To ask why do people not working claiming FSM get this for free?

Can you not even begin to have the insight that people's situations may change?

Everything fine (more than fine with enough income/earnings) and the bam!!! Life happens s and the affordability of everything is fucked due to

disability
severly disabled child
financial abuse
escape from abuse
divorce
caring for other family members
MH issues

Fucking hell, there are enough examples of the shit that can happen in life on MN....just think a little before you spout such crap.

No- everything has a cost and that cost has to be paid for. The money has to come from somewhere. For everything the government 'gives free' to some people- the rest of us pay for and actually pay more for because we pay for all the free stuff other people get. That's the truth of it.

We pay for all the benefits, FSM, anything given to unemployed, disabled/sick/vulnerable people, NHS treatments for people who contribute little or nothing but use a lot, free prescriptions, free school clubs, subsidised housing, PIP, cost of refugees and asylum seekers etc.

DH and I earn good salaries and pay a huge chunk in taxes NI and employment pensions. I never complain about that, ever.

You vote in a General Election based mainly on this issue- it defines you politically - are you prepared to contribute more to provide more for others? Are you prepared to pay more to provide a better society? Or do you think we provide far too much for far too many and need to rein it back significantly and make more people take responsibility for how they choose to live?

They are the most divisive issues politically. We have become a country where fewer and fewer people contribute anything and more and more expect to be handed stuff. Someone has to pay for every penny spent.

You might think the very rich should pay more and the government should spend less on some things, or that the very rich should pay less and the government should be responsible for less (privatise the NHS- hand it over to insurance companies).

Oh here we go!

It pisses you off that the poorest children in our society are given some extra help? Most normal, rational, adults are not bitter that kind of thing.

I suspect you’re wasting your time @WithACatLikeTread I guess falling ill is just a shortcoming on my part, what a shit parent I am 🙄

Why don't you work slightly less and get more UC, OP? Sounds like you are overwhelmed.

You do realise life happens don't you?

Regarding the HAF schemes, they are primarily set up for children on free school meals but if all of the places aren't taken they will open them up to everyone. It's worth filling in the form or giving them a ring when they advertise a holiday club because in my area the places often aren't all taken because the demographic they're aimed at don't always engage.

Agreed. People who have never thankfully had to claim so they don't actually have a clue how it works and just parrot stuff they've heard online.

I don't think they are bothered about checking eligibility so when mine goes into year three I will sign them up again.

Honestly, don't waste your time. A good percentage of the cheating benefit claimants talked about on MN are pure fantasy.

Agree with this, the criteria needs changed. It's the middle earners/people who work that miss out and get literally nothing in the way of help.

I haven’t read this whole thread, but I can’t believe the volume of people that have children that can’t afford them. IMO the taxpayer should not be cleaning up your shortcomings as a parent indefinitely.

Yeah, I said that after. Let's be real though, not many people will have part time jobs that pay well enough to allow them to only work a few hours a week.

But then they wouldn’t be eligible for FSM because they’d earn over £8000 a year. So the person in this example must have called below that at some point and now must still be getting them because it carries on until the kids leave that stage of school.

Because someone has to foot the bill and we have lots of other bills, ya know like schools , and hospitals and police and stuff. We don’t just have an endless pot of money to pay for the population.

there will always be a threshold and there will always be those over that threshold with their hands out.

It pisses me off. Why can't it be universal, it just makes people bitter.

You don't have to work 30 hours as long as you earn a certain amount. Unfortunately that means the lower paid parents on MW will be the ones having to work longer hours to do it. However if they are in a couple and together/or one of them earns over £1083 a month they will be in light touch group.

Try being in pain 24/7 and being so fatigued you have to sleep for hours every afternoon, well trying to sleep while being woken multiple times with pain. Plus being skint so you can’t take your children on days out etc. Believe me I’d rather be going to work, doing the job I trained for for years.
I also had to sell my home because I couldn’t afford the mortgage anymore. My children might get free school meals but there is virtually no help with mortgage payments available.
Still think you should be jealous?

You don’t work full time- you work school hours term time only.

It sounds OP like you’re just above the threshold which is where the resentment always lies, and I can understand. When DHs salary went just above the threshold for child benefit it was a real pain as money was still tight and it felt unfair. Likewise when others get benefits that you aren’t able to get despite struggling it seems unfair.
The threshold for free school means is so painfully low. If you have so little money that the state is effectively saying you cannot afford to feed or entertain your child at any point whether term time or not then that’s not a position to be envied.

Of course it makes sense.

You are presuming low earners have never been high earners and vice versa. Or that they never will again. Shit happens, life can change in an instant. It can also change back again.

Stop putting people in little boxes and presuming there is no movement.

My dc get FSM but we don't get free breakfast club/after school club and I have to pay for that.
They do get free holiday club during Christmas/easter and summer (not this week for half term though). It's not just about the cost of holiday activities and clubs, but a lot of deprived homes, they don't have a car and it very much limits where the children can go. I live a 20minute drive from the beach but some local children will have never been, or the local farms or the zoos etc. it's not just the entry fee, but the accessibility. The holiday clubs are just one way to close that gap.
But yes, not all those who are eligible come from unstable, deprived backgrounds. Mine are eligible because I've recently become a single parent (marriage breakdown) whilst in the middle of university study which requires 4days a week on placement (hence having to pay for breakfast and after school club). Once I graduate in the summer I'll be able to have a good, well paying career, however I believe my dc remain eligible for fsm until they finish "their current stage of education". So until they finish primary school

And as someone with a similarly age child to her I had to work a minimum of 16 hours when DC turned 5 even under the old tax credits system so not sure why those rules wouldn't have applied to her too, tell me?

It’s for the children, not the parents.
It would be like me judging YOU for taking benefits that I pay for.
Never claimed a penny, high earner, WC background so everything Inhave I have earned myself…

But I don’t. I don’t because that’s what taxes are for - and for every person taking the piss with the system there are a thousand families who really. We’d help.