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

I think in some parts of the country people are screwed whatever they do but I live in the NE and feel pretty comfortable on a relatively low wage. We come out with around 4k net a month. Our mortgage is £480, we have a small, slightly banged up 10 year old car, our house is pretty small so bills are pretty small.
We have around 2k per month spare after all food petrol etc, I work part-time.
We go on holiday 3-4 times a year (my husband loves to find a bargain), we have a good chuck in savings.
We are considering getting a bigger house with around 900 a month morgage but I've never gave into lifestyle inflation before so thinking about it carefully.

My friend was baffled how I have just been to Asia for 2 weeks, which cost us about 4k but then proceeded to announce they just got a second 30k car, on finance, she now pays £750 a month for 2 cars on finance, I wouldn't dream of doing that! So yes I think some people are screwed with house prices but a lot of people expect what they want and don't consider a more frugle, cheaper option.

No thats everything and I don't get free dental or council tax reduction or free school meals

What does your monthly budget look like OP? Are you putting a lot into pensions, savings, investments? Will things look a lot different after nursery is finished, do you go on holiday, what's your mortgage?
We are two full time workers on min wage, no top.ups, and doing ok, so it's hard to tell without seeing your budget whether this is a post to wind people up, or a genuine I struggle to budget post.

I thought the same thing.

A nice sunny day at the park? If only.

The top 50 wealthiest families are richer than the bottom 34 million people in the U.K. we need to tax the super rich . They won’t just up and leave over 1% they have UK assets. The problem isn’t and has never been those on benefits.

We are on one very low wage in the SE. Although we occasionally get into trouble when a car needs a 2k repair it seems like we are more comfortable than others on this thread on over 100k. I am presuming that's because we bough the most basis house we could in the best part of a rough area decades ago. Once we had a house it was easier to move again. We absolutely went to our limit of what we could could afford to buy it putting down a big deposit. We couldn't of bought that house today.

We both drive 12 year old cars, don't go out, only go out to eat for birthdays. Second hand clothes mostly. Not had hair cut in years. Dd 11 has been to the hairdresses once in her life. Most splashing of cash is days out with the kids. Even then we have annual passes. Maybe it's because our accommodation is secure or maybe it's because we never did splash out in the first place. I don't resent my old car. It's reliable. I do worry about food and fuel increase.

What I do measure myself on was that we grew up as a working class family in a deprived town. It's still famously deprived. So maybe my measure of happiness is set back in my roots of growing up with just the basics.

But I was never cold and hungry as a kid. Something I can't always say about my own. We can not get our house warm and it's been low as 11 over winter and as high as 18. That's the time I feel the col hurt most.

I feel it needs to be legally challenged how little they give to single people with no dependents. It often doesn’t cover rent and bills let alone food.

I'd imagine it's your mortgage/rent. I lived in Kingston for years and remember well the dreadful percentage of take home pay and the cost of trains season tickets. My cousins in the North earn less but their houses were half of what property is in the south and round london and its commuters towns, and palatial in comparison too. They eat out loads, kids are always on weekends away with them to mini spas or massive activities, money stretches further there.

Because a PP said benefits claimants were winnings. (We’re not).

Well this has decended into fucking chaos hasn't it ladies. Anyway....back to what OP created the thread about....

I have a disabled child. 5:30am is a lay in.

Definitely not winning here.

Agree. These days £16k in savings is doing pretty well. Threshold needs to be lowered.

We have about a 40% higher household income than we did 10 years ago due to being at the peak of our careers now. We’ve got children and we did struggle then as we were just above the threshold for top up benefits and blended family which makes financiers extra stretched. Now we’re even more stretched despite being professionals at the top of our pay bands, promotions, etc. Everything seems to have at least doubled in price and the mortgage interest rates have gone up, trying to look at what else we can cut back

It's £4.35 per £250 or part thereof. So £1000 over the limit is £17.40 per month. Nearing £16,000 savings they'd be down £174 a month. Bearing in mind for a single person basic UC is only around £400 a month.

Anyway, the point is they are expected to top up from their savings which is fair enough.

But most claimants have nothing like 16k savings! It's not really possible to save like that on benefits. So this really applies to people who were working (thus able to save) but through some misfortune lost their job. They are already likely to have costs not covered by benefits (eg. mortgages or subscriptions/bills that can just be instantly cancelled) so will need to use their savings alongside any UC they are entitled to whilst they get back on their feet.

I hope this happens to you so you can get a full understanding of how it works.

It feels like the middle keeps getting hit while people on benefits and pensions keep getting more support and increases. It doesn’t feel fair.

My nan was a working-class woman, a shop worker, and she jokes about how much money she has and all the extra payments she gets (warm house discount, etc)

Benefits needs to be means-tested more...I know the middle will be hit again to pay for this energy crisis.

I am not sure whether I will be as when qualified I a only on a band 5 nhs salary. With other costs I am not sure if it will be worth it. I will see what the situation is when I am finished.

But plat the moment putting my 3 kids in to holiday clubs costs more than what I earn after tax. I wouldn't have these costs if I wasn't working.

Do you think peoole on universal credit hsve never worked?
Some work full time and still need the top up.
I dont work now becsuse my son is severely autistic,hes 16 in may but functions at around 2/3 years
Im not exactly living the dream.

And yet you get people saying 16K is not enough.

A certain amount, yes. Up to 16k is absolutely crazy.

When people are struggling despite doing everything they're supposed to do - work hard, behave honestly, pay their bills - what's the temptation?

E.g. the council here has imposed a lot of hurdles to jump through and arguably non-GDPR compliant requests for personal info to go to the tip and dump waste, which some of the most vulnerable (e.g. my parents, who can't use a computer) can't do. Result, lots more flytipping. To be clear, my parents haven't flytipped. However their house is full of junk they can't get rid of. Eventually I'll do it but I don't have the time right now and they live very far away.

Exactly! Christ all these posters talking about how it's our fault for planning our lives badly and feeling entitled to holidays - our mortgage literally went up by £500 per month, our weekly shop has doubled since 2022, and our wages haven't kept up. Also the cost of doing work (basic!) on our house has sky rocketed too so keeping the house maintained sucks up any spare cash

Yes I agree.

It's the fact that they allow people to have to up to 16k in savings and then collect benefits from the tax payer when they have more than enough to fund themselves, is what I have the issue with. I have no issues with people claiming benefits who need it, if they have even a quarter of 16k, they still aren't poor.

Actually it does. I only earn about 550 a month due to a disability so get benefits. I can't afford food and the council tax has become unaffordable. I think people have a skewed view of how much most people get in benefits. I get 1200 a month. Rent is 700 and council tax is 200. Once my gas and water and electric has come out of that I'm about - 50. That's before I've bought any food, paid for anything for my son, phone bill, Internet, sewerage rates, travel for work etc. I am literally drowning every month so not sure why people think being on benefits means you don't have to worry about bills. We still have to pay them!!!!

I'm literally responding to the OP about how we have nothing spare at the end of the month. I'm not stupid, I understand where our £ is going every month, it's obviously not a surprise. This is an online forum and I'm responding to an OP with my experience, I'm not sure why you're so obsessed with explaining my own situation back to me?

I'm not saying it's my business what people spend their money on nor am I saying that the poster has 16k.

I'm saying that it's wrong that people are allowed up to 16k in savings, if they have even a quarter of that money, they are not poor and shouldn't be getting topped up by the tax payer. End of.