Surviving on the DPB

neeandsam wrote: lilfatty wrote: RoSee wrote: I'm on the DPB and get just under $600 a week. Made up of the DPB, an accomodation supplement, temporary additional support and family tax credits. The house I rent is $400, I have a boarder living with me... you are allowed to have up to two boarders living with you without it affecting your benefit (doesn't matter how much they pay you). You can also earn up to $80 a week through part time work without it affecting your benefit (I think that's before tax though)... I hope everything works out for you Surely having a border affects your accommodation supplement entitlement as that is based on the amount of rent you pay .. if you have a boarder the amount of rent you pay is decreased. I enquired about this a couple of months ago and thought I was hearing things when he said "It won't affect your benefit unless it's more than two boarders". Yet they are very restrictive about how much you should be paying if you are living on your own and will often suggest somewhere cheaper if they think it's too much.   Some of their policies really don't make any sense!

Yeah their policies don't seem to make any sense.

The DPB tenant would be getting the maximum entitlement (as they are on a low "income") and then they are getting more money towards rent from other sources.

Then the boarders are probably getting financial assistance in the form of an accommodation supplement too.

Seems like loophole to me, surely if doesn't affect the rent total and decrease the amount of accommodation supplement it should be classed as income and decrease your DPB

Ahh well .. i will build a bridge now

RoSee wrote: It is very strange in my opinion... that it doesn't matter how much the boarder pays! And the fact you can have two... if you had two people paying $200 a week each, IMO it should affect your benefit. The reason it doesn't affect the accomodation supplement is because they are a 'boarder' not a 'flatmate'. A boarder pays a set amount which includes their accomodation, meals, power, water, phone, internet etc... So therefore they are not paying the 'rent' as such (I hope that makes sense!!) If they were a flatmate, they would be paying rent, plus expenses, then it would affect the accomodation supplement because they are giving you money directly for the rent. Man I think I have just confused myself! It is a good thing having it that way though, makes it a bit easier to live off a benefit. No doubt there are people out there milking it though

Totally! And they make it incredibly easy too.    I asked if I could get a flatmate fully intending to take a cut to my benefit because that made sense to me and they said "Oh no, say that it's a boarder, then it won't affect you, if you say flatmate then you'll lose money".     A friend of mine went to apply for the unemployment benefit and they told him to go and get a doctors certificate to say that he was 'depressed' and he could go on the sickness benefit instead and bypass the 13 week stand down period!

The whole boarder vs flatmate thing is very strange. We were looking at getting a flatmate in a while ago and I got told that we would have to return the money in our tax returns and pay tax on it I'd never heard of that before (and I'm an accountant!) so I looked it up and its correct. According to tax law (and the trusty IRD website) if you have a boarder you can get up to $200 per week from them without it affecting your total taxable income for up to 2 boarders, if you have a flatmate it counts towards income and you are supposed to pay tax on it. This is probably what WINZ look at when they say that you can have 2 boarders and still get the full accomodation supplement.

Also - my sister is on the DPB and has noticed it totally depends on who you get when you go in to see them as to what you are entitled to from them. I think someone mentioned earlier on to not be afraid to fight for yourself. I think the people who know their entitlements tend to get a little more just simply coz they know what questions to ask.

If you get hold of some of the pregnancy help groups in the area, they can help you to get all the entitlements available.

From what I can see you can get the DPB and Accomodation supplement but not much else.

Be aware that your partner with HAVE to pay Child Support. I was asking WINZ and IRD about it the other day. The rules use to be that you can have personal agreements with the other parent so they didn't have to pay child support but now, if you're on a main benefit  they have to and you won't see a cent of it. It goes straight back to the government to pay for your benefit.

ETA: It might not be what you want to do, but it may be worth considering finding another single mum to board with to help share costs.

Edited by AmStaff

I got told that unless the dad makes payments through ird you get about 30 taken off you benefit??