Hi everyone, I am a single mum with a small child and surviving on Centrelink at the moment, while I am finishing a degree (please no judgements).
I want to start a small business (e-commerce) in the new year (I know what I want to do!) but not sure where to begin with business/money side of things and how it will affect my week-to-week payments from the government.
I know in the first year or so my income wlll be quite sporadic, some weeks very little, others better etc. but definitely no steady income. I just want to know how Centrelink treats someone in this position.... I guess I just want to know if I can survive financially in the early/uncertain days of the business!
Would love to hear from women who have been in a similar position before I take the plunge.
2 Replies
Centrelink will ask you to fill in a profit and loss statement every few months so they can work out what you should receive in payments. My advice live off of what your Centrelink used to be and bank the rest, until you get your assessment back in regards to the profit and loss statement.
You are in a similar situation I was in 6 months ago. I'm at university, I Homeschool, I run a home business and run a household lol. Centerlink will get you to fill and hand in a P&L statement every so often. Keep on top of them and make sure they get it right. They put in an extra 0 when they first did mine and so it screwed with my payments but its fixed now. I still havnt made a profit so my payments have not changed. When you get an ABN make sure you register it with centerlink. If you don't it will cause all sorts of problems. Good luck