Should I stay at home?

[mumj18]

Hi everyone,

I have tried to use the various benefits calculators but keep getting different answers and some of the questions are really hard!

So thought I would ask in here to see if anyone in the same situation would be able to help me out. I'm on maternity leave at the moment and am thinking about not returning to work and just staying at home with my LO instead. My OH earns about £13500 per year. I am trying to work out what benefits we will be entitled to eg housing benefit etc etc.

Hope someone can help
xx

 

[xxembobxx]

The trick with the calculators is to put info in as if it had already happened e.g. just OH's income and you earn nothing. That should give you a better idea hopefully. As your OH earns under £16.5k you will get WTC and CTC although the amount depends on how many children you have.
As tax credits ignore the first £100 of each week you receive SMP your tax credits will be similar to (but most probably more than) what you receive now.

 

[mumj18]

Thanks. We have one child. As I only get £92 per week mat pay it sounds like tax credits will be the same. Do you know if it is likely that we will get any housing benefit? We don't currently and our rent is £425 per month. X

 

[littleblonde]

yes there is a chamce. if you use the website entitled to and go to end of form it tells you what hb you may get. Just base it on what your oh brings in and not your mat pay

 

[March mummy]

I find the calculators they give you to work out benefits are very unfriendly, i tried it and it said I was entitled to this much and when I actually applied I got about half that and had to fight for that!! I now work from home instead as this works for me and is a really great way to kill two birds, in working and being a stay at home mum which is what I wanted. I just wanted to be a stay at home mum that was able to afford all the luxuries in life I have.

Its an option worth looking into if you think that you could do this in a few hours. I currently work about 12 hours a week basically when my child has his nap time and I can still make a profit so if you are able to or willing to put more time in you can probably make a really good profit.

Sorry I may have gone off the point here, but yeah dont rely on a true figure with the website calculator as it wasnt very accurate for me.