Entitled to any help?

Mohsin

Hi,

Looking for some advice, myself and my wife have a 8 month old child. We are going to put him in a nursery when my wife goes back to work which by then he will be a year old. She will be going back part time and will earn around 9k a year which will go down to around 5k with childcare vouchers.

I'm currently on 25k a year before tax. Currently each month after all the bills are paid I am left with around £200 which doesn't include diesel and groceries which my wife helps with.

My wife contacted benefits who said we aren't entitled to any kind of help at all. I had a look on this site and it said about the combined income being 42k. I did the calculator which also said we wouldn't be entitled to anything.

My wife is expecting our second child next year, the benefits person said that when the second child is here we might be entitled to something but again may not be entitled at all.

I'm not sure if we can get any sort of help at all, we aren't expecting everything to be paid for or whatever as we work and do pay our expenses. All we are really looking for is some sort of help towards childcare costs as that would help us a lot.

Sorry for the long post.

Horseunderwater

Get the wife to train up & qualilfy to become a child minder at home - she can then care for other peoples children at home and not need to seek additional child care costs herself, while making some money from being self employed. My neighbour does this and makes good money doing it. With 2 children under 2 years at home, it would make a fair bit of sense. Might also bring you under the £32.2k income limit for tax credits and so you'd be able to get some help.

heartbreak_star

That's a reasonable income - but can see why it's a stretch with kids.

Is it worth completing a full SOA to see if you can cut back anywhere?

HBS x

sweetietot

Would you be able to claim the Childcare vouchers? Your wife's income is only slightly above the tax free allowance so she won't receive the full tax benefit of the scheme

princessdon

Sadly they don't really give much help - but use the calculators WITHOUT the childcare vouchers. Ie put the 9K in.

In some situations the increase in Tax Credits for childcare outweigh the using the use of vouchers - especially when you are getting pennies in tax.

ie her personal allowance is 8100 - so at 9K she only pays £900 tax a year, it's not going to be a lot of tax relief is it?

You are wasting your tax releif really

Also your pension is discounted IF you have any

Mohsin

Thank you for the replies.

Spoke to the mrs and she wouldn't feel comfortable with doing child minding just incase someone elses child got hurt then she would feel really guilty. She's just going to try and do extra qualifications through her work to see if she can progress.

The income itself isn't too bad I know, ideally if nurserys were all free it would be perfect but unfortunately we're not in one of those worlds. So we'll just need to make do . We have made cuts i.e. don't have sky tv but instead have freesat. Changed to a lower level of broadband, also hardly ever go out to eat anymore etc. Our next stage is the mobile contracts, once it ends will be swapping for a sim only deal which should half the costs of that.

I was looking at my own work and looks like I can claim the childcare vouchers so that becomes an option now.

Will go through the calculators again and see what it says.