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

“We can afford to save each month” How about those people you’re talking about don’t save each month and actually spend what they actually earn on actually living. You know what most people do.

What made you choose to have such a long commute?

Is it not based on a "stamp"?

I mean, people who are "paying in" to their state pension are not paying in anything for themselves. They are paying the into the pensions of the people who are claiming state pension right now.
People seem to wrongly claim that paying into their state pension is some sort of savings account that they get back when they retire. A lot of people would have not paid in enough anyway. But it does not work that way.

Someone on benefits gets their NI stamp despite not actually paying in anything, which also counts towards your state pension. This has to happen, otherwise disabled people will get to retirement age and have no income at all.

That's exactly how some benefits work too though, eg contributions based ESA and JSA.

A pension isn’t a benefit. It’s something you pay into and get back. Because of the bootstrap problem the state pension doesn’t work like a private one where money was saved and invested before people claimed

but the principle is the same. If you pay into it you are entitled to it.

and we should try to keep it that way - what is advancing humanity, labour saving technology , if we still expect people to work till they die?

My point was we don't spend 44% of all tax generated on benefits (including pension) We spend around 22%
That 22% is split into 55% pensions 44% other benefits ( this 44% includes sickness. Housing, out of work etc)
The unemployment part of that is very low, if you read the link

Or not even those things. We moved out of London, the train travel for two of us is over £700 a month. Mortgage is still high as the commuter towns are expensive. Nursery costs went up overnight to fund the NI increase and funded hours to well over £5k a month for two children. As we don’t receive the funded hours. Annoyingly they put up the ‘sundries’ charges also for nappies and wipes, even though we used cloth nappies, to try and recoup some of the funded hours costs.

I think sometimes being a higher earner brings higher bills, some examples are:
Needing to live in a major city like London to have access to such well paid jobs which is much more expensive
Needing two reliable cars because there is no wiggle room to be late due to car troubles when a large team rely on you.
Needing more robust childcare eg nanny because you need to leave/ return after the wraparound club start and finish times and there is no flex when you are senior
Paying for professional membership/ high levels of student loans from training
Having to source quick and easy food because you work longer hours.
Paying for taxis for teens to get to activities etc because you are still at work.

Don't get me wrong, it's still better to be higher paid of course, but depending on what you are doing to earn that you can end up spending a lot on supporting your career, particularly in a daily where both parents have 'big' jobs.

The way tax works is that’s impossible for your take home pay to have gone down solely because of tax at a 50k level (slightly different for a specific band of earnings between 100-125k).

You will be paying more tax than you did before but that’s because you’re earning more - you will not be taking home less because of tax.

My salary has gone up but I’m paying more in tax so my take home pay has gone down. I work f/t and earn £50k a year but I’m honestly not sure how I’ll cope in a couple of years when I no longer get child support from my ex. I doubt very much my kids will leave home until mid 20s and I’ll still need to help support them through uni. I guess I’ll just have to cut out everything but the absolute basics. How depressing.

This is a correct reading of the situation - directors and shareholders pay has sky rocketed.. workers pay has been kept the same. It’s all deliberate.. I think the Tory ‘austerity’ played into this very well and made everyone think we are all having to cut back when actually it’s really just a way to keep people’s pay low whilst the spare money is syphoned off into the pockets of a few.

People slag off a labour government and Europe, but both of these things would have helped hold this at bay and we wouldn’t have been where we are today. Brexit was like the cherry on the cake allowing the ultra rich and companies to erode peoples’ employment rights (amongst other things) again slowly continuing this trend of low wages, poor employment rights and general less fair-share of profits.

My remortgage this year is looking like it might go up by £1,000.
£1000 increase a month?! . That’s terrifying @MidnightPatrol

You can challenge your council tax band if their are similar properties in your area to yours in a different bracket the details are online

Quite a lot of countries have local income tax instead ( often around 4%) which is individual and related to ability to pay and yes you pay some if on low incomes too - but it’s factored in below a certain amount - and yes it disregards size of your house- so some end up paying more, some less, but if you have 3 or more working adults within a house would probably pay more but individually as part of general taxation - or are very high earners both working.

I don’t know exactly what the answer is to make CT more equitable, but I don’t think the current system is fair.

It really does!

The CT system is weird.

A person living alone in a Band E house will not be using more services than 4 adults living in a Band B house, yet they will be paying a hell of a lot more.

Maybe the fairest way would be to tax individuals, but that was tried (poll tax), and people rioted over it.

That would piss me off no end!

I didn’t say you did! I live in a council where there are 2 major universities so lots of students (who don’t pay council tax)

most households are on lower bands (70% are bands A-C, we’re on band E. Therefore we pay a lot more than they do: but we don’t use additional services.

people who have low income are able to apply for a council tax reduction: some get 100% (I’m not saying everyone who gets
benefits does)

Yep, I pay 20% of CT as I am on UC and don't work.
But if I did a bit of work... about £100pm, I would have have to pay the full rate... which would eat up what I earnt and more. It is silly.

Yes I'm (unfortunately) well aware of that.

It's aside from benefits that it annoys me. People in larger properties rated as low band as a small flat. Several adults sharing the cost vs single person having to pay 75% of it themselves. Cheaper council tax in wealthier areas. Any kind of benefits to help pay it/be exempt differing by area rather than fair across country. Wildly different rates by area rather than income of people living there.

It's another thread really!

Yeah council tax is ridiculously unfair for many reasons. The fact it’s not linked to financial ability to pay and also as someone who lives alone I only get a 25% discount and not a 50% discount.

I'm on benefits and pay full council tax its completely area dependant. You don't automatically get cheap council tax for being on benefits

@TracyLords

Council tax over £300 a month gives me the rage: so many people don’t pay it at all, or pay a lot less, yet we still get a really shitty service.

Council tax gives me the rage in general! It's the only tax not strictly tied to ability to pay. There are so many unfairnesses in it. Should be got rid of altogether and centrally funded via income tax! Problem is all those who would have to pay more would kick off!

Yep.

I was even hounded when waiting for my son's DLA to go through including when he was in hospital.