Help needed I/B and I/S

Michele37

Hello everyone

I am in desperate need of some help

I feel like my life is falling apart because of the lack of financial help we are recieving

My husband has a disabily called Dysthymia it is a mental helth problem that cannot be cured as it is a personality disorder

I myself is also diabled with a spinal injury and also depression stress etc

Now my husband has been getting incapacity benefit since the end of january, when his sick pay ended and he handed in his notice, (we worked in a prison) it took them 4 months to sort out the incapacity benefit due to the prison service keeping back information

He now gets £63.75 per week and £71.00 a month DLA

We have a 17 year old who is not at college and not working (thats another story)

I get £49.00 per month DLA due to them taking some money off me from years ago

now housing benefit pay us £27.00 per week and we get low council tax benefit, not sure how much, but we are suppose to pay £70 per month, which is of course impossible

We have told housing benefit we are on incapacity but it has now taken them nearly 5 weeks to sort out and we are still awaiting a decision

surely we can claim some other benefit, they surely cannot expect us to pay all our bills, rent and council tax on £100 per week, our rent is £100 per week

We havent paid our gas and electric or water rates for months as we just cannot afford it

Our rent wasnt paid last month so I am expecting an eviction notice soon

Any help

I am so desperate that we are sinking fast and I am scared in case my hubby does something "stupid"

Michele xx

dmg24

Hi Michele,

I would agree that you should be getting some IS.

I assume you are not receiving Child Tax Credits or Child Benefit anymore? If this is the case, do HB know this?

Do either of you receive a pension?

Do you receive IB for yourself?

How much is your rent?

What rates of DLA do you both receive?

Michele37

hiya
we get child benefit which is due to end in september I think
we do get a bit of child tax credit which is £49.00 a week

I dont get ib as I havent worked in 5 years

Conor_3

I have a spinal injury and manage to do 50 hrs a week quite fine. As you're getting less DLA than I did (stopped claiming because I couldn't be bothered fighting them anymore and dont need the money) , they've deemed you're apparently not as bad as I was although TBH that doesn't really mean much. I work because I managed to last a total of 10 months off work before I went stir crazy and as soon as I even just started to look for work again, my whole outlook improved. If you've bulging discs impacting on your nerves, the worst thing you can do is sit around at home. It just prolongs it. I reckon a lot of the stress and depression you've got is from trying to live on nowt and thinking that this is the rest of your life. Certainly was in my case.

Going from both of you having a reasonably paid and secure job to living a life on IB/IS sat at home doing nothing all day with no end in sight is enough to make and keep anyone depressed.

So why not look at what you can do, even if you need to retrain, and see what jobs you can apply for? It'd do wonders for your depression, give you a lot more money and a better quality of life. You'd still keep your DLA. The Job Centres have lots of schemes to help you find work including one where they pay a portion of your wages for the first 13 weeks to a prospective employer. Start with temp agencies if you're unsure about your abilities, how many hours you'd be able to handle or what type of work you want to go for. There's no commitment with them so if you do a week and find you're not ready or the job is unsuitable, you just phone them and tell them. Even just going on a college course would lift your mood.

Try to keep the fact you're depressed out of being a factor when looking for a job because I reckon that's more to do with the situation you're in than anything. Instead, think of the restrictions your disability places on you, such as pulling and lifting and concentrate on what else that means you can do. I don't think that there's any office or call centre type work which would be out of bounds for example or even doing 16 hrs at your local corner shop sat on the till. If you're OK with figures, why not consider the possibility of doing a book-keeping course and doing the books for small local self employed people? You could do that at home in hours to suit you which means you can look after hubby and can even get him doing bits and bobs for you such as posting stuff which gets him out of the house for an hour.

I hope you take my post as how its meant - advice from someone who has been there and come out the other side. I've got my problem for the rest of my life, you're likely to too. You can either let it win and drive you into the ground or you can accept that its happened and you've just got to get on with things.

Hope you find a way out.

Michele37

I would prefer you not to be so patronising, you have no idea about my disability so I would prefer that you refrain from making snap judgment

I have studied for 2 degrees in the past 7 years so I do no sit on my !!!! and do nothing

I also care for my sick husband

As my post clearly states I am on the edge of breaking down your comments are most upsetting

I am asking for help not critisism

So thank you so much for your "HELP"

dmg24

Don't worry about Conor, he just feels sorry for himself so takes it out on everybody else. Ignore him, everybody else does.

Although I imagine you are on HB rather than LHA, I have used the relevant Mansfield LHA rate (£98.08 per week for a two bed property) to look at your entitlement. I figured you are in Mansfield or one of the surrounding areas?

From the figures you have given, I think you should be getting full HB/ LHA and Council Tax Benefit. I also think that you should be getting IS of over £150 a week (the calculator says £168.75, but I neve trust it 100%!).

Do you still have the HB notification? If so, can you post how they have calculated it? Do they know that you are both in receipt of DLA? x

Edit: Ignore my IS calculation - I have taken DLA figures to be weekly, not monthly! x

Michele37

We live in north notts, in a place called Retford

But we are not too far from Mansfield in fact we have to go there on wednesday for my hubbys medical for the IB

I asked the IB about claiming IS and they said we were not entitled to it, which i assumed was untrue

"ignoring conor"

Michele37

oh havent got the HB notice as we have not heard from them in months about the claim only letters asking us for information, which has been sent

Michele37

Just found the council tax bill

Our bill for this year is £1514.68

We have to pay £142.00 per week

!!!!

dmg24

Sorry, I've made a mistake in the calculation - I have taken your husband's DLA to be per week. Do you both just get one lower rate component? If so, it will lower your entitlement considerably.

Yep, you come under the same LHA area as Mansfield, so you would be entitled to £98.08 per week if on LHA (HB may be more or less than this, but should be vaguely the same).

Is there definitely no other income coming in? Do you only have:

IB (husband) £63.75 per week
Child Tax Credits £49.00 per week
Child Benefit £18.80 per week
DLA (not counted for benefits purposes)

(I'm not counting HB and CTB, as they are not counted as income when calculating other benefits)

If the DLA amounts are monthly and not weekly, then you should be getting full HB and CTB, and IS of approx £70 a week.

mitchaa

Have you tried noting down monthly income vs monthly expenditure to see where all your money goes?

You seem to be in receipt of quite a lot of benefits in the 1st place...

IB x1
DLA x2
Housing benefit
Council tax benefit
Child tax credits
Child benefit

Have you added all this up, and then subtracted your outgoings?

It may help you see what you're unnecessarily spending??