£906 a month - help!

kerouacsgirl

Hi all.
Im moving out of my mum’s house to rent a 1 bed flat but I’m concerned about how I will survive...

I earn £906 take home per month. 

£650 Rent 
£106 Council tax
£100 Gas/water/electric(hopefully not more than this!
£20 mobile (which ends July 21 and I won’t be renewing it)

This leaves me with £30 a month for food/cleaning products & nothing else. 

I will have to walk 2hrs to get to work as I won’t be able to afford the bus.

I will not be able to afford prescriptions (not entitled to any help with this)

I have a basic & restricted diet due to health issues (also vegan) and always cook from scratch so I can make cheap meals I think - batch and freeze soup. 

I will not be having tv/phone/internet.

I don’t have any hobbies that cost money and won’t be able to afford to see friends.

I spoke to citezens advice & they said I *might* be entitled to £100 a month universal credit but I’d have to attend the job centre and apply for other jobs. I currently work for the NHS & I really don’t want to have to give it up. I’m already going to be living a pretty miserable existence so I’d hate to have to give up a job I’ve worked so hard for as well! 

Ive looked into getting a second job and after tax and NI I would only be one or two pounds better off and running myself into the ground physically! 

Where am I going wrong? What can I do? The obvious would be to get a cheaper flat BUT, all the properties locally are minimum £650 (yes even for absolute poo holes) and landlords require minimum earnings starting at £20k to consider you. I only got this flat because I sent a letter pleading my case and the landlord very kindly agreed to give me a chance. 

I have to make this work or I’ll end up homeless. 

What can I do? Thank you xo

sharpe106

You can’t possible live on £30 a month.

 

You may be entitled to some other benefits, try one of the benefit calculators.

 

https://www.gov.uk/benefits-calculators

 

Can you not do any extra hours at the job you currently do?

 

How have you worked out If you get a second job you will only be £2 a month better off?

 

When you say you have to walk two hours to get work to me each way? If so how do you plan on doing that in winter?

halfamo

A bicycle would help with getting to work. Do you have freecycle where you live?   There is almost always someone wanting to give away a bike.  
You will still have your phone just not on contract so you should be able to ask the phone network provider company for the unlock code and then you could use freedom pop or a PAYG sim  or if you cant get an unlock code, see if anyone on freecycle or family or friends has an old phone that is unlocked that you could have .  
3 do a PAYG sim with a bit of free data each month
If your friends are really friends, they wont mind about you not spending money to socialise , .
Join Qmee and Prolific academic survey sites to do a few surveys in spare time and help boost the coffers a bit.
Qmee can be done on a phone and pays out instantly if you need quick pennies(you need a paypal account to join but they also pay out in various vouchers). Prolific has good payment per survey and will pay out to paypal once over £5, 

soolin

This is a duplicate post  the other one has more views and is here, so I will close this 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6166263/906-a-month-help#latest

OP you might be better off getting the BG on the banking board to move your longer thread to the benefit board.