are you in receipt of benefits?

are you claiming benefits? how do you cope?

not beniefits as in income support or j,s,a
but we get child tax credit and family tax credit
i have just started work this week
my d.p works nights

We both work so we only get child benefit and tax credits - although a lot of good that isn't, we only get £10 as week which doesn't cover anything.

I used to get income support and NOW I dont know how I coped- its not alot of money. I was on it for 9mths and then had to go back to work as I needed money. Noe get child tax

im in the same position as u hun!
Me and DF work full time and pay childcare and we get no help what-so-ever! We are in the process of asking for help with our rent but i doubt very much we will get help! wE dont even get Working tax credits so get no help with childcare which is about 55% of my monthly wage!

My husband and I seperated for a little while (when we had only one child) and I have to say I was financially more stable as I knew my rent and council tax would be paid and the Income support,although little would cover food and bills and as I was in control of the cash. When we sorted things out and he moved back in I was alittle reluctant to begin with as I had to rely on him and how he'd allocate money for house keeping again,but it's worked out ok thankfully and only I can withdraw money from our business account

as a matter of fact im not coping with the money situation from the benefits!

im on income suport, and i get bugger all!! but i also get child tax cred witch as gone doen now cuz DC has turned one!!

my monthly incoming is about £500 but i dont ahve to pay rent or council tax thnk god or i really would be suck, its hard enough now but you just gota get on with it!

me and my husband split up for a year and me and the kids moved. I was much better off then than i am now we are back together. As far as i could tell there was no incentive for mums of pre-school age children to go back to work. i did the maths..to have the same amount of spare money each month (bearing in mind if working i'd be paying two lots of childcare) I would have needed to be earning £35k!!

Unqualified thats just funny.

I know that once you have some income the benefits let you down. we have been struggling because its been 7 weeks now since my hubby moved in again - we had to cancel our child tax credit (which on low income is a big chunk of money) and we are still waiting for them to process the joint claim!

Should get a nice back payment tho at some point!

i get £100 a week to survive on, im in trouble with the bank coz i keep going overdrawn. its very dim.

I couldnt survive at all when I was on benefits and it got worse when I started working. I really struggled paying the rent and all other bills and nearly lost my council house on more than one occasion. Its only now 14 years later that I am finally out of debt

We're very tight money wise at the moment. I just started back at work this week doing 18hrs but we haven't got round to ringing up about tax credits yet.....really should do it, need every penny right now!!

xxx

we both work part time & use childcare. get Child Benefit & a little child tax credit. Am absolutley skint right now & can't afford mortgage payments. Oh dear!

Im in the same boat, im back at work part time and OH works full time so we get very little tax credits. We do struggle sometimes but are trying to save money at the mo, so just cutting back on a few things xo

we both work so only get child benefit and the minimum tax credits.

Some weeks money is a bit tight so i wouldn`t like to have the worry and struggle that most people have living on the small amount of benefits they get.

both my fiance and i are medically unfit for work now. He is a qualified electrician and i worked for the MOD. He stopped working to look after his late wife when she became ill, then after she died, his psoriasis which he's had for 40 yrs just went haywire and he was getting infection after infection. He claimed incapacity benefit and income support. Then i moved in and i claimed Disability Living Allowance ( i suffer with joint damage,, compacted spine,depression,psoriasis), which i get the low rate of mobility and care, which is £130 a month. My fiance's just had a medical board and the doc was a complete idiot, he's signed him fit for work! He's appealing as he's not fit for work at all, he's got his psoriasis going mental again. Just cos he can lift a bag of sugar, the doc signed him fit! Anyway, as i claim DLA, i made a new claim for incapacity and income support as well, basically reversing what was happening anyway.

We manage, we dont owe anyone anything, we havent got spare cash floating about but we dont starve, have some fun times out and about occasionally. I've got some savings from my divorce so if we need to, we dip into that a bit but i'm saving that for my daughter and what she will need over the years.

i was on income support very a short period of time as they screwed up it took them from feb-end of apr to get my money through they wouldnt pay me for feb or march as they sd my maternity pay from work would cover those months (it didnt) and subsquently me and my lil girl were having to live off £60 a wk which was my child benfit (£18.10 p/w)and CTC which was about £44 a week. i eventually got my income support sorted but id gotton so that i contacted my work and they agreed i could go back to work sooner than i wanted to. I am now so much better off I work 16 hours a week (sat & sun) so i get my wages and i also get £120 in CTC and WTC which is alot better and I really dont know how i survived it was a case of going around the supermarkets finding bargains BOGOFs etc even now when the wet wipes and nappies i like for izzy are on offer i buy loads so i got a stock ive got about 8 packs of unopened wetwipes at home from where they been on BOGOF or half price.

Income support isn't much at all. I get £57 from income support and £44 from CTC. I used to be at college so I got EMA but now I've finished, but the money really helped!!

I tend to stock up on baby wipes too. Should start potty training my girl soon, so won't need to buy nappies soon!!

Hi All

Well I am a single mom and I get help 25% of my council tax and get child credit and working credit. I also work part time, its a good job I do get some help else I would never be able to keep my head above water.

Shell.xx

yea right they never wanna give us benefits and it so hard, only thing we got is child tax credit,child benefit and workin tax credit and that all comes to £70 a week,when rich goes to college in sept they best help us out otherwise we gonna have to leave or somethin xx

I could had sworn I'd posted a reply here already?

I receive child benefit and basic ctc. It just halved because George turned 1 in June.

We are really struggling as our mortgage payments have just shot up, our fixed term ended but the interest rates have shot up, so even though we actually owe less with paying 2yrs off, the interest means the repayments are actually more expensive