Benefits

OldMotherTucker

Just going to add - when my partner and I finished our OND's - we had to share a 1 bed flat with 3 other people. Myself and 2 childcare students shared the bedroom and my boyf and another chef made the sitting room into a second bedroom just to cover the £75 pw rent:eek::eek::eek:


Oh . . the good old days:rotfl:

BigAunty

gemschmoo wrote: »

...

The one good thing about this whole situation is I've had a really good look at my bank account and can see the areas I need to improve in eg a gym membership I rarely use now I run outside, and buying lunch in shops instead of making it myself. Hopefully this should help me see that I earn more than I think I do!

Good point and v. sensible approach. Sometimes when we suggest to posters who do not receive the benefits they anticipate that they budget better, they go balistic - for example, recently we managed to annoy a lady who spent a lot on energy, water, prescriptions, debt repayments and a sky package who was angry at the money saving tips and said she'd just sell her tv and pc instead....

Hopefully you may have some housing benefit and council tax discount entitlement to take the sting out of your cost of living.

MSE is stuffed full of thrifty advice. Download their budget planner and work through the entire site and forums to identify how to slash costs even further and up your income.

For example, reduce energy consumption, better utility/telecoms/insurance tariffs, cheap recipes, using Freecyle and so on.

A lady on MSE actually produced a website so a family of 4 can feed themselves for £100 for a month - some households spend that a week on food. The Old style forum has a good reputation for ultra frugal household savings the old fashioned way.

Then, even if your partner gets a NMW job, you'll feel your money stretch so much further than those who really don't realise that their automatic ways of spending are crippling them unnoticed - the coffee on the way to work instead of taking a thermos, the train fare into work when they could cycle it, buying sandwiches at lunch instead of making them, buying clothes brand new instead of in sales/on ebay/in charity shops, buying expensive cleaning products when a damp cloth or home made or natural products will do (bicarbonate of soda) and so on.

princessdon

This is what I always fail to understand!

If you had been 25 and in the same situation you'd get Working Tax Credits. Under 25 and you don't.

Not much more to say other than what has been said - it will motivate your OH to get work very fast and I don't think it will be long.

OldMotherTucker

princessdon wrote: »

This is what I always fail to understand!

If you had been 25 and in the same situation you'd get Working Tax Credits. Under 25 and you don't.

Not much more to say other than what has been said - it will motivate your OH to get work very fast and I don't think it will be long.

There has to be cut off - otherwise every single teenager who's parents' nag them would just move out and expect to be supported by the state.

(10 years, 11 months to go;))

princessdon

You counting down the years till yours leave home?

OldMotherTucker

I'm more than halfway through - and I've been a single mum for 12 years:T:T

and I have 3 lovely kids (20, 17 and 14 - all working!)

Had I ever found a man good enough to take on those responsibilities I would have leapt at the chance! !!!!!! the benefits - because if he could do half as much as me we'd be laughing.

My family will always have a place to live as long as I have I do joke about it - especially as the two youngest are away on a 10 day jolly with their Dad - eldest couldn't go - he would have to pay his way but decided to invest his wages in his career instead.

He did write me a lovely card though to tell me how much he was looking forward to it being me and him at home without the girls - its a standing joke that this is what life would have been like if he was an only child:rotfl:

SOH can be genetic:D

princessdon

LOL - I think it depends on ages.

I adore mine and never want them to leave home ever ever - especially when they are young enough to manipulate and make the coffee and do dishes etc, had my teenage nephew today (Kevin the teenager has him spot on) - OMG I'd shrugged, sighed and rolled my eyes more today than the last year.

Kept asking him - Is it friday or Saturday your leaving?

OldMotherTucker

Missing my girls:(:(:(

But my house is soooooo tidy:rotfl::rotfl:

Sixer

Could your OH do some work from home? The Up Your Income board has some threads which could be helpful - check out the mystery shopping thread and the Lionbridge thread for starters.