Surviving these hard times & budget scares

[*Danni*]

I am feeling soooo upset right now.

With the cost of living through the roof at the moment it's a struggle dealing with the groceries and ridiculous petrol prices and now we have just gotten a letter in the mail from our fantastic (not so) government that they are "phasing out the dependent spouse tax rebate" and after carefully budgeting for our new home (a huge mortgage we just took on) this is what we are running into!?! We get over $1000 a year from that which helps enable me to be a SAHM which is the plans for the foreseeable future and now this

DH was also supposed to get a promotion last week but they announced the company is in trouble (huge international company) and have put all positions and wages on hold we budgeted for this payrise as it was almost guaranteed and now i am just so scared of the prospect of losing everything and hubby having to find a new job in this scary economy things were looking soo positive but have just crashed so suddenly and harshly

I feel so alone. And sad. Am I?!


Sent from my iPhone more than likely while I should be doing something else!

[briggsy's girl]

i would be checking if you're actually eligible for the dependent spouse offset now - if you're a sahm with zero income, you get ftbb - i don't think you can get both.

Part A - Dependent spouse

You cannot claim this tax offset if:

your adjusted taxable income (ATI) for 2010-11 was more than $150,000, or
your spouse's ATI for 2010-11 was $9,426 or more.

You can work out your ATI or go to Rates, calculators & tools to use the online income test calculator.

You can claim a dependent spouse tax offset for any period in 2010-11 that you had a spouse and you met all these conditions:

you maintained your spouse; see What is maintaining a dependant?
your spouse was a resident; if you are not sure, read Are you an Australian resident?
you were a resident at any time during 2010-11
neither you nor your spouse (during any period they were your spouse) was eligible for family tax benefit (FTB) Part B or if one of you was eligible for it, you were eligible at the shared-care rate only
neither you nor your spouse (during any period they were your spouse) received parental leave pay.

if you claimed it for 10/11, given your son's DOB, you should probably check with your accountant in case you're not entitled and you get a debt with ATO



as for the rest of your post - my DH went from an 80k income to nothing overnight when DD was 3 months old. it's not a good feeling at all. we have worked out ways for him to be sahp while i'm at work, but it has meant making a lot of sacrifices to have it work out

[*Danni*]

The letter in the post said they are changing the requirements from next FY and you have to be born prior to 1971 (around that) or have cancer or disability. That type of thing - nothing that I am eligible for. It looks like the old requirements are still on their site?? Oh I dunno, all I know is that this sucks lol


Sent from my iPhone more than likely while I should be doing something else!

[briggsy's girl]

yeah but even under the old rules, if you received it while also receiving ftbb, you weren't eligible - so you need to make sure it was only claimed up to the day before your son was born (if at all) - you're not eligible after that date if you received ftbb

[*Danni*]

Ohhh.... Now i get it! Riiiight... So it looks like we just screwed our budget regardless - oops! Oh crap - this doesn't make me feel better, if you dont mind me asking how on earth did you get through such a massive drop in income? Was there a particular budget style you were following or something? I am just starting to freak out at the thought of instability here without me working too... Thanks for your post, sounds like you have had tough times too!


Sent from my iPhone more than likely while I should be doing something else!

[briggsy's girl]

we cut out everything that was not essential.
we have very limited "social" funds - we have people here where we can cook a meal for 8 for less than we can eat out.
we pay everything we can on a fortnightly basis rather than waiting on bills to arrive
we buy bulk where we can - rice, meat etc, grow our own vegies


at the moment, things are pretty tight due to additional medical bills from me being sick, so we're living (food etc) on $50-$70 a week. it sucks to have to do it, but we don't have much choice. i could increase hours at work to FT, BUT, i'm still not well enough, and it could actually make things worse for me long term, so we're not pushing that until i'm back on my feet properly...

it sucks not being able to go to some things because we can't afford to just splurge. things like going to the movies means a few weeks of pulling in the purse strings so that we know that we can afford it without leaving ourselves short. but we do it.

i guess when you have no choice, you have no choice. there is no way i would ask DH to go to work now given the fact he is going blind, any job he could get would be minimum wage, damn hard work, and significant travel - not to mention expenses (tax, travel etc and loss of ftb) would mean he'd be working his ass off for nothing. we will get by as we are for now

[*Danni*]

Thanks so much for sharing that, it's interesting to see how others cope. I wish you all the best too !


Sent from my iPhone more than likely while I should be doing something else!

[Just Me]

Are you sure the tax offset you got wasn't for having dependent children? I am not sure how it works, but I think DH gets a rebate because we have dependent kids.

It is scary when big international companies start to flounder. DH is currently in the process of changing jobs because his company got bought out by a larger company and they made all these budget cuts and changed the regulation, told DH he was overpaid and are trying to take away his car. DH was thankfully head hunted by another company a couple of months ago and decided that he would really enjoy the job that he was offered so has moved on, but it is still really stressful having to finish up at his current workplace and I am so thankful everyday that he doesn't have to stick around and deal with it all ... but it is still incredibly stressful.

I hope things start to improve for you soon

[Just Me]

I don't know if there is anything like this in other states (we are in Qld) but DH called our electricity company last week to have our direct debits changed from weekly to monthly (we have an amount direct debited out of our account on a regular basis so we aren't hit with a big bill every three months) and mentioned that we had a lot of medical expenses for our son. They said that DOCS is currently offering families $720 a year towards their electricity bills if they have trouble with their bills because of things like medical expenses. They sent us the form and we looked over it but didn't feel right about taking money for it because we do have enough if we stick to our budget and we wouldn't class ourselves in 'hard times'. That doesn't mean if our circumstances were different I wouldn't take the money, but we would just be greedy to take it in our current situation - but if you are struggling, it might be worth looking into. You too BG, since you have been so sick, you might be eligible. Might help out a bit.

[briggsy's girl]

there are a lot of charities that will help out with essential expenses if you're in severe financial hardship. when DH first lost his job (before i returned to work) we accessed some assistance
we are technically still in a position where we CAN - but at the same time, i am doing all i can to avoid accessing them because it may be seen that, due to my work, i'm making use of facilities i only know about because of work, and abusing the system (that isn't the case AT ALL - but it's about perception kwim?) - it would have to be pretty dire for me to take that path again, given there is that work issue in the background

[Erin_25]

I think the biggest thing we have learnt "the hard way" is never to spend any $$$ before they actually come in. Like when we were renovating and presumed we would have same $$ in tax as previous year. Only to find out DH company had taxed wrong when he worked away etc & instead got a huge bill..........that really really hurt!! and we are currently renting, looking to buy a house but are willing to get something less than we can afford and slowly do up to earn more later than set ourselves up for too much.

[beansbeans!]

Totally understand!

Here we pay everything off every fortnight, regardless of if we have a bill come in. I make sure I get all the basics first before doing anything else as well.
It does take a while to learn, but eventually you get the hang of what works for your family.

[Erin_25]

Oooh yes I forgot, my Mum works in a bank and has always got us to set up automatic pymts from pay day. So when my DH gets pd (fortnightly) money comes out for rent, elec, ph (nominated amounts), GE credit, Kindy, Insurance. This way no bill is missed or arrives as a shock. I then do the fortnightly shop & fill up with petrol and from there what we have left is what we have left. This way we have what we need, food and fuel, bills paid - most other things can wait. And if I see something I need when shopping I simply layby.