There is a real fear and panic for single parents around the energy prices going up. The cost is going up over 50% by 1st April. For the average household that is £693 per year.

This will particularly have an effect on single parents. The media term being used by the media “heat or eat” is echoing in the minds of single parent households around the UK. 

Lots of single parents have already taken a financial hit with having £20 per week being taken away from Universal Credits, plus the hardship of unpaid child maintenance. The news about the energy will have a direct impact on single parent households across the UK. Hear our members’ responses, what the Government is doing and some simple energy saving tips you can do today.

On 24 June, Lord Farmer led a Question for Short Debate in the House of Lords: "to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to reform the Child Maintenance Service". It is hopefully going to initiate change in the failing CMS system.

We were extremely keen to provide some facts and figures directly from the CMS so that we could talk openly about how they calculate their own figures and how they make assessments for both resident and non-resident parents. Once one of our skilled volunteer started searching for this information it was made abundantly clear that this is not really something the CMS wants you to know or find out.

One of the first subjects that was addressed was the Child Maintenance Service. This is an issue that is discussed and brought up over and over again by our SPW Members in Wales. Therefore, we decided to create some research around the impact of CMS and see if there are any common themes between single parents' experiences around CMS. We are showing the results in a series of 3 blogs and invite more single parents to get involved and complete the survey.

In the Budget the Government announced their plan to encourage the return of the 95%  mortgage. This has now started to be implemented and a number of the big lending names have recently launched 95% mortgages with the backing of the government scheme. 

2020 threw financial challenges at the world and as usual, Single Parents felt the pinch harder than most. Many had to lean that little bit harder on credit cards when furlough hit, working hours reduced or worse, jobs disappeared altogether. For Single Parents who have managed to stay on the housing ladder personal debts like loans and credit cards can be consolidated into a mortgage to take advantage of record low mortgage rates.

We wanted to celebrate and tell you more information about PaCE. Lots of our single parent members have used their services and been able to remove any childcare barriers in order to get back into work.

Talia Loderick is a Money Coach, based in Cardiff. Talia offers one-to-one coaching helping women understand their emotions and beliefs around money so they can improve their behaviour with money, feel better and be better with money.

Talia also delivers financial education workshops to 11-19-year-olds in schools, colleges and community groups, helping young people build lifelong money-management skills.

I've been a member of SPW for the last few years, and have found the group a huge support. More recently, I've helped some of our single parents through my work by helping them to buy their own homes, buy out exes, remortgage and straighten out their finances using the equity in their homes. Many of those conversations have started with "I don't think I will be able to....", so I've started a series of blogs on lending issues that are likely to arise post Covid. I know first hand that single parents often feel these pinches more than anyone. This first blog is about mortgage lending with adverse credit, which is often more possible than people realise.