Live In Carers- Advice please!!

kiwi_86

Hi
I would be really grateful to hear from anyone who has worked as a live in carer! I have just been offered a job to start as a live in carer in a months' time. I have been told the pay is £450-500 per week (when working). This would be paid monthly. My working pattern would be 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

During the weeks I would be working, I would be living with the service user, so would not need to pay rent. However, on the 2 weeks I am not working I would need to be staying in my own place.
(As I do not have any family I can live with for the other 2 weeks).

The thing is I would only be living on 2 weeks' wages to pay rent for my own place to stay for when I am not working. I'm not really sure how to implement this...and I really want to do this role.

Any money saving advice would be greatly appreciated, but please no negative stories about how it's all rubbish etc.

Many thanks,
Kiwi x

gettingready

Where in UK? Cost of living varies from one place to another.

Easy would be to rent a place with the carer doing the other 2 weeks as you could swap place when working/not working but I guess this is not possible?

Are you thinking about renting a room/flat or flat share?

sitesafe

kiwi_86 wrote: »

Hi
I would be really grateful to hear from anyone who has worked as a live in carer! I have just been offered a job to start as a live in carer in a months' time. I have been told the pay is £450-500 per week (when working). This would be paid monthly. My working pattern would be 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

During the weeks I would be working, I would be living with the service user, so would not need to pay rent. However, on the 2 weeks I am not working I would need to be staying in my own place.
(As I do not have any family I can live with for the other 2 weeks).

The thing is I would only be living on 2 weeks' wages to pay rent for my own place to stay for when I am not working. I'm not really sure how to implement this...and I really want to do this role.

Any money saving advice would be greatly appreciated, but please no negative stories about how it's all rubbish etc.

Many thanks,
Kiwi x

Hi Kiwi

I currently do this job but on a week on/off basis. Two on/off is a good pattern and if you can manage to start mid week, say Tuesdays rather than Mondays, it's even better as you then get two long weekends off during your two weeks off.



Getting back to your point you are expected to budget your money and either use it during your weeks off or if you find it's not enough then do some part time work on your weeks off.

If you are self-employed don't forget to put some aside for paying your tax and national insurance.

Can I ask if you are experienced in care? If you are then I don't think you are getting paid enough money. I could give you the details of the introductory agency I work for (I get £630 a week and that's not a high dependency client).

How I do it is work out how much you will earn over a year - so you're working for half of the year, 26 weeks (more or less if you will be taking holiday or covering for someone else's). 26 x 500 (best case scenario) = 13000, then divide by 12 calendar months which equals £1,083 a month. Or divide by 52 for weekly amount = £250 a week. Bear in mind that people on minimum wage get around the same for working in a normal 40 hour week job.

As for your outgoings, work out what you would normally spend on consumables, like food, fuel, drink, entertainment etc over a year and then halve it. Obviously some things like car tax, insurances, MOT, TV licence etc are always going to cost the same.

There is a really good budget planner on here somewhere which would be really helpful to fill in.

Good luck with the job, if you need any info please feel free to pm me,