Worse of by working.

merlin68

I'm going to take the job anyway, and loose my benifit allowance, but by me earning £80 a week we loose working tax credit, housing benifit and council tax benifit plus my dd bursary at college

tomtom256

I would have thought at £80 per week you would still be entitled to a little help unless your not giving the full picture.

Although its a strange topic as its not clear what if any help your after!

merlin68

No put all the details in, it just annoys me that by working i'm worse of. But i know i need a job soon as dd 14 now and other dd coming up 17. Hubby self employed so can earn anything between 900 and 1800 a month.

Marisco

So the monthly household income will vary between £1220 and £2120? Not quite a bad as the first post makes out then!!

merlin68

Yes but out of that i have to pay monthly
£480 rent and council tax
£490 shopping special diets due to milk allergies.
£160 gas and electric card meter.
£120 dd for bus pass and college expenses.
£204 car loan
£61 car insurance
£45 water
£12 tv
£21 service plan for car
£180 on sky, hubbies work mobile and tv rental.
£16 dog insurance.
£40 dd special school for trips
£40 car expenses. tax and mot
£400 debt repayment
£280 petrol
I can't save on car expenses as oh is a parcel courier and needs specialist insurance hence the high petrol costs.

superwoman4

You could look for a job or second job that will pay you more than £80 per week.

skipsmum

Merlin, if you put this on the DFW board they will help you.

carebear13

hi - surely a lot of your car expenses could be reclaimed against tax if hubby is s/e.? have you double checked? at the very least a large chunk of your petrol expense and his mobile phone if it is specifiaclly for work

dandelionclock30

£490 in shopping per month is a lot. Even if members of your family have milk allergies there are reasonable alternatives such as soya or rice milk etc. If you cook from scratch and avoid any processed foods then you will be able to get this shopping bill right down.
Also you could get rid of Sky get a freeview box and a cheap T.V instead of renting one.

sablelady

£180 on sky, hubbies work mobile and tv rental

you can ditch most of the above. Look on ebay for a cheap CRT(old skool) telly. We were able to pick up a 40" sony for £22. Very heavy mind!! We have had Feesat for over ten years for a one off £130.

BigAunty

I do believe the OP - it is the case that at a certain level of household income, the withdrawal of benefits is so steep that the money from working extra hours is just swallowed up by all or some of the loss of benefits and entry into taxation, extra child care and transport costs.

Double check it on the Turn2us online benefit checker and if you are truly left worse off then don't take up the position (might be more worthwhile under UC in the future, who knows, or the satisfaction from having a job outweights its limited income).

The OP should download the MSE budget planner and work through the site to identify where to make savings - the energy, tv, telecoms and food costs seem extortionate. Card meters is a very expensive way of paying for energy. A lot of incidental costs aren't included on the budget.

I'm a veggie that cook virtually everything from scratch (I do eat dairy products) and I'm sure that a vegan (dairy free) diet is one of the cheapest around. Start a thread on the Old Style moneysaving board for milk/dairy free cheap recipes. There is a website called cheap recipes written by an MSE member where she feeds a family of 4 for £100 a month and a lot of the recipes are dairy free.

Wow - the car cost around £600 pcm to buy, run and maintain (I know it's essential, I'm just blown away by the cost). Nonetheless why I don't think that the self employed can get the cost of purchase as an expense, the running costs can be expensed therefore I think the OP should strip out the business expenses from her personal budget - this should be covered on a separate tax return/expense refund system by her husband rather than double counted. You should not conflate business and personal expenses - there should be a clear separation. The tax saving board can give more info on how to expense business cars.

Again, pop over to the debt free wanabee board - looks like anything up to a third of your husbands monthly income goes on servicing this - time for a better strategy.