Worried and confused about money, what will we be entitled to?

[KittieB]

We're in a really complicated situation.

OH works full time, earns £18,300 before deductions.

I am a full time NHS student, so I currently receive £2600 NHS bursary and £1800 student loan. I also earnt roughly £2000 from my part time job and will soon be receiving maternity allowance, which will be 90% of my pay from my part time job.

I'm leaving university on the 22nd March and will continue to receieve my full NHS bursary during my maternity leave. The financial advisor at my university told me I will continue to receive my student loan payments, however I phoned student finance today and they said I won't be entitled to them, which is going to make things very hard for us

I've looked into what benefits we will be entitled to once the baby is born and nobody seems to agree on what we will get. The HMRC won't give me a prediction until after the baby is born.

I'm assuming we will get child benefit, at £20.30 a week? I've also been told we will get child tax credits, but the HMRC calculator said only £300 a year??

Also will we be entitled to working tax credits, housing benefit or the sure start maternity grant?

I'm so confused and am starting to really worry about how we will cope!

 

[davidjoemum]

hi you might be able to get some tax credit child tax credit once you get that sorted u will be able to get ssmg if its your first child .child benefit for sure.and u might be able to have ctb and hb too.website calculator are not accurate so the best thing to do will be to give them a call like i did on calculator in my case comes up too tc 1200 a year and 800 ctc but after i called them i had 2300 ctc and 4600 tc.
good luck

 

[davidjoemum]

hi you might be able to get some tax credit child tax credit once you get that sorted u will be able to get ssmg if its your first child .child benefit for sure.and u might be able to have ctb and hb too.website calculator are not accurate so the best thing to do will be to give them a call like i did on calculator in my case comes up too tc 1200 a year and 800 ctc but after i called them i had 2300 ctc and 4600 tc.
good luck

 

[davidjoemum]

hi you might be able to get some tax credit child tax credit once you get that sorted u will be able to get ssmg if its your first child .child benefit for sure.and u might be able to have ctb and hb too.website calculator are not accurate so the best thing to do will be to give them a call like i did on calculator in my case comes up too tc 1200 a year and 800 ctc but after i called them i had 2300 ctc and 4600 tc.
good luck

 

[KittieB]

Thank you I have tried phoning them, but they won't tell me what I'll be entitled to until after the baby is born. It's so annoying because I want to be able to budget and work out how much we are going to have.

 

[July28th]

Hi :wave:

I'm not sure, but I would have thought someone at HMRC should be able to give you an estimate based on hypothetical circumstances? Might be worth calling back and trying again.

Things to bear in mind would be, if your household income is going to be less this year, that you would also want an estimate based on a current year estimate. The problem is that estimates/tax credits are based on tax years, so the estimate you get now might only be until April?

Also, you don't need to include the maternity allowance for tax credits.

Hope you manage to find something out!

 

[littleblonde]

we earn 17000 a year and when we had 1 baby i got £240 a month ctc and child benefit. You wont get the ssmg before you have your baby. Its complected but once have your baby you can apply and they base it on last tax year where you obviously earnt more. Once you have your ctc entitlement you can then phone them and give them this years estimate and if your earning less then you should get more. You may then get the ssmg. Keep in mind the calculators tend to tell you what you would get for then rest of the tax year. So that £300 would be what you get from now till april and not in total. Also keep in mind things are changing again in april so the calculator wont be accurate again. You will never get an accurate amount anyway in till you apply.