Need ALOT of help with cutting all costs.

kizzie_nikita

Hello, I'm Kizzie, 19 years old and new to all this so please be nice!

There's quite alot i need help with so please bare with me while i try to explain.

I'm currently living with my best friend a 21 year old male, a 2 bedroom end house which costs us £237.50 each a month, totalling at £475.

We've been living here for 2 years, this is both of our first places.

We are both currently on Job Seekers Allowence, i would like to point out that we both have had jobs and are both looking for jobs at the moment.

We have our rent paid for us so that is not currently a problem.

We both get £53 a week so a total of £424 a month between us to live on.This leaves us with £58.50 spare each month, will explain more later.

We both get a separate benefit as we're not a couple just friends living together as it is a lot cheaper that way.

The problem starts here, we've had a lot of problems the best two years with mould, damp and other problems with the house which is making us both extremely unhappy living here.

The landlord has sorted the mould and damp problems twice but it's already taken it's toll and we want to find another place to live.

We are an end house which apparently takes the brunt of the cold weather.

It is basically impossible to heat our house. There is no cavity in the wall so we can't have wall insulation which the landlord was going to have put in, and the attic also hasn't much insulation, which we are also waiting for the landlord to sort out.

We have the heating on as much as we can afford, (around 5 hours a day in the winter) yet the house will only be warm, for a very sort amount of time because of all of the problems which mean we've both got colds constantly even when wrapped up and under blankets etc.

Even in the summer the house is freezing, we get no sun on the house either. It's dreadful. My parents came here for a week and left ill because they were so cold even with the heating on.

Back to the actual problem we need help with.

When we leave here, and find another place to share, Job Seekers/Job Centre are going to make us claim as a 'couple' because they see two people sharing a house as a couple even if they're not going out.

It took a lot of time to get them to let us have a single claim each as we do not see it fair to get one claim between us as we are both Single, and free people.

Like i said above seperatly we get £53 each a week, when we move and get forced to claim together we will only get £53 BETWEEN US A WEEK if we were over 25 we would get £105 but because we're under 25 we will only get £53, meaning a loss of £212 a month

We don't see this as fair at all, as it would mean we'd only have around £26.50 a week to live on each for food, and bills/transport etc. We think this is impossible.

We are not a couple, in fact my best friend is gay so it would never happen in a million years. It would also only get paid into one account which is also ridiculous as it means one person would have control on the money, and seeing as i have to go to Wales to see family (We live in Manchester) it's hard share the money from one account when we both want our own card in separate places at the same time.

Anyway, i'll get on to what we need help with before i bore you all to death!

I basically want to know if you thrifty and amazing people see anywhere we would be able to save money.
Here is our list. This is for both of us so we pay half each.

Food - £180/month (We don't buy branded things unless on offer, we make from scratch although we could do more. We are meat eaters, but can happily eat veggy food also.

Broadband/PhoneLine - £26/month

Gas&Electric - £ 80/month (hope when we move house it will go down)

Bus Fare - £31.50/Month

Rent - £10/month We have to pay an extra £5 each on top of what housing benefit pays. When we move house we shouldn't have anything to pay.

Mobile Phone - £5-10, My mother thankfully pays mine phonebill each month for me, but my housemate pays £5-10/month for his, cut down from £25/month.

Vets - £0 - 45/month, now we have swapped vets to a cheaper one, but as i have exotic animals i need to stay with this vet as it's the only one i can trust currently. At the moment i do have 3 poorly rats (please don't give me any abuse over my animals ) One of them has 4 tumours and a possible brain tumour which we are trying to get sorted until she passes away.

The other two have pneumonia which is recurrent. Most of them time the vet doesn't cost anything as they are fine, but as they are sadly prone to tumours and Pneumonia recently we have been at the vets spending around £30 a month. But like i said, this isn't every month so i can't really put a complete price on that.

Would like to point out, i did save theses animals before i became jobless and giving them away is not an option.

Pet Food - £12-15 a month This depends on what deals there is and what extras we need.

This from the amount we get, leaves us with £58.50 but this gets spent on things like clothing ( i only have two tops and two jeans currently). Extra heating, extra bus fares if we need to go out, house things like we recently bought a slow cooker, etc etc.

We've figured out if we move house and they put us together to be payed we will be down £200 a month, so i'm asking if you can find anyway from what i've wrote that we could save anywhere near £200 a month? Otherwise we won't be able to move as we'd have to live on overdraft which we don't have that much.

I know it will be terribly hard, but we don't plan on being jobless forever so hopefully we won't have to cut back £200 a month for that long.

I'm sorry about the length of the post.

Thank you in advance!:j

Blue_Elephant

Are you entitled to housing benefit too seeing as you're not working? Is that who your rent is paid by?

How come you're only getting £53? Isn't the personal allowance £67.50 at the moment?

And you won't get a single allowance between you, you'll get a couples allowance which is about £105 IIRC. It'll be less than waht you get now, but more than a single persons allowance if that makes sense.

Rummer

I have no doubt you will get lots of good advice on this board however it would be worthwhile posting on the Debtfree wannabe board as they are amazing at finding ways to reduce outgoings if you post a SOA on there.

aneres

If it was treated as a joint claim you would get more than the £53 a week, you would get less than having two individual claims but more than just a single claim.

elsien

"When we leave here, and find another place to share, Job Seekers/Job Centre are going to make us claim as a 'couple' because they see two people sharing a house as a couple even if they're not going out."

Can I ask how you know this - has someone actually said this to you or is it an assumption you are making? Only having been in a similar situation (although a few years ago) my friend and I kept our individual claims.

kizzie_nikita

Blue_Elephant wrote: »

Are you entitled to housing benefit too seeing as you're not working? Is that who your rent is paid by?

How come you're only getting £53? Isn't the personal allowance £67.50 at the moment?

And you won't get a single allowance between you, you'll get a couples allowance which is about £105 IIRC. It'll be less than waht you get now, but more than a single persons allowance if that makes sense.

Because we are under 25 years old we will only get the £53 between us...if we were over 25 years old we would get the £105 sadly. Also, because we're under 25 its £53 pound.

Under 25: £53.45 per week

Over 25: £67.50 per week

And yes our rent is payed by housing benefit.

kizzie_nikita

aneres wrote: »

If it was treated as a joint claim you would get more than the £53 a week, you would get less than having two individual claims but more than just a single claim.

No, sorry we had to have a meeting about keeping our single claims, and they told us, because we are under 25 we would only get £53 a week between us.

kizzie_nikita

elsien wrote: »

"When we leave here, and find another place to share, Job Seekers/Job Centre are going to make us claim as a 'couple' because they see two people sharing a house as a couple even if they're not going out."

Can I ask how you know this - has someone actually said this to you or is it an assumption you are making? Only having been in a similar situation (although a few years ago) my friend and I kept our individual claims.

We were both told this, we've had two meetings before and they've both told us if we moved house TOGETHER again, it will be classed as a couple and only entitled to £53 a week because of our age.

kizzie_nikita

Rummer wrote: »

I have no doubt you will get lots of good advice on this board however it would be worthwhile posting on the Debtfree wannabe board as they are amazing at finding ways to reduce outgoings if you post a SOA on there.

I hadn't a clue where to post to be honest, not sure if this was the wrong place or not >.<

lostinrates

Can you enquire into housing solutions individually? Not ideal perhaps, but under the circumstances a possibilty?

As neither of you work atm is there possibilty of you returning to a family home until you find work? Again, not ideal, but if viewed as an interim measure just til you get a job again perhaps possible?

aneres

I would double check about the £53 I'm sure you would be entitled to more.