Single mum 45k a year in south east but just scraping by?

I pay £14k a year in rent for a one bedroom house. I didn't even know they built houses that small.

South East is crazy money.

@usernamealreadytaken It’s only because she’s a single parent with 2 young children.

OP is effectively a dual income household - she earns approx £20k, then gets £25k (equivalent of over £30k salary) in CM and UC.

OP is earning approx £20k, the rest is untaxed CM and UC. She’s getting almost as much UC in a month as she pays tax in a year, and is complaining how expensive everything is. Perhaps she’d have more money if she worked full time?

Yes, l know🙄

Yes.

Do you understand pensions?

She won’t need or get it long term, she needs it while she has small children.

This top up isn’t going to help her long term. She will be poorer in retirement as she is paying less pension. Women are being screwed, left right and centre.

Ok.

Being pedantic.

If she was earning 45k from a salary without the benefits she would need around 60k pretax.

🙄

@Blossomtoes yes always good to have context
for the people who are venting their misplaced anger,
at the people who are low incomes, single parents, pensioners who claim pension credit etc, everything that is wrong in the uk, it’s all their fault! It’s like a blinking witch hunt!

We can't all be expecting the taxpayer to pay for 33% of expenses for every household PLUS all public services.....

Just as well we don’t then. Of the 34 million people in paid work in this country around 2 million claim top up benefits - that’s around 6% for context.

What would happen if the government got rid of top up benefits for working people? The top ups seem to be primarily to support private landlords charging extortionate "market rate" rents.

Do we move everyone "Up North" and are there enough rental properties available for all the shop assistants, cleaners, support workers, teachers, nurses, social workers, etc?

What then happens to "Down South" and their services? Do southerners not need teachers and nurses? I can't imagine the classic MN Darling Husband Brian who earns six figures putting in extra shifts as a bin man. Or Darling Son Tobias mopping up piss in the shopping centre toilets. Maybe that's exactly what would happen, everyone would have to pitch in.
Darling Wife Claire trying to fit in teaching phonics to a class of Year 1 children around her Big Important Meetings in her fancy Magic Circle Top 4 Wotsit job.

Interestingly, I do live in the magical North and my rent is still fucking extortionate! Where do I go? Further North? Bradford? Sunderland?

Do we all keep moving North until we can go no further? Then what? Do we club our Universal Credit together and get a boat?!

She just said she gets £1,200 in universal credit, which is nearly as much as he leaves and more than the dad pays for maintenance...so tax payer footing a third of her expenses basically, how much do you think people should qualify for? I sympathise a stones are tough but what is the solution? We can't all be expecting the taxpayer to pay for 33% of expenses for every household PLUS all public services.....

I feel you. I earn 67k, 2 kids, renting a flat , £1400 a month. I am moving next year back up north when youngest goes to uni. I am not struggling as such, but I am certainly not rolling in it. I always thought my salary was good, but not down south when a single household income.

Well it the reality though isn’t? You are delusional if you think we can go like this.

So basic.

I hear you OP, am in Surrey and can’t relocate at present time, it’s horrendously expensive and I’ve always been a single parent with mortgage working full time, have just hit 66 so state pension will kick in but still can’t afford to retire

The last sentence is correct but not in the way you think.

Either he he needs to pay £300 more per week or rent controls need to be in place or she needs to work more, another 15 hours in a £20 job. I don’t see why I have to work full time to get really shitty public services so that someone can “fit their hours around school time”! I am up at 6:30 every day, the local school is in special measures largely due to to lack of funding and the people I care for end up without care/in a terrible hospital because there isn’t enough money. I have people in my team who are at breaking point as they are doing too much with too little and equally I can’t get perfectly fit people with teenage kids to work a full week because it would mess with their universal credit. The system is fucked.

Glad you think so. 😊

It’s because there are children involved and rents are so high.
But of course it’s far easier to jump on that bandwagon

I’m a single parent to four, only 3 at home now. I have £43k coming in and I feel the same. We have a holiday booked in October and it’s meant cutting out literally everything in the meantime. Like everything, restricting how often I use the car, reducing what I’m eating, no meals out with friends, no day trips with the kids.

I’m not near London, I’m in the East but my rent is still £15,600/year. Another almost £3k for council tax.

Probably naive but I really thought that when I got to this level of earning I’d be able to live comfortably, not extravagantly but comfortably.

Great response 👍🏻

Which proves the benefits system is not fit for purpose