Terrified of breaching deprivation of capital rules

ScotFlower

Hello everybody.

First of all, I am delurking after some time so I'd like to thank everybody here for the help they have given myself and my family in the past, the forums are very informative!

I wonder if anyone can put my mind at ease. Without getting too long into everything my husband and I have both been LCWRA on universal credit for some time. We have 2 kids and 1 grownup kid at university. We live pretty frugal and there's little chance of us getting back into full time work.

We have around £2000 saved in premium bonds, though we have just over that in credit card debt - interest free thanks to money saving expert site advice so we'd rather dream of winning the million and trickle back the debt but I suppose the point is that the £2000 could be gone tomorrow if we pay off the outstanding debt with it.

We also have a balloon payment due on our car, or give the car back, or trade it in, not sure what we will do yet but its a few thousand to clear it.

Things have changed for the better for us just recently, but i'm more worried than ever.

Both me and my husband have been awarded Adult Disability Payment, both middle rate daily living. I'm now getting the extra carer element for caring for him on the universal credit. My youngest has been awarded Child Disability Payment, middle daily living and lower mobility. A friend advised us to both claim Carer Support Payment as even though this will come off our universal credit it gives the extra payment twice a year in Scotland.

This means big back payments coming because it's taken months to get all this processed. Its not this we are bothered about as there is plenty to fix and renew around our home and the money will be brilliant for helping my youngest. Also the car could be paid off and then we wont have that expense every month. It wouldn't take us the year grace period to spend this on things we could do with upgrading or replacing.

Its the future i'm worried about. I've been reading up and see that the income every month isn't counted as your savings or capital until the next payment period. If we just keep paying the credit card debt down every month til its gone, this means we just have the £2000 premium bonds as savings/capital.

What i'm worried about is that going forward we will have much more money as income every month than we used to. I read about deprivation of capital but there is a bit in there that says about "failure to acquire capital". I also read folk here and on Reddit saying that your income is yours to spend however you want month to month.

I never thought we'd be able to help our kids out much with money. My oldest struggles a bit and my middle kid wants to do medicine when he goes to uni in a few years and that will cost a fortune.

Is anybody going to question when the universal credit review is done if every month I put £500 in my middle kids junior isa and maybe give my oldest kid £500 to his own premium bond account? Or is this going to fall foul of this "failure to acquire capital" or deprivation of capital rule? Obviously after we give it to them its in their own account. I just want to give my kids a better start than I had and am happy to keep living frugal if I know they are going to have a better chance of a better life in future.

Or are we expected to fritter our new extra money away instead of using it like this every month?

Thanks.

ScotFlower

Sorry, I've realised the failure to acquire capital rules relate to the like of inheritence and not what I thought it was.