Entitled to benefits?...very confused

ticktack_2

princessdon wrote: »

2nd choice is send the Mrs out to work. Many of us have children a lot younger than yours and work because we need to! Even a few hours a week at minimum wage would see you right and she still has more than enough time to volunteer at the school.

Also does she have quals in teaching / teaching assistants? If not then all the volunteering in the world won't help.

I don't think that's correct.

How can I become a teaching assistant?

A good starting point is to volunteer to help in a local school, perhaps for a few hours each week, as you are unlikely to find paid employment as a teaching assistant without relevant experience or qualifications. With voluntary experience you can work towards a qualification which will improve your chances of finding paid work.

http://www.islington.gov.uk/publicrecords/documents/EducationandLearning/Pdf/fis_rec_teaching_assistant.PDF

This time of year all schools/colleges are asking for exam invigilators. Average £8 - £10 per hour - as and when required, she can be getting valuable experience and some pennies.

Invigilating exams isn't very useful experience. Whereas by doing voluntary work as a teaching assistant there's a path to trying to become qualified, and get a paid job in work which is a good deal more rewarding than bitwork.

epitome

dazzst wrote: »

CB was stopped as my son has reached 17.
Our mortgage is £805 per month
Our income is £2400 per month

But he is still in full time education so you should chase them up on that.

I doubt you will get CTB but no harm in applying for it.

Mumto3cheekymonkeys

Me and my partner have written down all our incomings and all our outgoings and we have online banking so when we started getting into trouble we looked back at where our money was going. We have now cut down to 1 car as 2 were not required and our monthy food shop has been cut in half! Its amazing how much you dont realise you spend. we used to spen £130 a week at asda we now spend £70 and have less food waste Good luck. Maybe your wife should do cleaning or something when she is not at the schools?

zagfles

epitome wrote: »

But he is still in full time education so you should chase them up on that.

I doubt you will get CTB but no harm in applying for it.

Yes, you have to tell them that he is still in education otherwise CB gets stopped. Won't get CTB or CTC.

Ellejmorgan

dazzst wrote: »

No. I don't earn enough. Our outgoings exceed our income and we don't live any kind of extravagant lifestyle I can assure you. We are struggling like many people. I have never ever asked for any kind of benefit in the past, even if they were due or accessible.

You're doing something wrong if you can't live on that..
Can the mortgage be changed ??? what cars do you drive, are they economical ??..you don't pay for childcare so that's not it..do you have credit cards or loans etc..somethings not right..

mum2one

a lot of the teaching assistant jobs, teachers are going for TA jobs, and with this there cherry picking who they want.
At a school by us, there only employing TAa that are HLTA as there doubling up as teachers. xx

Horseunderwater

Yep you do need to tell them he is still in FT education. I was given this advice for when my now 16 year old reaches Aug 31st after Y11 ends. This is just after the exam results and getting into 6th forms etc, so a busy time. You ring them up and they will advise what proof you need to provide as they will need something to continue paying it. I assume that as they are now 17 that some time has passed since 31st Aug when they were 16. You might be able to get CB backdated to that point - worth trying. 1st job on Monday is to ring CBen and see what is available/can be done.
2nd job:
Make a list of all debts and I mean all of them. These are not essential. Are you maxed out on them all? If yes then you will most likely have not got any credit facility left to get hold of, so prob no 0% interest free deals to be had. If that is the case, the best thing to do, is to write to each and every creditor and ask to have interest frozen and offer to make them a percentage of what is left from your monthly budget. But you do have to stick to it and you have to be mean with all outgoings. Whatever else you do, do not go down the IVA route with any company that offers to sort it out, as they will take 80% of any money paid in fees etc. Often not even sending on the monies to the creditors.
Make a list of all essential outgoings.
This for me is:
Mortgage/rent
Council tax
TV license
Gas/Oil
Elect
BT(phone)
Water
House insurance
Car insurance(s)
MOT
Fuel
Servicing
Food and house cleaning bits
Those are the true essentials, add those up by looking at what you have paid out at the moment and then how much food gets thrown out as out of date etc. My fridge is now empty by Frid/Sat and gets stocked again with just enough to get to next weekend. Rarely chuck out of date food out now. After all that has been paid - how much is left over to pay any non essential debts? To work out what you can pay to each one, take each one and divide it over total debt to get percentage eg: If debts are say £10k and one CC is say £5k and others are all smaller. £5k/£10000K would give you 50% to pay to that creditor each month from your leftover income and so on until you have the 100% debts covered in your offer to them. It can be a small amount if your budget is tight, we used to pay a min of £1 at one point to ours back in 2005.
If you are on credit deals with utilities, can you swap to Pre payment meters, because even though you may be getting a good deal with say a credit account, sometimes it can be worth going down this route, so that you can stick to weekly budget for them and even better if you are in debit with them. They will set a weekly amount for any stand charge and debt on the meter, so all you do is top up at a pay point shop or I can do mine online with a USB device (BG), so I do not even need to drive(saving more pennies). They provide them free.
Do you have lots of unused clothing or electrical items not being used that could be sold on Ebay? Another way to clear debts is to sell off things that caused the debts in first place. You may not get as much for them, but sometimes can get a higher amount. And as soon as you get that money - put is aside and use to pay off debts quicker.
Another thing I do is buy food about to go out of date that can be frozen for cooking in a big batch later on. I accumulate until I have enough of that item. So as I make fish pie with cod loins(smoked) from Sainsburys fresh fish counter, I will buy whatever is there and I always ask if a further reduction is available. I normally get it as well. It goes into freezer when I get back and stays there till I have enough for homemade fish pie. V easy to make. Enough mashed potatoes for 4 cooked and mashed with butter salt pepper and 2 eggs, until a good spreading consistency. Fish gets baked with pepper, butter and some water or milk for 20 mins in oven, then broken up with fork and placed in dish to be used in the final bake. Make enough cheese sauce (thick) and mix in with fish. Spread mash over that and bake for 20-30 mins - Timing approx 1 1/4 hours from scratch. Cod loin is £18.90kg, so when I get it for £5kg or less I am getting a good saving on what is very good quality food. I do this with all the protein parts of my meals. Be friend the deli staff - it can be well worth it.
I now have my spending cut so tight that I can actually pay off the debt I had to run up last year due to illness in significant chunks and I hope to have at least cleared the interest bit by end of this year and some of the 0% bit by end date.

princessdon

ticktack wrote: »

I don't think that's correct.

How can I become a teaching assistant?

A good starting point is to volunteer to help in a local school, perhaps for a few hours each week, as you are unlikely to find paid employment as a teaching assistant without relevant experience or qualifications. With voluntary experience you can work towards a qualification which will improve your chances of finding paid work.

http://www.islington.gov.uk/publicrecords/documents/EducationandLearning/Pdf/fis_rec_teaching_assistant.PDF

Technically you can work a a TA without the qual - but this is very very rare and most schools need a Level 3 minimum. some of my students do get work from their volunteering role, but these are the minority (small minority) and they are working towards their level 3. At the moment his OH isn't working towards the qualification. If this is her chosen career then getting on a course is someting very advisable (it's only a few hours a week!). You need a placement to get on a course so she is in good stead at interview having a placement already.


Invigilating exams isn't very useful experience. Whereas by doing voluntary work as a teaching assistant there's a path to trying to become qualified, and get a paid job in work which is a good deal more rewarding than bitwork.

I don't disagree - but this is paid work that can be done now. It is as and when needed and will give money in the bank now whilst she is volunteering. I'm certainly not suggesting that this is her choice for life, but the two can be done in parallel and it pays more than TA. Volunteering won't help bring in money - doing someother form of part time work around volunteering and traning will.

Still that is a personal decision - but it was my suggestion based on the fact that they are not "signing off" so every hour they work is additional funds. Or they can continue volunteering on no pay and hope they are one of the lucky ones that get paid work from it! Their personal choice.

Dunroamin

dazzst wrote: »

CB was stopped as my son has reached 17.
Our mortgage is £805 per month
Our income is £2400 per month

Assuming that your CT is around £200pcm, an income of £1,400 after accommodation costs is still a great deal of money.

dazzst

mogsman wrote: »

Hows the mrs gonna pay for a crb check then? She has got one has she not?:(

Yes. She has one.