Serious Benefit Confusion...help?

SniperMonkey

Hi there.

When we had our baby back in January 2013 we got benefits to the tune of £60 a week. I earned 19k that year and my wife had maternity pay and part of her yearly wage so we assumed that was it and left it.

April came, we renewed our pack and said that my wife was staying at home, I was earning 19k and we had no nursery costs. It stayed at £60 per week.

My wife went back to work for about 2 months and we had nursery costs of £150 per week for 2 months. It stayed at £60 per week despite us ringing and asking for more help.

My wife quits work to stay at home, no nursery costs, no wage and me on 19k. It stayed at £60 per week.

Cut to 2014, February, out of the blue it drops to £47 with no warning. We phone up, they said they made a mistake, it's a new automated system or something and it'll correct itself, it went back up to £60.

Renewal time comes, I phone up to renew, tell them my wife isn't working, because they didnt give us enough first time around we were forced to live with my mother in law because we couldnt pay bills etc. They said they'd overpaid us by £1200 and they wanted it back now. I said I didn't have it, they said they'll take it off future payments.

Couple weeks later, we get a payment saying they'd underpaid us. We then get a letter saying they'd overpaid us and were taking it from our payments which put us down to £47 per week.

My wife was offered a part time job of 20 hours a week, she took on the HMRC assesment and was told she would be entitled to over£100 per week toward nursery costs and working tax credits.

The other day, my wife phoned to tell them that she is returning to work part time at £7500 a year and my £19,000 hasn't changed and also that my daughter is now going to nursery 5 days a week for 5 hours a day at a cost of £108 per week.

We now get £10 a week. Is that right? Am I missing something? Surely they are supposed to help us afford to pay nursery costs?

Now my wife and I are debating whether she should quit her job because we cannot afford to get by on £10 as we used the £60 beforehand to feed us. Now I have to pay the £108 myself, top the £10 up with another £50 so she can feed us, as well as £100 a week rent. That's £258 before I have even looked at any bills.

Please help...if you can...

Indie_Kid

You've posted this in the wrong forum. This is for child maintenance and not child benefits.

Whether they help you with nursery costs depends on how much you earn. They can help you with up to a maximum of 70% of nursery costs per week. But this decreases as you earn more.

jacklink

yes children are expensive,