Internet News Blog
June 20th, 2010
With my wife out of work and unable to get benefits I have been looking to make a bit of extra money. I think the fact my wife does not get benefits shows up how bad our benefit system is. She trained as a teacher then did her NQT year covering for maternity leave. Since her years contract expired she has been unable to get another job, but because she was at university she did not pay national insurance so can not get job seekers allowance. We thought that because I am on a relatively low wage she would get income based job seekers allowance, but they base it on the amount of hours you work, not how much you earn (I think that idea sums up how useless the job centre is).
I thought that tax credits would be an easy way to get some money. Then we find out that if my wife was getting job seekers allowance we would get the full tax credits (which they said was £90 a week, a fantastic amount). As she is not we got £4 a week paid straight into my current account, cant say I actually noticed it. It seems very unfair that people already getting benefits get extras while other get left out to dry with hardly anything.
I am sending her to see what some independent financial advisors have to say to see if they can help with getting some money and maybe the citizens advice bureau as well. I do not like being in the position where it is all bad news about the country’s financial circumstances and we do not have much savings behind us. I have sorted out all our banking and it is not too bad at the moment but I could be much better.
Tags: benefits, job centre, money
Posted in money | Comments (0)