Managed migration

Spoonie_Turtle

Auti said:

Hello, I have now another problem I hope you can help with regards money. I shop at asda and have/get *pounds not points* for shopping - only have £10 but sometimes it might be a little more - is this classed as savings? Also I pay gas and electric monthly dd so some months I have a surplus to cover higher use in winter - is this classed as savings? This is so so confusing! Child tax credits is/was so much easier to understand/answer questions. Also money in my purse also needs to be declared too but all theses things keep changing every day and i get paid different benefits on different days so bank amount goes up and down. I am sorry but this is scaring me as I do not want to get into trouble and with it all on line there is no one to help me.

If the total of all your bank accounts and cash adds up to less than £6,000 then it doesn't actually matter at all because none of it will affect your claim.

I do understand why you're finding this stressful though.


I believe the initial financial declaration is to determine whether you are eligible at all (that your savings are below £16,000) and to determine whether any deductions will be needed (for savings over £6,000 but under £16,000).
It may also be a flag if someone's significantly under-declared (knowingly or by accident) and data matching turns up a much higher amount; that could indicate the claimant didn't include the amount in another account, either because they forgot about the account or because they didn't realise it counted (e.g. some people think LISAs are disregarded because the money is locked away, but they are counted, just at 75% of the value to take into account the 25% penalty).

Also UC payments are calculated based on your circumstances on the last day of your claim so of course your overall total balance will be different by then, that's to be expected.

So you can declare your savings/cash as accurately as possible, but please don't *worry* about it.  You're not going to get into trouble for being a few pounds or pennies out - or even a few hundred pounds, realistically, while you're under the £6,000 threshold.


To the best of my knowledge the pounds in your Asda app aren't counted.  If you're able to redeem them as cash in your bank then it would become part of your total savings once the money is in your bank.  The same with other reward type things, if it's not money you can immediately access to spend on whatever you like and wherever you choose, it's not counted.  (So PayPal does count, because it's money you can freely choose where and how to spend.  Whereas Asda pounds in the app you can only use at Asda, that's the difference.)

Likewise credit with your energy supplier(s) doesn't count because you don't have access to spend it freely.  But if you then had some refunded, it would count once it was in your bank account.

Auti

Spoonie_Turtle  thank you so much for explaining it. It will not be above the threshold - I was worrying how to evidence all the bits of Asda, energy company, money in purse etc each month and worrying about spending and deprivation but I think I can justify my spending on bills and food - I dont know if they have set amounts they work to. All the scary stories about UC dont help and I cannot find a guide on filling in the forms or even a sample form to know what to do - other benefits help you. Thank you again for your help.

Spoonie_Turtle

Understandable, and I'm glad it helped