Family advice needed

cjfox

I am a lone parent living with my two boys and their father lives with his mother. We live in different towns but have a very good rlationship and would like to live together now for the benefit of the children and ourselves. The problem is money! At the moment we are both managing ok but if he moves in and I lose my benefits we are going to have to find an extra 400 a week to live (I'm not talking in luxury here either!). I'm sure I could manage to earn this as I stay home with the kids at the moment but then I have to take childcare costs into account which I was quoted 300 Euro a week. Only one of the children is in school yet. the other won't be going for two years. I just want a family that lives together but cant seem to find a way. Any suggestions?

Trinity

Its a sad situation to be in really. Will possibly have to face the same scenario myself in the future.

I dont really have any suggestions. I had to reduce my full time job to part time as the creche fees were too high and i wasnt entitled to any benefits when working full time and i just couldnt afford 1000 a month rent. However in the event i wanted to live with my bf i lose it all again!

Only thing i can suggest is to try get something part time (mornings only), therefore only having to pay for one creche part time if the other is in school.

Then depending on your partners income you may be entitled to Family Income Supplement or possibly back to work allowance.

Then there is the 250 payable for each child up to the age of 6 that has recently been introduced.

Your local citizens advice centre will be able to tell you about all your benefits.

Debracd

Cjfox, have you applied to the local authority for housing? You could use your situation(family forced apart due to financial situation) as grounds to apply without putting forward the 'lone parent' situation as your only need. If you were to get a local authority house then your rent would be means tested, meaning you only pay a certain percentage of your overall income and no more, leaving you with enough to survive on. At least that way you could maybe top up the income working evenings or weekends, or childminding from home and not have it taken euro by euro from your rent allowance(which it is on SW), giving you an opportunity to contribute to the family without being penalised at the same time.

You will of course lose your OFP, but if you can live as a family in a reasonably priced accomodation then it's a small price to pay and as I said you could hopefully make it up doing a bit of part time work.

For information for lone parents try these:

http://www.onefamily.ie/

http://www.oneparent.ie/

http://www.parentalequality.ie/

http://www.solo.ie/

http://www.treoir.ie/ (temporarily down)

http://www.gingerbread.ie/

http://www.childminding.ie/

http://www.childcareonline.ie/

Hth,

Deb

RainyDay

Social welfare rules are in the process of changing to avoid this kind of stupid anomoly. Check with SW or Citizens Information to see if you will really lose out.