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

Can you not get pip? That's awful if not

Your forgetting benefit people who do work...

If it helps, Im 60, just been diagnosed with cancer and unable to work. I am drawing a small pension. I am currently minus £350 a month.
I don't qualify for any benefits. Ive worked all my life and get nothing. Thankfully my mortgage is paid off otherwise otherwise Id have to sell my home.
Whatever some people seems to think, benefits are not handed out like sweets

Exactly the same here. Now I’m finding we’re often still in debt at the end of the month. And that’s after we’ve cut out virtually all eating out, coffees, days out, clothes etc. We can’t even cover the basics anymore. Urgent home repairs being left undone as there’s no money. It is shit.

Yep I did think that was asilly post - regardless of where income comes from , the same costs are still in the mix - and unless you have social housing that remains fairly static , mortgages and rents can still increase and in the case of rents well be considerably over your ‘allowance towards rent’ if you get that . Meaning you take it off money that should go towards food and bills or you end up with no home- I don’t think many who are doing ok realise quite how thusasorctxworks - it does not automatically ‘cover off ‘ your rent etc - if you work and get top ups it may be you get very little if anything towards housing , if you have a mortgage almost certainly non at all ( although short term loans are possible)? And if you do get it, as no income at all, it can easily be your Rent is ££1180 and you get £910 etc - I’m not in this position but once had 2 months where we needed to claim following a business failure - luckily we had around £6000 of savings so could make up the difference -

You have chosen to have 3 children! You’ve made choices! You could choose not to work but you have not made that choice.

A cleaner and takeaways because you’re too tired to clean and cook 😂 and this is somehow unjust!!

I’m a single parent, got in at 17:30 yesterday, cooked a roast chicken for me and my DD, tidied up while it was cooking and DD did some school work at the kitchen table. Tidied up after dinner. Sat down at 20:00. I could have moaned about being out of the house since 07:30 and got a takeaway because I was too tired to cook and I could pay for a cleaner because I’m too tired to clean but I don’t as I have made my choices and it’s no one else’s fault or responsibility as to what those choices are.

@tangobravo That is why people space their kids out!

@PinkKimonoso you think ppl with savings should claim benefits? use the savings first, talk about grabby!

We have a very high income. But when my child became too anxious to attend her state school (they were just refusing to go) we moved them to a smaller, calmer private school which she felt safe enough to attend. It was cheaper to do this than one of us stop working to home school. If we earned less it would have been cheaper for one of us to be a stay at home parent.

So yes it looks like we have high expenditure but that’s just a result of being high earners and having different cost / benefits to working.

Disposable income is dropping off a cliff.

Ido agree it’s how you look at it, we get the teens what they need/want, pay bills, pension and that’s it. But for now that’s ok.

I did think, just 5 years ago, that by now we would have more money than we could spend. It’s not the case.

Earning less would be worse. That’s how we look at it. What else to do.

If you can't understand how shortsighted your attitude is and the unintended consequences of such a policy, then I think it is pointless us engaging further.

You might want to read Love on the Dole by Walter Greenwood, though.

We claim UC. We have a mortgage. Our ceiling came down last week. Should we have no savings for these sort of emergencies and repairs? Everyone should be able to have savings.

Moaning that you have had to give up a cleaner or cut back on theatre trips is hardly on the breadline!
There are millions of families struggling to feed themselves or worry about putting the heating on!!

Where is it all going then, tell us?

Because we are north-west, and with childcare costs and mortgage, still live quite comfortably on £75k between us. We save a fair bit and go on holiday.

Are you eating caviar for breakfast, lunch and dinner???

You do realise that many people who claim Universal Credit do work full time? Wages are just shockingly low in comparison to the cost of living. Of course people still have to worry about putting food on the table and council tax rises. What a staggeringly ignorant comment.

I think some of this comes down to expectations too, plenty of mumsnetters seem to expect that having 3 kids and 4 bed houses in nice areas on average incomes is a right and to be totally expected, even if they want to work part time etc. I’ve got friends up north and on midlands who think it’s the norm to have 5 sunny holidays abroad a year and have fairly cheap rents/housing ( absolutely their right to do this of course) but then bang on about how ‘the south’ gets everything ( we don’t) - the big facts are that house pricing ( be it rented or bought) in some more in demand parts of the country is bang out of control and due to the fact a lot of decent family social housing was sold off starting with That her more and more people have been forced into private rentals- with little security and no price controls at all. Same applies with privatised utilities- few controls and often owned by overseas conglomerates, just milking them for profit -then we have Brexit, so where areas were getting some investment before that stopped . Gvt are caught between a rock and a hard place, people don’t want/can’t pay more tax to fund services and yet incomes are stagnant due to less well paid jobs out there due to lack of any high paying jobs needing to be based here - it’s a viscious circle - The only people raking it in post Brexit are very well off who can still hide money away offshore or some tradesmen who have seen their sensibly priced EU competitors vanish out the UK and are back to the charging £200 call outs or £400 to send 4 hours sorting some plumbing etc and not always doing a great job either. Dont forget those of you who voted for this nonsense everything was going to be cheaper, sunlit uplands and all that - as people have discovered it was complete wankpish pushed by Telegraph reader types for their own ends and well enough off for it not to matter to them.

Agree, the sense of entitlement on here is something else.

Yep but if you complain you just get a load of ‘tiny violins’ because you were previously able to afford a coffee or a sale theatre ticket

But you knew the costs involved in choosing to have a child. You may not be able to afford nursery fees and a holiday but so what? Families have been tightening their belts for generations. So what if you need to? It’s a period of time, get on with it.

If they have savings before applying they should use those before applying! Why is it everyone else’s job to give them money when they already have some.

And what do the rest of us have to do when the washing machine or the car breaks down - we have to pay for it ourselves! Which is sensible because why should other people pay for that? Do you honestly actually think it’s other people’s responsibility to pay for their life emergencies? It’s not and it shouldn’t be.

I have found my people here. We both work full time, 3 kids, 5 years ago were far better off than we are now, despite me upping my hours.

I think people who are on UC don't understand about the difference with people working FT is we are knackered at the end of day having worked probably more hours than we're paid, plus commuted and so you need to pay more for things that cost, eg a cleaner or takeaway etc.

If you're not working you have time to clean your house, cook meals for yourself. You can go out on a nice sunny day to the park for free, whereas if you're working you're looking out the window on those days then it's inevitably overcast and spitting by the time it's the weekend.

There has to feel like there is something more in return for working. If you work full time you should be able to afford some treats otherwise what's the point. Just cut your hours and go on UC as a top up.

You don’t say how much you earn and what your outgoings are.

I am a single parent with one income. I’m not broke at the end of the month. I’ve made choices: no large mortgage, instead I chose to stay in a flat, yes it’s not the house I’d love to have but it’s affordable. No unnecessary subscriptions, no car payment, no loans, no credit card debt. If I need something I save for it and I have enough in the bank for emergencies. No bank of mum and dad involved, no inheritance.

Holidays are planned for and budgeted for. Days out tend to be at National Trust places with packed lunch or anywhere else with no entry fees such as museums or the beach. Meals are planned each week and a shopping list is written and stuck to.

I can pay the bills and the essentials, I’m not entitled to anything else just because I work full time. Things are expensive at the moment, they’re expensive everywhere. It’s a period of time, you can moan and be resentful or you can get on and appreciate what you do have.

Just curious - I’m guessing you are a one income family?

We're mortgage free, which is incredibly lucky and I know we're fortunate to be in that position. So this isn't a 'poor me' at all, but we really don't have much left over either - certainly not able to save the equivalent to the mortgage which is what we planned, and not spending it all on luxuries and non-essentials either.

I don't think we're 'hard up' but we're certainly not as comfortable as I expected to be once we reached this age/ position.

One child - some wraparound care costs but not needed every day. Both work full time, middle-ish earners - not high by mumsnet standards but certainly what I would have considered 'doing alright for ourselves' before the last year or so.

Still feel very fortunate, but I'm not sure we'll ever be in a position of not having to budget fairly carefully - we had a child later in life so the thought of uni costs etc (if that's the path she goes down) weighs quite heavily now.

Agree.
I’m also in the benefits category and receive PIP AND ESA. Reason? Cancer is kicking my arse. Am I “ winning “? Hell no!