Mums on uc and working

Mums on uc and working, do you find yourself much better off than if you were just on uc? I’m on uc purely and I find myself struggling every month so I’m just thinking about going back to work. My mum has agreed to have the kids while I work so I don’t need to worry on childcare but I’m tired of struggling towards the end of the month every month, my car payment + insurance and road tax rinses me mostly but with 3 kids under 4 maybe I’m just feeling it because of the summer holidays 😂 I’d only be able to work part time as my daughter has needs and will need to be available for any reason and my mum has arthritis so struggles as it is but surely it’s gotta be better pay than just sitting at home with the kids. I have a bachelors degree and have never had a chance to use it, plus I’ve not worked in nearly 5 years so I do worry I’m a little out of practice but I’d like for the kids to be able to live comfortably rather than saying “no we can’t have that quite yet” all the time. The kids never go without, but I just want to be able to give them the world at this point 🥲

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You can work it out based on your salary, there’s online calculators that will tell you how much you’d receive so you can see which works out financially better. Personally I’m better off but I also went back to work for my sanity because I needed to be ME as well and Mum 😊

@Lucy that’s another reason too, it wouldn’t just be the money but I’m going crazy sitting at home with the kids all the time, my twins are on their feet 24/7 and my daughters needs require her to be very active. I want to be able to do something outside of being a mum as I don’t think I’ve socialised with anyone since becoming one xx

Universal credit is specifically designed that you wouldn’t lose out by working, unlike with the old benefits system.

You are definitely better off working and claiming universal credit, you can also get up to 85% of any childcare costs covered if you were to send your children to nursery . There is a maximum of how much universal credit will give you towards childcare though. I think it’s somewhere around £1k

You will always be better off working, it’s how UC is designed. Rough example for you - If your UC award was £1800 a month that would be all you had to live on for everything. Now, if you had a wage that was £1800 a month and your full universal credit award was £1800 once wage deductions came off you would still get £1032.20 from UC so now your whole monthly income would be £2832.20. You can also claim up to 85% of your childcare costs capped at £1740 for 2 or more children. Hope that helps you understand it a bit better seeing rough figures to see the actual difference it can have xx

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