http://www.confessionsofasinglemum.co.uk/being-made-redundant/switching-to-benefits/ Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:59:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= http://www.confessionsofasinglemum.co.uk/being-made-redundant/switching-to-benefits/#comment-40 tracy Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:03:18 +0000 http://www.confessionsofasinglemum.co.uk/?p=339#comment-40 ive been down the benefits road so many times but the roughest was 3 months before my son was due and i still didnt get money until he was 6 weeks old!! at nearly 7 months pregnant i had to go on job seekers allowance for a week as not pregannt enough to qualify for income support yet they said to me we know your not looking for job but have to follow procedure! i got money about 2 weeks after i claimed income support from the job seekers thankfully! then when he was born took 2 monthd for child benefit and tax credits to be sorted and the cheeky gits at tax credit office didnt backdate my money even thoguh i coudlnt claim till had child benefit number an dthey had backdated my claim! needless to say after a letter they did but not all of it and upped my payments till son was 1 instead!! my advice in all of this is to chase chase chase! ask when you expect to hear and if you havent heard after shortest possible time contact them! i left it once for 9 week on a diffeent claim then finally conatcted them and they didnt have papers they needed but hadnt bothered to conatct me!! thankfully i have good parents otherwise id have been in the sh*t basically!! so ring them and ring them till you money in bank and if they dont do somehting they say they will on the day they say it will happen ring them!!! everything is done by phones too so dont waste time going to job centre unless your goign for interview as cant use thier phones for benefits claims and you have to go to phonebox or use your own phone so get number off internet and do it from your sofa!! also check and double check eveythign they say or write down as had some things written wrong that coudl have seriously affect my claims! also go to citizens advice for other things you can claim like community care grant, budjeting loans, healthy start vouchers, crisis loans etc etc!! ive been down the benefits road so many times but the roughest was 3 months before my son was due and i still didnt get money until he was 6 weeks old!!
at nearly 7 months pregnant i had to go on job seekers allowance for a week as not pregannt enough to qualify for income support yet they said to me we know your not looking for job but have to follow procedure! i got money about 2 weeks after i claimed income support from the job seekers thankfully!
then when he was born took 2 monthd for child benefit and tax credits to be sorted and the cheeky gits at tax credit office didnt backdate my money even thoguh i coudlnt claim till had child benefit number an dthey had backdated my claim! needless to say after a letter they did but not all of it and upped my payments till son was 1 instead!!
my advice in all of this is to chase chase chase! ask when you expect to hear and if you havent heard after shortest possible time contact them! i left it once for 9 week on a diffeent claim then finally conatcted them and they didnt have papers they needed but hadnt bothered to conatct me!! thankfully i have good parents otherwise id have been in the sh*t basically!!
so ring them and ring them till you money in bank and if they dont do somehting they say they will on the day they say it will happen ring them!!!
everything is done by phones too so dont waste time going to job centre unless your goign for interview as cant use thier phones for benefits claims and you have to go to phonebox or use your own phone so get number off internet and do it from your sofa!!
also check and double check eveythign they say or write down as had some things written wrong that coudl have seriously affect my claims!
also go to citizens advice for other things you can claim like community care grant, budjeting loans, healthy start vouchers, crisis loans etc etc!!

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