To be claiming some benefits.....

[CardyMow]

When DP works FT? DP earns £16K before tax. We get : £140 a week Child tax credits. £76 a week Working tax credit. £46 a week child benefit. £ 122 a week Housing benefit. We have 3 dc. I am a SAHM because no-one will emloy me due to my epilepsy, but I no longer get any disability benefits in respect of this. What I can't work out from all the hoo-ha on MN lately about benefits 'scroungers' is whether DP and I are unreasonable to claim what's available?

Soooo. Are we benefits scroungers because we get £384 a week in benefits. Or are we not benefits scroungers because DP works FT and pays tax? Where does the collective wisdom of MN stand on that?

[MumNWLondon]

OP, its not your fault but its too expensive to live in this country. Benefits are required to top up the minimum wage, because as you have pointed out, its impossible to bring up a family on the minimum wage.

There are lots of reasons for this, one of them is that house prices are too high meaning that housing benefit is required. And yes perhaps the minimum wage is too low. However if it was much higher I'd have to give up my job as I wouldn't be able to afford childcare and the cost of nurseries etc would become much more expensive.

To answer your question about the difference between you and a single SAHM is that your DH earns and pays tax so another way to look at some of the benefits is him getting the tax back, the same result could be achieved if benefits were reduced but everyone could earn £16k per year tax free.

[spikeycow]

That's just great TSC. I can't imagine going from being a homeowner to filling a landlords pockets . Hope it never gets to that stage

[granted]

No, Riven, I'd like them to stop moaning that they can't afford a holiday and are so hard done by. When they earn as mucg as I do, but without actually working for it!

I'm happy for my taxes to support those who can't work - but she has epilepsy not the plague.

I work from home and am largey self-employed - it's not been easy, but I accept that I have to create work that fits in with my lim,ited availability. Just giving up and saying 'no-one will give me a job' is all very well - maybe she needs to try to lokm at what she can do and not at what she can't.

[granted]

Lucky you, spikeycow - lots of us are unable to graduate from 'filling a landlord's pockets' - we just get on with it and make the best of it.

[granted]

Whycan't she go on holiday?

Her take-home after housing costs is identical to mine.

If I can afford a holiday, so can she.

Ad yes, I agree, epilepsy must be v hard, and it must make it much harder to get a job.

But then, so does having 3 small dcs - I managed to slowly get part-time home-based work, through self-employment. It wasn't and isn't easy and I certainly don't make a lot. But epilepsy wouldn't stp her doing what I do - just lack of initiative and frankly need -why work when the state will give you what we earn anyway?

[spikeycow]

I'm on a low wage paying 1250 a month to my landlord. It makes me sick that I have nothing left over

[spikeycow]

I meant can't imagine because I'd much rather be secure as a homeowner, once I got to that it would be awful to lose it

[TethHearseEnd]

granted, did you just equate epilepsy to motherhood?

[granted]

Sympathies, then. Similar here.

[granted]

TethHearseEnd -no, I didn't.

[TethHearseEnd]

"Ad yes, I agree, epilepsy must be v hard, and it must make it much harder to get a job.

But then, so does having 3 small dcs[...]"

Oh, right, OK then.

I must have misread.

[granted]

Yes, you did.

Epilepsy is an illness. Motherhood isn't.

However, both situations make it harder to get jobs - I certainly know of several jobs I've not got because they didn't want someone with childcare responsibilities.

That doesan't mean that motherhood is an illness.

It does mean that people who are viewed negatively by employers for whatever reason have to try that bit harder.

Unless they're on benefts of course.

[TethHearseEnd]

Can I ask then why you didn't just claim benefits? You seem to resent working so hard...

[granted]

Because I'm not a lazy cow?

Because it would never have occured to me in a million yearso live off benefits?

And before you get up in arms, no I don't think the OP is a lazy cow - I know well enough that even in perfect health, parenting 3 dcs is bloody hard work.

[granted]

All I ask is not that she ceases to claim the benefits - she seems as reasonable a claimant as any - just that she stops complaining about it!

That is the only bit that is really annoying me about this thread.

She gets benefits. Good.

Can't she just be happy with the luxury of that, insteasd of syarting a thread to demand that everyone agree how justified she is???

[TethHearseEnd]

Well it seems odd that you wouldn't claim what you were entitled to just to make a point when it is making you so resentful.

So you are not a lazy cow because you don't claim benefits but people who claim benefits are not lazy cows?

I'm sorry, you've lost me a bit.

Perhaps you could do with a rest. Have you thought of giving up work and claiming benefits? I hear people are living the life of Riley off the back of taxpayers' hard work. Maybe you should give it a go?

[prettyfly1]

Oh granted that is a horrible attitude - because I am not a lazy cow. You can try and say you arent aiming that at the op but you clearly are from everything else you said. Work from home jobs are limited - I say that as someone who built a business after working full time as a single parent and doing a degree to get there. Sometimes it is just ridiculously hard to get a job - the worst recession in sixty years for instance and judgemental snotty attitudes from people who find it easy in their shoes doesnt help. Yuck. If you feel so strongly why dont you offer some practical advice.

OP I find it difficult to hear how much you get in benefits, as it takes you to the same level of income as me, when I work ft HOWEVER that doesnt make you a lazy cow - it just suggests that something is very wrong in the system right now - and by that I mean income levels, not the right to a semi decent standard of living for a family.

[granted]

I would claim what I was entitled to.

But i'm not entitled to anything other than child benefit - which will shortly be removed because we're too 'rich' - even though we will then be worse off than the OP who doesn't work and whose OH earns 16K a year.

Nowhere have I suggested that the OP should not claim what the system allows them to - though I personallythink the benefits system provides peverse inentives. But not the OP's fault.

As I said, I would never choose to give up all work and live on benefits, because I believe that would set a terrible example to my dcs and because I firmly believe that all those who can contribute should contribute.

[granted]

prettyfly - no, I definitely don't view the OP as aazy cow - as I said, bringing up 3 dcs is and should be a full-time job in itself.

I do view the OP's need ti start a thread demanding respect for her financial position extremely irritating, though.

Incl all the phoney stuff about not being able to afford a holiday.

[granted]

prettyfly1 - totally agree with you that "it just suggests that something is very wrong in the system right now".

Not the OP's fault, I agree.

[imgonnaliveforever]

YANBU to claim benefits which you are entitled to. "benefit cheats" are people who claim fraudulently. Regarding single SAHMs, obviously they are no less entitled to claim benefits than anyone else. That said, I think it's good that single SAHMs have benefits reduced once younges childr reaches school age. I can see why people get annoyed at benefits funding SAHMs until youngest child is 16, as most mothers don't have the luxury of remaining as SAHMs til children are 16.

[broughthimroundtotheidea]

Here is another question to throw into the pot...........what would everyones opinion be if the op had another child when already needing benefits to pay for the ones she currently has?....discuss