Quick question re Carer's Allowance and part time work.

[MumWhoCares]

Hello all,

Having been at home for a decade now with my lovely boy, I think we're at the point where a bit of part-time, self employed work might be an option (yay!).

I've been reading through the very useful guide regarding CA and work and notice that you can pay someone to look after your lovely and that won't be counted as part of the money that you earn. Would I be right in thinking, therefore, that if he was at something like a school or holiday club (that I was paying for) that I'd be able to list that as a care cost if I did a couple of hours work while he was there?

Many thanks

[Scally]

That's right, you sure would. You can use up to 50% of your take home pay for care costs and it doesnt affect your CA .

[MumWhoCares]

That's right, you sure would. You can use up to 50% of your take home pay for care costs and it doesnt affect your CA .

Excellent! Thank you, Scally

[MumWhoCares]

Don't forget the £100 earnings limit though, so if you use 50% for care, you can still only earn a max of £200 per week. There are ways to earn more, and still be within the regs, Scally is pretty clued up on that bit.

Thanks Sussex, I'm not expecting to earn more than £50 but I like to check it all out and make sure I know what I'm doing (as I know from past experience that sometimes people working for benefits agencies aren't given the training they should be and so don't always know everything they should!).

[crocus]

The other way you can earn more and still be within the regs is to take out a pension. 50% of what you use to go into a pension is deducted from the amount you earn ie if you earn £104 and pay £10 into a pension you will be within the regs. I only discovered this after I joined here.

[MumWhoCares]

Thank you Crocus, yes I saw that bit and very much want to start putting money away for the future. I'm very aware that I have no assets or savings (bar a few hundred pounds in case the car dies!) and when I do finally get back into the world of work full time I'll be fifty (that's assuming there's any funding for someone else to look after my adult son by that point!). In fact I could probably start putting a tenner a month away anyway and just match it with any extra cash I earn. Will have to start looking into pension plans now, I always find stuff like that quite confusing