Universal credit savings questions

Thank you very much David.

So the pressing issue and stress we have is that my wife and I have been discussing the UC situation again and going over our incomes and AP dates and it appears some months on the last day if AP she will get a double work payment in and some months we will get certain benefits paid in on the AP and some months BOTH these will happen. Even if just one of these things happen we will go over 16k on the AP. They normally reallocate her double payment to the next month so I presume also disregard that for going over 16k too?
However, what about on certain months when we get certain benefits paid in on the last AP day which takes us temporarily over 16k?

I note what some have also said which is

"It would be much easier if you found reason to have household items that need to be replaced and spent some of the savings, to bring these down to a level, where fluctuations close to £16000 were not such an issue."

We would have to go down to about 11k to do this and that would be a huge shame as we have tried hard to set aside and save for emergencies. Yes there is debts etc which are within UC guidelines which would not be considered as deprivation of capital etc we could use it for to bring to such a level to never go over 16k at any point. But we would prefer to stay at 14k or 13k.

But the problem being is that my wife's pay and other benefits come in round the last day of the AP and this means that on the last day of the AP my wife's income and certain benefits will tip us over 16k. So what do we do? When we add up all our capital on the last day if the AP and it comes to over 16k we make a note to say "Please disregard my wife's pay of £1,900 today and the other benefits which were also paid today, which once subtracted, brings our capital to a total of £14,600, please use this figure?"
Would this be ok?

Also sometimes my wife is paid twice within the same AP and it motmally falls on the last day of tge AP and they always move one of her wages payments into the next AP. When this happens it will also cause us to go over 16k.
Could we again request this wage to also not just be move to next AP but also be disregarded as capital for that AP?
It will also happen some months one after the other.

Basically there's no way we can even avoid income or benefits from taking us over 16k on the last day of the AP temporarily.

So basically put my question is.
most of month we are below 16k on UC, however we can not avoid my wife's wage and certain benefits some months falling on the last day of AP taking us temporarily over 16k. What do we do? What happens? It is not savings its income for the month ahead not spent yet. If you minis - those benefits and income on the last day if AP you get to a savings figure below 16k.
What do we do please?
Its annoying as it's the last day of AP this will happen on. Can I just write in journal on last day of AP this is how much we have in our account today for example 17k, today my wife got paid her salary of £1,000 and we got benefits for £1,000 which is disregarded as capital as its income for month ahead, therefore our capital today is actually 15k. Thank you.

Thanks
Ok so 2 seperate questions below here



So basically as an example, and a likely scenario.

Last day of our AP is 28th of every month.

June 28th 2025.

Dear UC,

The total amount as of today's date 28th June 2025 (last day of our AP) we have a total of 19k in our bank accounts, savings and premium bonds. £1,550 is already disregarded off this amount as its the total of COL payments.

During this AP 29th May - 28th June we received in benefits the following:

29th May 2025 My wife's earnings £2,000

5th May ESA Contribution Based £500

15th May DLA £1,000

28th June 2025 My wife's monthiy (not 4 weekly) earnings (double payment) £2,000

Total earnings/benefits = £5,500

The total amount of savings/capital as of today's date is a total of £10,950 (- £5,500 of income, benefits and both my wife's double earnings within same AP of which one of them you will allocate to the next month AP. And minus the COL payments of £1,550)

Total capital after earnings, income, benefits and COL payments is

£10,950. Please use this figure as our total capital and savings for UC purposes."

How about doing that? Is that correct?

Also 2nd seperate question below

PS on a seperate note when we switched to UC from TC we didn't understand about any of this. So we did the online application and it ask for all our bank account amount etc which is completed. It didn't ask us to deduct my wife's earnings or benefits we received that month.
We then were ask to goto JC and had to bring in ALL savings and bank account statements etc etc. They then themselves went away and added then up and came to a figure and said oo we have decided you have 18k amount are you have with this. I said OK that seems about right.
They then applied the 12 month capital protection.
However it's just occurred to me if they had taken off my wife's income and benefits and COL for that month we would have been down to about 12k or 13k. Hence we have been since paying the £4.35 for every £250 right up to 16k which we shouldn't have been. I doubt we will have ever gone over 16k in savings since we switched over to UK. Maybe one or 2 months possibly. But our bank accounts have pretty much stayed the same since switching.
Thoughts?