I am a single mamma and looking to move in with my partner. Does anyone have experience with this and the effects it has on centerlink payments? I work part-time and get about $300 a fortnight parenting payment and rent assistance. Just trying to work out if I'm going to be worse off or not. We won't be sharing money as I don't want anyone to be paying for my child and I, plus I earn more money than my partner. Also, will child care rebates etc be based on a couples income rather than just mine?
Thanks heaps!
6 Replies
You will be classed as de-facto, so yes your child care rebates will be based on your incomes combined, not just yours.
As for your ftb and rent assistance, as a de-facto you probably won't be entitled to as much if any.
I have a friend who's in the same situation as you and she gets $10 a fortnight from centre link (but that's not including child care rebates/benefits as she has family for babysitters).
You'd be best to speak to centrelink about it, I believe they can calculate it for you.
It goes off household income regardless of whether you share money or not. I recently went through this and it's tough! We weren't sharing money but due to my work doing hour cut backs and the cut back from Centrelink we had no choice but to work it how they saw us, it was a huge adjustment for both us and we are still struggling. i would use their rate estimater so you atleast get an idea of what your in for
His income will now be taken into account by Centrelink for all your payments.
Personally if you need to think about the big picture here. If he looses his job you could end up having to support him financially and that goes the other way round too. My rule for myself is, if we aren't prepared to financially support each other in a worse case scenario don't move in. Centrelink won't see you as separate entities.
As a family you would be sharing money and that's exactly as it should be seen. You'll be sharing bills and you'll be sharing food at a minimum which lowers your cost of living, hence payments are cut.
Ive just looked into this i work ppt and partner full time. Because our combined salary is high (he earns alot) i lose everything but $40fn for ftb part a and rnt assist my child care costs also go up by $90.. end of the day in my circumstances if we move in together we have no choice but to combine our incomes.. i feel terrible because i dont feel like he should have to pay to support me and my 2 girls but he couldnt give a rats about it.. god i love him 😂😂
All your payments go from single to partnered. Look up the rates on their website, and please don't be tempted to lie, you'd be committing fraud and clocking up some mighty bad karma