BENEFIT CAP-Down almost £7000 help!!!

HappyMJ

desperatemumof6 wrote: »

My council tax bill of £800 is with the 25% off and based on the fact I receive IS. It should be well over £1000.

My ex was made redundant recently so no payments off him for a while.

I don't want to receive benefits and my children have been bullied about it. One child told my 7yr old she was too poor to play with now her mum didn't work. I'm budgeting for all I am worth even sat here now with my coat on to avoid turning the heating on before the children return home.

Have you applied for Council Tax Support? It should reduce the bill down to £200 or less.

Speak to the school. My local school has just implemented a card based system for all school dinners. It's impossible to know who is and is not on free school meals...although about 1 in 5 are on them so it's not so much of a problem around here.

Hang_Tight_Harry

You really shouldn't have accrued more debt - the benefits you were on should have been sufficient for your needs. That said, it looks like you have.

I would strongly advise you to post up a SOA on the debt fee board and then spend an hour or three reading the old style board. There are some great, super cheap meals on there.

By visit the debt free board and the old style board you should be able to manage on £500 a week.

The cap is here to stay (I sincerely hope). You need to adjust.

desperatemumof6

I rang the council team yesterday to check my bill as I had two different amounts they told me the £842.94 bill was correct for my situation and included a £270 single person reduction and took into account my income support, which equates to £84 a month over 10mths, I have just changed it to 12mths to try and save a few pounds a month.
I will put the kids on free school meals as it will save a little on basic lunches.

Thanks for all your help guys it means a lot.

mcjordi

if your on IS then you shouldnt have to pay £800... i know some councils are asking for some money under the new rules. it might be worth while speaking to the benefits team at the council or CAB

HappyMJ

desperatemumof6 wrote: »

I rang the council team yesterday to check my bill as I had two different amounts they told me the £842.94 bill was correct for my situation and included a £270 single person reduction and took into account my income support, which equates to £84 a month over 10mths, I have just changed it to 12mths to try and save a few pounds a month.
I will put the kids on free school meals as it will save a little on basic lunches.

Thanks for all your help guys it means a lot.

I think something has been lost in the discussions you've had with the council. Were you getting council tax benefit before?

If you choose not to pay your council tax then don't worry about it too much. They'll get a liability order. You then start negotiations with council to pay the council tax direct from your benefit at a rate of £3.60 a week. You will not be going to prison for not paying your council tax.

Simon7685

You also need to stop panicking and look at things from a budgeting point of view. If you receive Income Support as a single person over 25 years of age this amounts to £71 a week.

You have 6 children so receive Child Benefit of, 1 x £20.30 + 5 x £13.40 totaling £87.30 a week.

Child Tax Credits you get 1 family element of £545 a year + 6 child elements of £2720.
So 6 x £2720 = £16320 + £545 = 16865 / 52 = £324.33 a week

So your weekly income should be;
£71.00 IS + £87.30 CHB + £324.33 CTC = £482.63 a week.

You should receive whatever is the maximum amount of localised support for ccouncil tax in your area because that is not included in the benefit cap.

Your HB will be restricted under the cap, so you will have at best some of it to pay or worst all of it to pay. However you can apply through your council for a Discretionary Housing Payment which may help you with that.

You can also get Free School Meals for all your children. they are not identified in any way now and nobody need know they receive them.

Also your ex partner should be paying at least the minimum payment of maintenance even if he is unemployed, which I believe is around £5.50 a week?

It is not easy, I am not syaing it is but you are going to have to budget to get through it. Try to think of it as your income is restricted to £500 a week, out of that you have to pay your housing costs (rent) and then feed and clothe your children. It is not easy but it is possible. There are a lot of people in the same position and some worse than you, if you look at your outgoings, you should be able to find a way.

The bottom line is this is how it is going to be and you have to manage, so some things that you may have will have to be cut back on. Things like smoking, drinking, mobile phones, satellite TV etc, you will have to look at if you have any of them.

It is hard but it is how it is now.

Simon7685

HappyMJ wrote: »

I think something has been lost in the discussions you've had with the council. Were you getting council tax benefit before?

If you choose not to pay your council tax then don't worry about it too much. They'll get a liability order. You then start negotiations with council to pay the council tax direct from your benefit at a rate of £3.60 a week. You will not be going to prison for not paying your council tax.

The only thing about not paying and letting them get a liability order is she will have to pay for the costs involved as well. So while they can only reduce her benefit by £3.55 a week, the amount she has to pay overall will include the court costs of about £150 or more as well.

zagfles

HappyMJ wrote: »

When you do find work you won't be much better off anyway as you will lose all benefits and have to pay for childcare

But if she works 16 hours and gets WTC she'll be exempt from the benefits cap, so it will make her considerably better off if she's losing £7000 due to the cap. See http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/benefit-cap-factsheet.pdf

Plus if she works 16 hours on NMW she'll only lose IS plus a little HB, she'd still get CTC in full plus WTC plus childcare help.

BigAunty

In addition to all the constructive advice before (ignore the judgemental stuff which breaches forum rules), download the MSE budget planner and populate it with your new income/expenses.

Then systematically work through the site to identify where to slash costs and be ultra thrifty - the cheapest energy/telecoms/insurance/tv tariffs, cheapest groceries, frugal recipes and so on. For example, there are recipe websites that show how to feed a family of 4 for £100 a month for all meals and there will be other ones out that that can slash your food bill. The Old Style board has the reputation for being good for tips on being frugal.

If you are right that you lose £90 per week in benefits, then have to pay £800 council tax, and a previous poster is correct that you now get £480 a week for your children, this means that your benefits have reduced by approx 17%?? due to the £105 drop in income. Therefore you should be ruthless with your budget to cut back by the sum of £105 each week (£455 a month) and know where every penny is going. It will be £93 a week if your council tax bill is £200.

Your rent, council tax and utility bills are priority bills. Does your household have any debts at the moment? If so, go to the Debt free wanabee board.

While you can query the council tax discount and apply for DHP and hopefully your child maintenance will resume in the future, perhaps in future you can get a job, etc, but now you may have to face facts that you have a budgeting issue rather than a benefits issue if no more benefits are forthcoming. The budget planner will help you take control of your much reduced income instead of feeling that you are in a state of chaos.

If you are in danger of getting into rent arrears, see the Shelter website as it specialises in housing advice and has info there on how to prevent or deal with them. You should contact your landlord asap if you are in danger of getting into arrears.

Also, you could consider contacting your MP to let them know the hardship you must endure since their failure to stop the caps becoming policy. They are there to serve you so make sure they know how you've been impacted.

Faith177

shedboy94 wrote: »

Fair enough, but having children within a short space of time, married or not is still irresponsible unless you know for a fact you will always have the means to support them. Most people when thinking about having children will not only consider whether they can afford them at the present time, but also what would happen if there was a change in their personal circumstances.

I take it when you were married you didn't claim any benefits for them?

That is a very black & white view on life Shedboy.

My mum had me & my brother 4 years 4 months and 1 day apart (I'm not lying lol). Within 8 months & 14 days of my baby brother being born my mum was a widow she was 28.

My dad was killed in a freak accident by a train he took the dog for a walk never came back.

You can plan things until you are blue in the face have all the protection in the world and then life throws you the biggest curve ball you can imagine.