Running Art Commissions and Etsy with LCWRA
So for a while, I believed I couldn't do any kind of work at all on this, but I've been reading around and seen work is allowed so long as it isn't contradicting to what was told to them originally.
I am mostly non verbal outside of my family and friend groups, and likely to have panic attacks in stressful situations (any kind of "normal" work essentially), however, if I could use my skills (art), so I can do commissions or run a small Etsy store, without it affecting my LCWRA, it would honestly give me a sense of accomplishment in my life, like others, I really want to work, do something with my life, but I struggle. But being able to do art commissions or run a small Etsy, I don't feel like it will stressful, I know if I get any clients that are likely to stress me out, I can essentially stop working with them, it's not like shop work where I would HAVE to work with the stressful customer.
I know it's not advised to talk with DWP or whoever runs it in my country (NI) before I start earning as it will only confuse them, it will also not be stable money, there may be some months I make quite a bit, and there may be some months I make nothing at all, an artist is not a stable job, I would however love if it turned into one for me. It would give me much more freedom, but I know that's not likely to happen.
I just want to clarify here that I don't need to be permitted like it was on ESA? That they literally do encourage you on UC to pick up a small job? Like on my journal, I noticed they had sent me a thing about small businesses, actually exactly the kind I'm sort of referring to it, it was for a craft shop in the town that lets artists have a space in the shop to sell their crafts/artwork, I would have attended but it conflicted with something else I was going to.
Can anyone give me a run down of exactly what is allowed and not allowed? What do I have to watch out for when attempting this kind of thing? Can anyone tell me their own experiences if they also do this sort of thing on the side?
I am set up to go for something for help, kind of related to this in a way, but was more when I was panicking when the government was talking about doing away with benefits for people like me that only have a mental disability… I am only just now getting that appointment in April!
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Also just to note, I do have a bit of savings in my account, I am over the £6000 bracket, but still under the £16k that allows you to be receiving UC.
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Hi,
As you're on LCWRA you won't have any work requirements or targets to meet.
You would just have to let UC know that you are starting self employment and then declare your earnings from work at the end of every Assessment Period. That includes any AP's where earnings are £0 (nothing).
You get a Work Allowance of either £427 a month if you receive Housing Costs from UC, or £710 a month if you do not receive Housing Costs. Earnings below the Work Allowance are all yours to keep. If you earn more than the Work Allowance in any month then the extra is subject to a deduction of 55p per £1 from your UC that month.
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I've sent a message to my work coach… if I have one via the journal, I'm hoping there be some help and advice available to me locally on this before I start, even for just the business side of things so I know I'm doing everything correctly to the book so I don't have any issue with the HMRC or whoever deals with that kind of thing here.
Do messages on the journal, even if you don't have a work coach, be seen and answered?
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You won't have a Work Coach with LCWRA. If you sent the message under the Work Coach heading, it might get seen by general UC staff or it might not.
I'm not sure whether the UC staff will be able to offer any help with the actual business side of things. You might be better off contacting Citizens Advice or similar for that.
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When there is no work coach (LCWRA) the messages go to a service centre. Often it's a very long time to receive a reply.
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Could they not even direct me to anything that would be of help?
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Hello @azurasword. I hope that works out for you. Got a dream to do what you are doing.
My thing is mostly wood but love metals and stone aswell.
Please keep us updated on your progress, and If there are no confidentiality issues
I would love to have a look at you Etsy store/online shop.
May the positive variance be with you.
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As I say, I am not sure what they will do is this case. It is not a common question.
They might reassign you a Work Coach for occasional support and advice, though Work Coaches are already under pressure with the Job Seekers, so they may not have the resources to help LCWRA claimants as well.
Or they might just direct you to another advice service such as CAB.
All you can really do is wait and see whether you get an answer to the journal message. Or book yourself an appointment with another advice service while you're waiting.
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They did get back to me and said they have forwarded it to the front office, but I'll take your advice and also go and see Citizen's Advice tomorrow, they aren't appointment based tomorrow so should be able to walk in, I'll print out the things that need to be asked to them.
Thank you, I currently don't have the Etsy shop opened as I'm waiting on all this to make sure it's okay to do, I draw dragons and anime style stuff.
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Nice.
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I did get a reply back from UC. They said I do have a work allowance, and I did check the papers I used to submit an ESA application just to be sure there was no conflicting information put down there (we had a girl help us fill them in), I think I would be in the clear for this kind of work! The form mostly spoke about how I struggle to communicate face-to-face. UC also knows it's mostly me myself that writes to the journal as my mother who is my appointee doesn't understand that stuff too much, she'll handle phone calls for me and accompany me to appointments and that's about it.
I just want to ask now, when you do start earning, is that the time to declare it to UC? And I seen people say to wait for your UC payment as they will block them once you report this? The appointment they do should just be them explaining how to declare what I earn from this work each month and then they'll resume the payments? This is correct information I have been reading?
They also advised me to make an appointment with the local business centre for advice on that, so I may do that than go to the citizens advice as it seems more straight forward.
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Yes, UC can't handle future changes so you can only update them after the change happens.
I haven't heard of payments being stopped in this situation but it does make sense that they would be suspended while waiting for the appointment so that probably is correct. I suspect most people declare it early in the month so have already had the appointment before their payment date anyway.
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Not sure if this is any help. Our son writes and sells music. He is LCWRA and as soon as you begin trading you do a change of circumstances on your journal. You describe what you are doing and they arrange for someone to contact you, in your case the call would be with your appointee like my sons was. I reported the change just after his payment to give plenty of time for somone to contact us. The lady called and asked what he was doing and how many hours. They explained how it worked and every month i get a notification about 3 days before his statement is due to declare his earnings. It's really straight forward. Anything over £1000 in a tax year also needs to be reported to HMRC. My sister will be doing that on his behalf as she is an accountant. Hope this helps.
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I thought they didn't really care how many hours you're doing it? In my case it will likely only be a few hours or so per week, some busier than others so shouldn't really trigger anything, the busier weeks would be when I'm restocking stuff so printing out prints etc, and doing relistings. I'm not even far from a drop off point for post fortunately. Maybe some more hours when I actually get confident enough to start commissions, it will really be varied in my style of work, but it's mostly sitting on my iPad drawing which I've always done as a hobby anyway.
Yea, that's what I thought about HMRC and I don't think with what I read, you have to report if you didn't earn that much per year.
And yes, that's what I plan to do too, I will wait out for a payment if I am remotely close to one so the appointment should be done before I'm due the next payment. I'll likely need to print out a sheet of what I'm doing so my mom can read that out to them as she's not tech savvy enough to know what exactly I'm doing.
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