Mercifully have been in employment most of my life and not needed to become too acquainted with the Benefits system--which has probably changed out of all recognition since UB40 days.
Do we have any who can enlighten who has been through process
Recently taken a massive drop in family income as wife lost job and has become a carer for ill son--so she claims carers allowance.
Notice things like Income support, universal credit, SMI (mortgage interest support) (am home owner)council tax benefit, working tax credits etc etc
What complicates is that I have a couple of employed jobs as well as casual earnings from gardening etc. Trying to find a magic "low income"figure on Gov website that can trigger getting benefits.
Also have some savings but can pay off some mortgage to get it below the savings threshold.
Trying to avoid ringing DWP again. Is citizens advice any good?

cheers

Defo speak to citizens advice.

Paying your mortgage off to get your savings below a threshold can leave you in a right mess with benefit payments suspended.

To clarify further, under the old rules (before Universal Credit) even paying off debts or mortgage could be classed as depriving yourself of capital in order to claim benefits, this brought about an immediate cessation of benefits until it was successfully appealed.

Universal Credit appears to have relaxed the rules a bit and under the 2013 UC regulations you were allowed to pay off debts without being counted as depriving yourself of capital.

However, within the DWP the guidelines do not always match the regulations so you need to get proper advice on this. If the DWP does something wrong, the appeal process can be exceedingly drawn out.

I've no idea where Wirral is up to with JSA/IS/UC and whether Housing Benefit is in with UC yet, you could be on any of those depending on circumstances.