Am I entitled to anything?

cokeytoley

Hi I am an 18 year old renting a house in full time work. My income is around £13000-14000 a year before tax, I've been in the job know for nearly 3 years. I have been renting this house now with another colleague since April, however council tax and rent is a complete killer.. My rent is £575 and council tax is £120. This is all split between both of us but still coating £500 a month each including bills! When earning only £780-£790 after tax it's not leaving much money to live on! Surely there is some kind of benefit top up to help out? I have done an online test which has come out that I'm not entitled to anything? Please help??!

Thanks
Nicole

notanewuser

Are you sure your take home pay is right? You should be clearing £970ish per month.....??

CKhalvashi

Unless you're on DLA, you will struggle with anything until the new Universal Credit comes in.

I'm sorry I can't give better news, as it's nice to see someone young working hard.

You may be best starting a small eBay business or the like, buying to sell, but you will need to register as self-employed for this, too.

CK

CKhalvashi

notanewuser wrote: »

Are you sure your take home pay is right? You should be clearing £970ish per month.....??

Working on £13k, the figures that OP gave are about right.

CK

notanewuser

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Working on £13k, the figures that OP gave are about right.

CK

No it's not (according to https://www.listentotaxman.com)

OP should be paying £54 NI and £63 tax pet month (ish). As he's only 18 there won't be any student loan deductions and he doesn't mention a pension (would be amazed if that were £200 a month anyway).

Take home pay on £13k should be around £970 per month.

System

£13,000 = £971.48 a month
£14,000 = £1028.15 a month

So the OP should be earning somewhere between the two?

theoretica

cokeytoley wrote: »

My rent is £575 and council tax is £120. This is all split between both of us but still coating £500 a month each including bills!

£305 in bills? That seems very high.

irishjohn

notanewuser wrote: »

No it's not (according to https://www.listentotaxman.com)

OP should be paying £54 NI and £63 tax pet month (ish). As he's only 18 there won't be any student loan deductions and he doesn't mention a pension (would be amazed if that were £200 a month anyway).

Take home pay on £13k should be around £970 per month.

I have a feeling someone named Nicole is unlikely to be male.

Best option is to look to altering living arrangements - at 18 it would be a good idea to be living with a larger number of sharers and cut costs that way

sweetilemon

I agree, unless paying child maintanence/pension/something else on your wages your tax code sounds like its wrong. I get a salary of roughly 13.5k and after pension & union get about £900 a month.

As for benefits unfortunately I don't think there is anything. I am wonder what the Universal credit is though?

ethan12

you can share your home with more colleagues in order to reduce the burden of rent. while earning 780-790 it would help you save money for other expenses.

Prothet_of_Doom

I suppose it depends where you live, but £900 for a single person seems okay to me.

I'm having to live 4 nights a week in Derby, and have found that for £200-£400 I could get an all inclusive room in a shared house, depending on area, size of room, and niceness of house, or for £600 a 3 bed house (plus bills) which would result in it costing about £350 each after all bills.

But you seem to have £280 to live on a month, which if that's JUST food should leave you £150 for beer.