Budget case study: the single parent family

Doreen lives in Northumberland and is a BT Broadband technical support adviser in her mid 40s. She works 21 hours a week and takes home an annual salary of £14,000 to help support her two school aged children. Doreen also receives child benefit, the child tax credit and a small amount of working tax credit and has a company pension, “though I don’t contribute much,” she says. On a low salary and with the two children to support, she admits she has to watch the pennies. “We’re thrifty in our house – we have to be,” she says. “I’m always trying to save money – even my daughter rushed in this morning to tell me the price of stamps was going up because she had seen it on TV. We’ve used Quidco, discount vouchers and that Moneysavingexpert website. We’re all into saving these days.” Doreen did not want to see a reduction in any of the benefits she receives and said she was hugely worried about petrol prices and the effect this was having on her outgoings. So she was delighted that the government introduced a range of measures in the budget to combat rising fuel prices: “I do a lot of running around, so I car-share as much as I can especially when taking the kids to their after-school clubs but, even with that, I’ve noticed the cost rising. It’s good news that the government is finally looking at petrol.” She is relieved the personal income tax allowance has risen by £630 to £8,105 and that her weekly child benefit of £20.30 for the eldest child and £13.40 for the second, remains intact. “I try to save that – I try to save everything actually – so that will be fine.” The £108 she receives per week in child tax and working tax credits should be boosted slightly by the £30 increase in the child element of the child tax credit announced in the spending review last year, although there is nothing in the budget that will allow her to increase her work hours. “I would like to increase my hours at work,” Doreen says, “but the key is to balance family time with work time and to figure out whether it makes financial sense to work more at the moment.” There will be no budget celebrations in her household this evening – there won’t be time because she will be taking her son to football training. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? You go to work, you come home, you go out again, you do all the things you usually do. The budget won’t change that,” he says. • This article was amended on 5 December 2018 to remove some personal information.