Barely Surviving: Life on Universal Credit

I briefly mentioned rent in my last post but I have more to say on this topic and decided it needed a post of its own. At this point its probably important to know a bit about my housing situation. I live alone in a private rented property, I know what you must be thinking, how can I have a private rented property when I am on benefits? Its OK I get it, so let me explain. I moved into this property while I wqe in full time employment. At that time I never expected I would have to leave my job and I certainly didn't have a few months to move before I started my claim for universal credit. My rent is £400 a month, it was always paid on time in full when I was working but since I've been on UC its been a problem to keep it that way. You see my housing benefit is £200 that is the maximum amount I can have. The first thing I did was online researchresearch, I went onto the gov.UK website - housing benefit section. After having a read on there I found what I was looking for,...

In those six weeks while you are waiting for your first payment the jobcentre make a decision on how much they think you should be paid. They makemake this decision based on things like your age, where you live, who you live with etc. You get sent a letter telling you what and when you will be paid. For me it stated I was entitled to around £450 per month, from this they would deduct £50 a month for 6 months to pay back the advanced payment loan. This meant that I would receive £400 a month but this also included a housing benefit payment to help pay for rent. As i said earlier your age partially determind how much your payment is. You see the jobcentre puts us into to categories based on our ageage, the main two categories are 18 - 25 and over 25s. When I started my claim I was 22 meaning I fell into the first category or as I call it the bottom category.  Younger people (no matter the circumstances) get paid less than those over 25. I'm not talking a £10 or £20 difference ...

After leaving school and completing 3 years at college i moved on to doing a variety of voluntery and tempory paid positions until I finally found my first proper paid job which I stayed with for 3 years until January 2017 when due to unforseen circumstances I was forced to leave my job.  At that time I had a few health issues including generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) and back & spine issues,  problems that had been ongoing for a few years even during the 3 years that I had been in paid work. After I had left my job my health deteriorated meaning I was going to be out of work longer than planned so I went online and applied for universal credit. I waited for a few days until I got a date/time for my first job centre appointment which is part of the claiming process, I went to the appointment and completed my claim and was told I would receive my first payment in 6 weeks. I won't lie for someone with anxiety the thought of having no money for 6 weeks was terrifyin...