there desperate for nurses/care workers. The Agency I joined recently also have nurses and they are always working in the hospitals/house to house. Brilliant pay too!