Is it worth working for 14 hours as a single parent!??

miss.wishbone

Needing some advise really..

Im a single parent of a 5 year old. Made redundant last month.

Managed in this time to enrol on a TA course once a week and have a voluntary placement in a school 2 hours per week (this is v important to me as its what i want to be doing eventually)

So i was very happy when i managed to get a PT job in a college... which fits perfect around my studies and placement (thought this wud be impossible)

But, my paid job is only 14 hours .... which means i cant claim tax credits .... i really want to work and have a great job to start in a week.. but not sure if i can afford to do so (the system is so wrong)!! I have to work 16 hours to get working credits etc

Is there any way round this .. for the sake of 2 hours i will loose a huge amount of money!

Any suggestions welcome , not sure how to play this one out... just wanna support myself and son myself and this job is one i really want to take... they just make it so hard! Thanks

whitewing

Is that 14 hours a week in term time or 14 hours a week thro the year? If the latter, could you do a couple of hours cleaning for someone to make it up?

miss.wishbone

Its 14 hours term time

Paid work, college and School work placement is all term time so i get all the holidays with my little fella (so far every holiday he goes to holiday club which cost a bomb)

Another reason why this is a perfect job offer


Does it make any difference that i have holidays off? (financially.. i will be getting paid through them)

zagfles

What benefits are you getting now? You're unlikely to be worse off working 14 hours. You can still get CTC whatever your hours.

But you'd likely be a lot better off on 16 hours - any chance of a lunchtime work in the school, they're often looking for luchtime staff, or lollypop etc, anything to get 2 hours? The 16 hours needed for WTC can be from more than one job.

whitewing

I think you will need to check out the situation with the CAB regarding it being term time only. I don't know the answer especially if you are paid thro the holidays.

miss.wishbone

thanks guys ... i really can understand why so many people in my situation refuse to work. Its hard to make a huge difference. I love working but want to feel the impact of doing so through my bank account also lol

I guess finding a job for 2 hours is the solution .... ahh life is jam packed already lol....

thank you x

zagfles

whitewing wrote: »

I think you will need to check out the situation with the CAB regarding it being term time only. I don't know the answer especially if you are paid thro the holidays.

Can just use term-time hours, see http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/tctmanual/TCTM02458.htm

miss.wishbone

for the past month i get ... jsa and CTC of 55 per week and CB of 18. A struggle

zagfles

miss.wishbone wrote: »

for the past month i get ... jsa and CTC of 55 per week and CB of 18. A struggle

No housing/SMI/council tax benefit? Then you'll only lose the JSA working 14 hours, you'll still get CTC & CB, so you should be better off. Even if it's min wage you'll get £85 instead of £71.

miss.wishbone

Ah yeah i get HB and CTB. Not sure what SMI is!

The difference i will recieve is not a lot more then JSA, for all the work i will be doing (plus the running around dropping my son off the babysitters ect) but i reckon finding 2 hours per week paid work cant be that hard to find (i hope lol) and that should make all the difference... so i am going to accept the job and start searching for my 2 hours today!

Thank you for your help

princessdon

Can you gain Self Employment?

Ie do a bit of cleaning, dog walking etc - this can add to your hours.

but do check with Tax Cedits if you are Part Time Equated as it could be that the holidays need to accounted for - I am not 100% on that one