Are other full-time working families finding there is nothing left?

Netcurtainnelly
we don't need coffee shops. Make your own. 😁

Less coffee shops, less employment, less socialising, less of the little things that make people smile. Cafés, book shops, newsagents have all closed in our town, it’s now all laser beauty clinics, beauticians, pubs, pharmacies, take aways and vape shops. Our lovely town looks like a dive now

Talk about missing the point 🙄

we don't need coffee shops. Make your own. 😁

I think many on this thread are doing that thing where they are judging what people did in the past through today's lens.
I know they don't want to hear it, but things have actually moved on and families today are much more fortunate than out grandparents' families were.

Yep - my gran worked with my grandad - and me the day they married she was required to resign by the employer. They did give a three piece suite as a wedding present as ‘compensation’, but that was that.

Yeah, I'm in the support group too. Very glad to have it plus the PIP although it doesn't come anywhere near minimum wage as an income.

Thanks. Didn’t know that. X

It depends what group you are in. My dad was on contribution based ESA for years, but he was in the support group.

Really? I thought after 6 months you went onto means tested?

Yes, my situation was similar - I did have a childminder but it was the lady over the fence at the bottom of my garden who had similar age children - it was an informal arrangement , however it was 5 days a week and agreed pay and arrangements between used holidays etc - she was totally fantastic and it suited her too as they were not well off at all.

well yes you had to rely on friends and family if you had any living near. my mother didn't nor did I and I had a child with additional needs so it was even more difficult to be able to leave them and go out to work.

My husband was born in 1969 and his mother went to work while he went to a neighbour

Not strictly true , I had a childminder from 1983 to 1987 - but it was less formalised and certainly no contributions .

Not true - I've been on contributions based ESA for 5 years.

also there was no child care , nurseries wrap around care or childminders subsidised or otherwise even if women of that generation wanted to work. If you had kids you had to look after them yourself

Benefits of rising prices, when I’ve clearly said I was one of the first of generation rent? Such a good advert for that generation.

It wasn’t only common, in a lot of cases it was compulsory. The employers thought if you got married you had a man “looking after you”, so women got the sack.😬.

Now people on here are blaming them for it.

What all of them? Don't be ridiculous.
Never voted for Thatcher. Never voted for any of it. The majority of my generation of the early 60s didn't. Those who voted Tory were our parents.
But hey, all that matters is that you, who have reaped ALL the same benefits of the rising market, plus historical low interest rates of the past 25 years, might cop some hostility. My heart bleeds.

It’s caused by that generation. The people who were fully adult and able to change events in the 80s and 90s, and used their power and agency to enable the sell off of public property, council houses and services. Many did very well out of it and all gained from the cheaper housing of the time. Very few seem able to acknowledge how much things have changed. Many seem unaware of how much things have changed. Many seem to sit around making up hard luck stories from their youth which was no worse than mine and think that’s an excuse to exploit everyone younger through a rentier society.

It does bother me that my generation (I’m 50) is likely to cop the burden of hate for the elderly, I’m already seeing and hearing comments from the young who, equally unaware of dates and change, seem not to understand that my generation was the first to be hit by wage/ house price disconnect - and in many ways, hit the worst, and think we’re the same as the baby boomers. We get the load from both sides, financial and dislike.

At some point it will be acknowledged that the first of generation rent is hitting their much later retirement, probably with reduced lifespans.

Sponger? I never said she was and I do not think anyone is. You used that word, not me.
I guess I could get a Ouji board out and ask her.

It was common for them to be forced to.
Does your grandma know you think she's a sponger?

Yes, my gran was one. She only worked in her early 20s, raised her kids then ended up being a carer for my grandad who became disabled.
She was on Pension Credit.

Years ago, it was common for women to leave work once they got married.

Both of which last 6 months.

I can never understand the vitriol towards pensioners and largesse towards benefits claimants on MN.
We never know what's round the corner for us, WE might be benefits claimants one day, so the rhetoric goes.
Yet the one demographic we will all be - hopefully - is pensioners.
I wonder if today's 30 somethings will be happy to have their income so derided when THEY are pensioners?

Mind you what about all the women that stayed at home with their children and have never worked since and who are now pensioners. They wouldn't have contributed at all. I bet there will be pensioners like that.