Financial support for student with wife on maternity leave?

adamfairs

Hello all,

My wife and I have some huge decisions to make over the next few weeks. We have a 6 month old daughter and would like to have a second child but I have been offered a place at university starting in September. My wife is 34 this year and we're wary of delaying a second for too long. I can defer my place for a year but, whichever way you look at it, there will be a period (perhaps 2 - 9 months) where I will be a full time student and she will be on statutory maternity pay, so we'll need to find some extra money from somewhere.

I cannot find any information for people that are in my situation. Can anyone help? I'd be glad to give any more information - figures etc.

Indie_Kid

You may be entitled to the access to learning fund and possibly things like housing benefit if you rent and /or council tax support. As a full time student, your wife will receive a 25% council tax discount.

adamfairs

Thank you Indie Kid. I'm afraid we havea mortgage. I'll certainly look into the access to learning fund. Thank you.

NYM

Maybe you could use some of your savings.....

adamfairs wrote: »

Hello,

I've received an offer for a place at university but it doesn't look like I can get a student loan. I need to raise roughly £15000 a year for three years. We have £40,000 of hard saved cash in the bank to pay for repairs and renovations.

One option could be to re-mortgage but I have no experience of this. I suppose I could either re-mortgage now for the building works (roughly £30000) and use the cash for university or spend the cash on the building works (to hopefully add a little bit of value to the house) and then re-mortgage afterwards.

Does anyone have any insight or experience that they can share?

Cheers,

Adam

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/65132449#Comment_65132449

Indie_Kid

In that case, you wouldn't get council tax support.

dippy3103

Your wife would still get a 25% discount on your council tax though.

adamfairs

NYM wrote: »

Maybe you could use some of your savings.....



https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/65132449#Comment_65132449

That's a lovely thought but it's a case of replace the roof or continue to have water coming through it. Of course it is something that we have considered but if we don't do the work now then we will never afford to and will be unlikely to sell a house that is becoming unliveable. What do you think?

Please forgive me if I'm wrong but I imagine that your comment was prompted by the thought that I am some sort of scrounger, I am not. I recognise that to have children is a privilege, not a right as is re-training and going to university but we will be making our own sacrifices by re-mortgaging our house and cutting back on all but the bare essentials. If I don't have to rely on government hand outs, I won't. If I do, I'll console myself with the knowledge that the job that I'll be qualified for will mean that I'll be able to give back to society. What would you do?

whodathunkit

Given that, as a student, you'll be at home a lot more, your wife need only take the minimum amount of maternity leave which could help.

Have you counted in the Parents Learning Allowance and Adult Dependance Grant in your calculations?

https://www.gov.uk/parents-learning-allowance

https://www.gov.uk/adult-dependants-grant/overview

notanewuser

You have £40k. You need £30k for renovations so you have £10k to see you through any period where you're a student and your wide is on mat leave.

(BTW, there's no need to rush the second child.)

adamfairs

Thanks whodathunkit. It's definitely not something I'd thought about and it'll be true for some of the time but 50% of the time I'll be on placements, working 12 hour shifts at odd times on placements.

Thank you, I'll look again at the parents learning allowance and adults dependants grant.

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that this isn't feasible and something will have to give...

NYM

adamfairs wrote: »

That's a lovely thought but it's a case of replace the roof or continue to have water coming through it. Of course it is something that we have considered but if we don't do the work now then we will never afford to and will be unlikely to sell a house that is becoming unliveable. What do you think?

Please forgive me if I'm wrong but I imagine that your comment was prompted by the thought that I am some sort of scrounger, I am not. I recognise that to have children is a privilege, not a right as is re-training and going to university but we will be making our own sacrifices by re-mortgaging our house and cutting back on all but the bare essentials. If I don't have to rely on government hand outs, I won't. If I do, I'll console myself with the knowledge that the job that I'll be qualified for will mean that I'll be able to give back to society. What would you do?

Life throws up many challenges and obstacles that we have to overcome. It's how we choose to handle them and learn from them that determines our success or failure.

We all have to make sacrifices to achieve what we want in life but from your other threads it would appear that you want everything now.

Yes, I will forgive you because my comment had nothing at all to do with 'scrounging'
Selfishness, yes.