Benfits advice please pregnant, no money

kims_here

Hi everyone,
I just wrote out my life story in a post and it disappeared. I'm trying again now hope it works. I've been married 5 years, I was working full time shift work in a hospital and my husband starting a small business. Beginning of 2013 he was offered a great job opportunity abroad through a family friend. I quit my job and we went there. This friend turned out to be a con man and after months of being messed around we got no where. Then I discovered I was pregnant. I also caught an illness over there and was very unwell so we decided to come home. I was very happy to come home but at the same time we were both very disappointed. We hoped to better our lives and instead ended up worse off. Now my husband is a full time student retraining for a new careeer in the hope of getting a job and I am unemployed and 20 weeks pregnant.

Without sounding horrible, what benefits if any are we entitled to?
We are getting more and more in to debt. We have no income. I was thinking I can claim JSA? But then my husband is not available for work so what does that mean? Or can I claim income support? I read online that you can claim Income support from 29 weeks pregnant but most of the info I found refers to "lone single" parents and no info on married student partner.

I would really appreciate any advice. I wish I had stayed in my job now and had maternity leave like my collegues but I had no idea I would end up in this situation. Thank you

kims_here

Thanks I've tried this and when I click the student option it says "important: the calculator does not calculate entitlements for any of the groups listed"

kims_here

It won't show any info-results as my husbands a student

kims_here

Thanks anyway

bloolagoon

What type of student is he? What loans/grants does he get?

kims_here

Full time student, borrowed money to pay fees, no loans "student loans" or grants nothing like that. We have no income and no benefits.

kims_here

He is 32 and I am 33 years old.

marliepanda

kims_here wrote: »

Full time student, borrowed money to pay fees, no loans "student loans" or grants nothing like that. We have no income and no benefits.

Even if you don't take then you will be assumed to have taken them and that will be treated as part of your income.

duchy

Can he not get a part time job ? I'm a university student and a parent but also work 33 hours a week (I reduced my hours to allow for fulltime study). No reason why he can't either.

Do you not have student loans/maintainance because you chose not to or because you have no entitlement to them ?

There's plenty of jobs that don't require degrees -at thirty three years old he should know that . Surely supporting his wife and child are the priority. He can study alongside either fulltime or part-time. He needs to get his priorities in the right order -if there's no money to support his family now-training for the possibility of work in a year or two isn't appropriate or realistic without working as well - even if it isn't the kind of employment he'd choose for now.

kims_here

His course is an intensive one everyday until at least 7pm maybe later depending on the work. So option would be a saturday job hopefully that will be enough to live on.

kims_here

Actually thinking about it when we both worked full time before we were struggling and that was before having a baby so I'm not sure how much it would help really but its better than nothing. When I was at university almost all my classes were in the morning, latest day finishing a couple of times at 3pm which left lots of time for part time job. Unfortunately my husbands course is not structured like that as it's an intense course.