benefits - can anyone advise?

[namechangerrr]

hi i am a regulare but have name changed for this. i was wondering if anyone would e able to help me here. i have seen on the news about benfits being cut/capped but cant seem to find any exact figures.

was wondering if anyone could be able to help me and see if my benefit will be capped or cut, so that i can be prepared for this.

i recieve weekly:
£135 child tax credit
£48 cb
£65 incone support
£145 hb
£12 ctb

i no this seems like a huge amount when written like this but in reality it isnt. once i have paid gas, elec, water rates (£28 per week!), tv licence etc there is not much left for food/nappies.

i would be very grateful if anyone could help. i am not intending to be on benefit forever and i do want to better myself for myself and my children.

Once- I might be wrong but I worked for a charity a bit like SSD and we used to say no and make excuses (although never anyone deserves new) becuase we just didn;t have any storage space; people thought they were being kind and would get well offended but we had a single office, nowhere to store.

I did phone one back once and ask if they minded me having the pram when I was expecting ds3 (they didn't, hurray)

Oh and I agree with TSC that all this shit about "you want people to starve/wear rags/live in the poor house" is disingenuous.

No one has come close to suggesting that on this thread (although I suspect judging by the comments of TTP that it is only a matter of time - so I will be disapppearing before I get classed in the same category as her)

The majority on this site have no clue about doing proper work

No idea that there are women with 2-3 children who have to go every morning for 9-10 hours to work just to get less than £1775 a month that some scrounger will do.

And look after those children as well as going to work to pay taxes so that some scrounger can have her "entitlements"

And this is what is fundamentally wrong with this country.

Just because you spread your legs once or twice don't tell me now I have to pay for you and your offspring.

Go to work - earn your living

Graveyard Mists are Yellow - what exactly was the problem with working together for a few years before planning to have the DC to get something behind you? I think it's called planning and/or taking personal responsibility for oneself and one's family.

Graveyard- I agree, I woudln;t be without Dh for any money in the world. i'll be honest, apart from the fact I love him, with a couple of autistic kids I need his input adn it's be social services support otherwise- at a cost to the state.

No ta. i;d choose penury.

TTP pre-autiosm I used to work for a charity for 8 hours, catching the 7am bus and dropping the boys at mums

come back, make tea, go to do an evening shift in an FE college; Dh would pick pick kids up from Mum, hand to me then do a night job.

You know what? I bloody loved it; got a massive buzz out of it. Oh yes it was tiring, and at times I desperately missed the boys but.... yes the buzz becuase I loved both jobs. if you do that (and I do mean you TTP) with a job you don;t like and ares till broke and missing your kids I absolutely feel fopr you.

I couldn't ask Mum to cope with beatings from ds1 after a bit. So it fell apart.

But wishing someone potentially dead through DV ain;t the answer. Because DV kills. Even if not directly my schoolfriend weighs 5stone with anorexia and is going to die after dv for years

I couldn't ask Mum to cope with beatings from ds1 though. So work fell apart. Life's shit sometimes.

You better think what will happen to you and to your benefits if everyone earning less than £1775 a month, everyone on average and below average were to do as you do...

Everyone , every average worker in this country to go onto benefits system...

What will happen to that benefits system?

What will happen to you?

What will happen to this country?

Onceamai there are situation nobody can plan for, undofortunarely. Absolutely, people shoudl plan famillies and have a bit of cash but- nothing is guranteed. How long could most frugal people go if their aprtner lost a job and they coudn't work (that happened to us, although now things changed)

Life's shit. It just is. And more, it's unpredictably shit.

Oh for fucks sake, leave the op alone.

What's this, some sort of martyrs gathering wanting to kick the poor into soup kitchens wearing sack cloth and ashes. The welfare state is there as a safety net, not a lifestyle choice. The op is entitled to jump into that net if she needs to, as would most of the country if they had to.

Bet some of you lot think you have halos in place of a ring piece. [hwink]

namechangerrr - if your child goes to a local authority school more than 2 miles away because you could not get into the local school the local authority is obliged to provide a bus or pay for it. Round her anyway.

And this thread shows some of the more vile views (on all sides) I've seen on Mumsnet in a while.

Me TTP? I am officially employed, as of today.

I don;t begrudge others though: getting sorted wasn;t for free. It buys chances.

So it is fine for families with children to either give up work altogether or get benefits to top-up low incomes?

And we'll just ignore all the single people or couples without children who do the low paid work as they don't get the 'benefit top up'? Also we'll can ignore the immigrants who have 'no access to public funds' stamped in their passports? This is all these groups deserve. Hard work for low pay.

How is this fair?

What needs to be changed is the minimum wage it is too low! If it was a realistic level then low income families wouldn't need to rely on benefits and there wouldn't be this injustice!

TTP I think you are entirely correct. Have been home now for about 90 mins, have tidied, have ironed and dinner is ready for later - oh and have washed up the breakfast things that got left this am because I had to rush to work. Having 40 mins to myself right now and no doubt that will be a problem for some on here - going out at 8.45 to do pickups for two dcs 15 miles apart - later will fall into bed exhausted. Tomorrow have the big shop to do and hopefully will be out by 8 to avoid the weekend crowds as don't have the luxury of doing it during the week. DH is expected home at about 10pm tonight after a trip to the other end of the country - work related.

Not actually sure that some of the posters on here would want to swap. They might like the combined income but me thinks the levels of organisation and sheer graft could kill them.

lenin you're absolutely right she is not. And I think in my very first post on this thread I said as much, pointing out it was the system and that the OP was right to claim everything that she was permitted to.

That didn't stop me being called heartless/ vile/scum and being told that someone wished to god my own children ended up homeless whilst I didn't have "a pot to piss in".

In fact my view was not disimilar to many of the so called (IMO entirely unfairly) "anti benefits brigade". I think those that attacked the OP directly were in a minority of one, possibly two. But people really do read what they want to read and go on the attack in a completely unjustified manner.

I refuse to believe that the majority of people think that the current system is right when your income can be higher by not working. That doesn't necessarily mean that benefits are too high. What it does mean is that the system is unfair and badly thought out. I am genuinely suprised that expressing such a view can be met with such criticism.

"Graveyard Mists are Yellow - what exactly was the problem with working together for a few years before planning to have the DC to get something behind you? I think it's called planning and/or taking personal responsibility for oneself and one's family"

I have heard of that thanks. I was 29 years old when DD was born and I owned a house. I had planned enough I thought. Shame the man who claimed to be a worker wasn't.

No planning could have pre-empted him. Or his hidden drug-habit.

So yes I planned as far as I was able. But these things happen to any one of us. Is that fair enough?

Rest assurred for our sins my DD and I spent time in hostels and I will never again own a house and my private pension is fucked since my children had the gall to exhibit lifelong life-threatening conditions which necessitate someone to be there for them.

Sunno onceamai, would you take the autism for your kids if we swapped? nah, thought not.

I cannot engage with people who think it's OK to ask people to remian in DV rlationships though. That's horrid.

Ottox I totally agree with the last part of your post WRT minimum wage; no idea who you are arguing with about first bit though.

Must hide thread.

OP escaping DV means you did the right thing for your kids, Hurray for you.

onceamai

Sorry I forgot to quote you!

'That doesn't necessarily mean that benefits are too high. What it does mean is that the system is unfair and badly thought out

I don;t think people on disability should be kept on a below work level; cruel, not as if they ahve a choice.

But absolutely otherwise- minimum wage needs to be sorted so it's a living wage and work pays when you can do it.

And the majoriity can. (If they can find it of course)

TTP

WOW you are so amazing aren't you, I mean you WORK!. I geuss you are amazing to have thought of doing that.

Come off it, I don't actually know many people at all who have not worked. I have had horrid jobs to nicer jobs, same as my DP, so do piss off getting all high and mighty because you work.

One day you may find yourself in completely unpredictable circumstances, and have fuck all to live off. I suppose then you will be happy to live freezing, under a bridge eating from a bin eh? Because god forbid you might actually take something off the state when in NEED!