Can´t survive on salary without benefits. Doesn´t seem right.

[Fashionesta]

Just wondered if anyone else was in the same boat as feeling a bit miserable. Recently started new job, 31K a year, felt happy with that, potential to grow. Having done all my calculations and bills, if it were not for getting some money towards housing, I would be 300 pounds a month short :(

After pension I get around 1800 per month. Rent is 950 and I have one of the cheaper properties in my area so no ability to find anything cheaper - its me and DD in a 2 bed. No luxuries at all. Basic mobile phone on giff gaff 8 per month, no SKY etc, old car although paying off car loan of 150 month which bumps outgoings up. By the time I have paid all my bills, council tax, loan, after school club for DD and swimming lessons for her which I feel is essential, if it weren´t for the fact that I get some help towards rent, I would be -300 per month.

I generally feel like I earn a decent wage and panicking a bit about the situation. Not asking for a solution really as I think I am quite frugal, also sensible so pay for life insurance, car insurance, pet insurance and house insurance. Pay TV licence and so on. Shop at Tesco.

Anyone else don´t feel like they are getting by on what I actually consider a decent wage (although I realise in MN terms I am probably not earning much at all).'

Argh I just hate feeling poor all the time and I shouldn´t have to rely on benefits when on 31K surely!

Blair's government built all those facilities on PFI contracts. Private Finance Initiatives. Google the interest rates, please do ago aheadd. They will, by the time they are bulldozed as inadequate, have cost triple the value they have provided.

Well she does because she's entitled to a top up & would still get that the top up without a pet or swimming lessons @MrsMaizel

And the point remains that lots of people get and are entitled to top ups so...

@SuziQuatrosFatNan

Probably too busy giving her dog swimming lessons and luxuriating in her multiple insurance policies like the popinjay she is. And we're paying for it!!! My DH understands all about business and he says we're mugs!!!

@BlanketyBlanky

When I was earning 31k in London in the noughties I shared a 3 bed flat with 2 other professionals. No way did I consider living alone. It would have probably been possible but it would have meant a terrible compromise on location and spare cash.

Even if the dad paid for half of the child, the OP would still have to pay roughly equivalent to a single person, which is so much more than half of a working couple.

Life is financially tough for single people, it does seem horribly unfair but I guess that is why the benefits make sense in this case.

When I was earning £27k a year in london in the late 90s I was able to buy a HOUSE for 2.5 times my salary. My housemate from renting a flat became my lodger and I went from £350 a month rent (my room) to £450 a month mortgage (and my mate paid me half of that in rent). The housing market got expensive by 2001 to 2004 and silly by 2007 and has got sillier on and off since.

I'm sorry OP. I really feel for you. I think you are doing really well. I'm also a lone parent with one child. I earn well over the average salary but I still have to be very careful with money. We live in a very small 2 bed. I don't think we will be in a significantly better position for the next few years. I think many people who are not in this position really don't understand how much juggling it takes to keep things afloat. Good luck and I hope you enjoy your new job

@XingMing

Blair's government built all those facilities on PFI contracts. Private Finance Initiatives. Google the interest rates, please do ago aheadd. They will, by the time they are bulldozed as inadequate, have cost triple the value they have provided.

I'm not saying blair was good, I am saying he was better than the tories and we'd be better off with a left wing labour party who don't adopt silly neo-liberal / tory ideas like PFI

Honestly though, some of these comments. I've worked hard all my life, had a late career change, educated at post graduate level and do a job which actually helps a lot of sectors of society. But I should sleep on a sofa and sent my child any entertainment. Jesus wept. Pp was right, Mumsnet really is a race to the bottom at times

MN seems to be increasingly full of sanctimonious arses who can't imagine anyone else's less privileged position or honestly just don't care. I'd advise giving it a few days then reading their replies back as entertainment as many are laughably ridiculous. Meanwhile, I absolutely agree with your core point. You earn more than the national average wage and are just looking for a modest lifestyle in a small flat. You should be able to afford that and if you can't it suggests something is wrong with the system.

The fact is that -

In the 60s and 70s people could afford a decent 1960s / 1970s life on one salary

Now two salaries and, if you have decent jobs, you can have a pretty decent 2021 lifestyle.

Ordinary people are poorer because government has worked for big business and property owners and rich people not ordinary people.

We have had mainly tory governments in that time, and the one time we had new labour we had tory-lite, tony blair.

OPs problem is 40 years of idiots voting how murdoch tells them to, and not for a left wing party that will ensure they get their fair share of the national income.

Gobsmacked at those who can’t understand how her take home is only £1800. I’m on similar wage public sector and only take home slightly more - I got a free uni education no student loan. OP may also be paying union or professional fees. It’s the standard pension contribution they deduct she’s not choosing to overpay.
I’d guess op is a social worker or similar. Are we really saying that only northern towns with cheaper housing need these jobs.
Swimming lessons are essential and cost less than taking a child swimming. I checked my local council pool is £5.30 a lesson. A child and adult swim is £7.60. It’s actually cheaper if you go weekly or more often to have annual swim membership at local prestigious private school kids - some posters would have a field day with that.
Wages haven’t gone up. In my professional area and geographic location wages are pretty much what they were when I started out 20 years ago. Professional job requiring postgraduate study.

Why should they? Many women have children with men they know are useless/feckless/not likely to be around or pay up? Therefore a certain amount of responsibility has to be born by the woman surely?

@ivfbeenbusy You are a boil on the arsehole of humanity.

My dog would cost £50+ pm in insurance premiums. She had congenital elbow issues at 9 months, which we paid to have fixed. It cost about £3k at the time, and she is now seven years old, and I make sure she is very fit and thin. But, as a result she has some arthritis in her elbows (we always knew she would get arthritis eventually) so we buy the appropriate medication and food and a supplement that seems to help. But if her medical needs were to escalate, or she was in significant discomfort, then I would ask the vet for advice. And as I use a sensible country vet, if she said that beyond X point, the dog is suffering for your sentimental love, then I would put on big girl pants and take my beloved pet into the surgery, lift her onto the table and hold her closely while she drifted into forever, over the rainbow bridge. And weep for a week or several. And then get another dog.

Who needs the patriarchy when women are doing a far better job of putting down other women.

Quite.

It’s rent that’s the problem, our housing costs are so appalling in this country, it’s one of our biggest issues.

Do you have the capacity to increase your earnings significantly in the next 5 years? If so it’s worth sticking out for continuity, but if not, could you look into moving somewhere cheaper - where you could build to getting a mortgage quite quickly.

Such tossers honestly who begrudges a child a swimming lesson and a pet. If she is entitled to benefits then she is and I am more than happy for my taxes to pay for that.

@JediGnot, please look at Hugo Chavez' record in Venezuela before recommending a left-wing Labour government.

you cannot afford your life if you are getting top up

Erm....so what is the alternative? The OP and her child live on the streets? She puts the child in care?

Of course it doesn't seem right. That's because it isn't right.
If you're (collective you're not personal you're ) are going out to work full time then you shouldn't need to be on any benefits.

Erm....so what is the alternative? The OP and her child live on the streets? She puts the child in care?

Yes, wearing SACKCLOTH AND ASHES. Or maybe reopen the workhouses.

It's not the op who is the villain here. Its the joke of a system and the paltry
"living" wage. I certainly don't blame anyone for claiming in work benefits. I'm just saying they shouldn't need to

Why do people have children with men they know won't stick around? Abs they know they'll end up raising a family on one income?

ODFOD. What utterly sanctimonious twaddle,

I did everything right - education, travel, good wage, independence before I met my ex. We built a business and we’re together 3 years before marrying and a further 3 before having our first child. In any discussion we had about a gone-wrong future he always promised to be supportive of any children and always said he would ‘dig ditches’ to make sure they had what they needed. He was far from useless and many friends envied his decency and work ethic.

10 years later he pissed off with the OW, emptied the bank accounts and hasn’t paid a penny to support his children since.

You have not one clue of what happens to people and how they are treated by people who once said they loved them.

I agree with the op that it shouldn't be necessary to have benefit top ups to live a reasonable life when working full time. One of the main problems is the level of wages across many areas of employment. Employers can pay less than is reasonable for the work because they know the pay will be made up through benefits. Many people pay their taxes then need to reclaim them through the benefit system. This whole system costs a fortune to run and would be largely unnecessary if employers had to pay a proper rate in relation to today's cost of living. The real beneficiaries are the employers who can use the benefit system to keep their costs down and improve their profits as well as profiteering landlords who can raise their rents knowing the system will subsidies them. Business has lots of subsidies to help them survive without the tax payer paying some of their employees wages for them.

Surely legislation should ensure that people like the op, hard working full time workers, are paid enough for reasonable living standards without needing to rely on government top ups. Shocking to think that some people think the answer is for her to have a one bedroom flat and sleep on the sofa, doing without a pet or swimming lessons for her child. In UK? In 2021? Not acceptable.

Honestly shocked at the responses on here... I am in a similar position to op. Also get topped up by £300 a month ,
Single parent , renting . I have worked hard for 18 years , i went back to work when my daughter was 3 months old working 50 hours a week and missed out on so much of her childhood.

Its impossible as a single parent to survive on the average wage with rent costs factored in without some support .

The answer is to force employers to pay proper money and contribute fairly to pensions. As long as big supermarkets advertise 16-hours per week jobs (just before the entitlement to sick pay, pension rights and UC kicks in) then the tax payer is not only paying tax on their salary, they are subsidising their cheapskate pay policies. Any employer paying less than a living wage is complicit. I have a cleaner, but she is paid £12.50 per hour -- for four hours a week. I am not her only customer. How Tesco etc. pay £9.something and rely on the state to make it up to a wage is beyond me.

We should be questioning how we have got to the point where someone on £31k is struggling. Instead people are berating someone who works full time, is bringing up a child alone because the other parent fucked off abroad, just because they get a small amount in top up benefits.MNetters really do hate people for not being wealthy

MN hates single parents above all else - the vitriol on this thread is the tip of the iceberg. It’s fear, really, that it might happen to them. That they might have to manage on average money and claim benefits and have the whole world look down on them. That thousands of single parents manage - and manage well - is terrifying to so many.