£35k tax free for working 20 hours a week....

[BitchyWitchy]

In response to the 'Benefits' thread, I thought I would post this...

We took the decision to reduce DHs hours a few months back as we realised we are better off with him working part time than full time and this is what we get WEEKLY (4 DCs):

Wages (20 hours per week) £209
Housing Benefit £188 (leaving £7 for us to pay)
Council tax benefit £19 (leaving £3 for us to pay
Tax Credits £196
Working tax credits £13
Child benefit £60.50

Thats over £35K tax free! DH's fulltime wage was £34k before tax.

Also get free prescriptions and dental care, discounted kids activities and leisure centre membership. DH is home 5 days a week and I am loving having him around to help out with the DCs and doing stuff with them which he could not do when he worked 50 hours a week! 3 DC are at school so we get quality time with the youngest.

We are also doing free OU degree courses so we can get better paid jobs in a few years.

Wish to bloody god we did this earlier when we were BOTH stressed out working fulltime and brought in LESS that what we get now after childcare.

We shall enjoy this until 2013 I can tell you! I don't give a monkey's what anyone thinks of us. DH is still working after all and who would really continue working fulltime knowing they get all this? It may not be right but while it's on offer, should we refuse it?

MaMoTT&T - is your DH contributing to your DCs as he working then and you are claiming benefits? Are you not worried about him having the DCs after that happened then? I too have PTSD from various things that happened in my life, would not make a movie about it though or be arrogant enough to think anyone would want to watch it.

You know you really are not in a position to judge me.

Gosh MaMoTTat, that sounds terrifying - glad he's better now and you've found resolution on some level (did you have to choose such a hard to type name?!)

WRT to the OP (trying hard to be objective despite the developing trend towards inflammatory threads). I'm curious as to whether people would be saying the same if her DH had dropped from 50 hours down to 35? Or taken a new job with fewer hours but that paid less per hour as well? What level of work is acceptable to you all? Or are we all obliged to reach our absolute maximum earning capacity for the good of "society" and to hell with our families? Just wondering.

As for improving oneself to earn more than £35k (as someone said). In many lines of work that is almost impossible. I'd be very very happy to earn £35k and that would be the absolute top whack for my profession.

X posted with BitchyWitchy.

BW, that comment to MaMoTTat was totally out of order. I think you should have the good sense to bring this discussion to a close now that you've shown your true colours.

If it's helpful to you & your family, congratulations :).

Since I haven't read the last 19 pages, I think it's not you anybody should really be irritated at, but the government.

Also, well done for the OU course, are they going well? I've been considering an OU course myself, but haven't really got enough money to spare for the £700 course cost that I'd like to take.

blimey some people have no sense of humour, sadly my story of love in far flung corner of the world, and the following 10yrs of extremes of both ends doesn't have a a happy movie style ending - so guess I'll have to rule that one out and live in the real world

Gaelic - it was just weird tbh, the last few years have been werid - the actual incident last year happened so out of the blue (laughing and joking seconds before) and the way he was straight after (totally non threatening and tbh - I took one look after him after I'd calmed down and thought "who the fuck was that".

Of course hindsight is fabulous, as we discovered how ill he'd been for months I could see patterns in his behaviour that were strange (not threatening or anything - just really odd) from before hand.

Such is life though, these things happen (thankfully not on such an extreme for most people) and I'm just thankful the state has been here to support me while I pick myself up and sort my own head out (again), and ensure my DS's are settled after what has been an awful lot of upheavel in their lives so that i can move onwards and upwards.

(Haven't read the whole thread - 19 pages is a lot)!

Both DH and I reduced our hours when DS was born so we could both work and share childcare. We are both at home when DS has his bath in the evening.

We have a significantly reduced income compared to our FT salaries but still earn more than we need to live on.

We both realise that this has reduced our career prospects for the near future.

We claim child benefit and childcare vouchers because that is what we are entitled to under the current system.

I'm not sure how this differs from the OP's situation (apart from the fact that our household income is reduced). The OP is only claiming what the system allows, as are we.

Do people really think that one or both of us should work FT to maximise our household income and should we not claim the benefits to which we are entitled (and still would be if we worked FT)?

I agree that the system is not entirely fair but that is a different discussion.

BitchyWitchy. I really think you should give up the ghost and use the enviable amount of spare time you have awarded to yourself and your partner to generate earnings rather than to try to chastise more vulnerable parties for claiming as you do from a system intended to protect them AND NOT YOU. By your own admission your partner can simply reinstate his full time income. Why not do this rather than to obsess over your calculations of how much you can make the rest of us contribute to your bills?

You might be able to get free computers for the kids too.

Just be careful though. You might get sucked into the benefits rut and start to feel that there's "no point" in working full-time again. Inertia can creep up on you. Let's face it your DH is unlikely to get promoted in his current job and this will impact on his career and his earning potential for the future and you will lose out financially in the long run.

Also having a degree isn't a guarantee of getting a well-paid job. For good jobs an employer will want to see evidence of commitment, ambition, resourcefullness, hard work... You will have been out of practice for quite a bit by the time you start looking - and competing for posts with younger, hungrier, graduates!

The benfits system wasn't really designed for what you're using it for and - given that you are able to work - you might find that being on it diminishes your social standing and your sense of self-worth - particularly resigning yourself to the fact that you've put your children in a situation whereby the state has had to step in and provide for them

Oh, forgot - your kids might be entitled to free school meals now too!

It's a very interesting issue. I blame no one who doesn't break the law and works within the system. Claim your ISA allowance and set your pension against your tax. Have both in a couple working so you get 2 personal allowanecs not once (women fought hard to get separate taxation of husband and wife and it's crucial we retain that). Claim benefits. I don't see a moral wrong in a legal activity if the state has chosen to reward XYZ behaviour.

What instead the state has to do and is only just starting to tackle is to remove benefits which are too generous. Even at a higher leel I know people who think 50% tax plus whateve the upper rate of NI is is the tipping point - why bust a gut to work all weekend if most of the money is going to the state not you? That's one reason the higher the tax rates the lower the tax take and more we put our feet up and think what is the point.

People on low wages who can see that over time they could earn more (eg in 1983 the cost of our nanny was more than one of our wages or 50% of both but we knew over time that difference would erode and now in my 40s I earn more than a nanny whereas if you think if I do X job I will always be in it, no chance of promotion or setting up my own business then people will stay at home as long as staying at home ensures they have enough to eat).

All Governments have really struggled with this issue of people being incentivised to work and the various barriers to that. If we paid everyone in the UK £200 a week, no housing benefit, nothing else just the same benefit to everyone over 18 whether in work or not we could solve many of these discrepancies and yes some people woudl need to move into hostels and eat at soup kitchens or horror of horrors be forces to move from Kensington to slum it in Brent because of rents but it wouldn't kill them.

I've committed the cardinal sin of not reading the whole thread but ...

This is exactly what a friend of mine does. Her and her dh have chosen to work part time safe in the knowledge that benefits step in and bring their income up to ft equivalent. They have a very nice lifestyle, come from a wealthy background where parents give them lots of cash gifts.

I'm as left wing as they come but I do find this hard to stomach when I hear about them getting grants for new heating systems, reduced fees for leisure facilities etc

I grew up poor and working class but was brought up to believe you worked to support yourself.

I wonder how common these choices are?

(Will go and read the thread properly now)

Wow, I am truly shocked that this was a real person! I am clearly naive as I thought most people had more social responsibility than that.

However I do think that the OP's plans are in cloud cuckoo land. As someone else said it would be nice if she could come back in 5 years time and update us on how it all pans out and we can all laugh

Lovely, just what I wanted to here after been told that we will have to support ourselves on my wages £199 per week until the doctor tells my DP he can work again.

Apparently we cant get any help other than about £20 housing. How the hell the expect us to pay the rent, bills and look after me, DP and DSD on that a week is unreal.

Another pointless thread by this poster. She either has some very bizarre ideas about life or she just enjoys stirring.

She has started two threads in this section:

1. I wash all my children every day and those who don't do the same are lazy and spend too much time on the internet.

2. My family choose to claim benefits we don't actually need in order to work less and spend more time at home. I am better off than most of you - ha ha ha!

I think she needs to remove the word "lazy" from the first thread and insert it into the second. Here I will do it:

1. Am I being unreasonable to spend all my extra free time garnered from sponging off the taxpayer in washing my children every night?

2. My family is lazy.

They are good issues to debate. Should both parents be with children 24/7 given the state will often provide for that - is that better for children or is it better if both parents work full time or both part time etc etc.

If we paid everyone in the UK £200 a week, no housing benefit, nothing else

But what would happen to all the people who administer JSA/HB/ESA/IC etc ?

Still can't believe this is a real person!

Honestly, imagine having useless scum like this for neighbours - ugh! Hope you are enjoying yourself OP bringing up a new generation of fat, lazy scroungers.

Don't worry Caoimhe, I feel the same way about smokers.

I think the OP has some major self esteem issues. The pinnacle of her achievements are playing the benefits system and bathing her children and she feels the need to crow about this. Talk about damning yourself with faint praise.

OK...my head's hurting a wee bit from this thread, but BitchWitchy can I please ask a small favour?

If you are going to continue down the line of claiming benefits you do not need in order to lead a sedentary existence can you PLEASE stop at 4 children!!! 4 FFS!!!

(NOT aimed at those with larger families in genuine need BTW)

Erm... this makes for interesting reading

PeneopleTitsDropped - I don't claim any benefits. (Apart from the tax break on Child care vouchers). Nor do I see the virtues in a health service that while free at the point of delivery, makes moral judegments about who should receive care. I think HCP would be uncomforatble with that. I don't see anything wrong with people taking action to improve their situation within the rules. The answer is to change the rules, not criticise those who make perfectly rational decisions within them.

I suspect with most systems there will be was for people to take advantage. I am sure the system needs changing but I think that people need to stop taking the piss quite frankly.

What are your motives for posting in this way, Bitchy Witchy? Are you holding yourself up as an example to be pilloried? I think (puts on pop psychologist's specs)that you want us all to shout at you because you secretly feel guilty.

Don't. You have a three-month baby and three other kids. Stay at home and look after them. Your husband also values time with them more than the money he could earn by working longer hours. Four kids is a two-person job imo, especially if one is a baby.

You are claiming benefit, but you have paid taxes in the past and will again in the future. This stage of your life will last only five or ten years.

Why didn't you present your case in this way, rather than being so inflammatory?

I hate it when anyone milks the system, whether it's benefits they're not entitled to or tax avoidance, but buying time to spend with kids is better than stealing people's savings (bankers).

Getting our knickers in a twist about one (or even a few) families who are claiming benefits when we think they should be working harder (?)- looking after four kids is hard work imo - is probably not very constructive, although it does give our knee-jerk response mechanisms some practice.

What about the Queen, eh? There's someone who owns the seabed (just heard this on the radio) and all the profits from offshore wind farms go straight into her pockets ahem coffers. Why don't we ask her to donate something to the country to put us all out of our misery? 1789, we could say to her. All monarchs tremble when Marie Antoinette appears to them in their nightmares ...