I can't afford the trappings of a working class lifestyle

[defeatedslug]

I can't afford xboxes or nintendos for the kids. We don't have a plasma telly of any size. We don't have cable or satellite TV. The kids don't have bikes. We don't have whizzy mobile phones. We don't go on overseas holidays, not even a week on a package holiday, and can barely do youth hostels in the UK. The kids don't have the latest, greatest, trendiest clothes. Their stash under the Christmas tree is pretty conservative. The kids wear hand-me-down clothes including stuff from NCT sales and freecycle. We don't eat out more than a handful of times a year, and maybe have a takeaway every 4 months. We have two very run down and battered cars. We don't smoke. DH drinks maybe 3 or 4 beers a week.

I dress the kids neatly, get them proper fitted shoes, smart school uniform, take them to the library and museums, feed them properly, make sure they're healthy. We both work, and pay a mortgage, and nursery fees. I'm not trying to start a daily-mail-a-thon benefits bashing thread, and I know there will be people that immediately start criticising, but it seems something isn't right that you can be hard-working and be materially less well off than people who don't work - there's not going to be much of an incentive to come off the benefits, is there?

I have namechanged but am regular btw (cod, rivers of sweetcorn, nice ham etc)

Benefits aren't enough to buy it, no, but there is a tick box on the form to tick if you'd lilke a flat screen TV and a holiday in Benidorm, also some Nike trainers and brand name food (Bird's Eye and the like).

I'm ill now, and need benefits.
I can't wait to get my flat screen, free car, holidays and Heinz beanz.

Would ditto what someone else said - just the 2 cars??? The heart bleeds! You could afford second hand bikes for your kids - someone further up the thread got one for a fiver and I paid £20 for dd's brand new bike in the sales. Are you honestly saying that you haven't got a spare £10 but you own and are running 2 cars?
The assumption that people on benefits all have plasma TVs etc is quite annoying as well and even if they do - they may well have them on credit and be in a lot of debt.

"we dont have a plasma tv of any size"

Am I the only one thinking thats fine?? I dont have a plasma either, niether would I want one.

My TV does its job perfectly well as it is.
Same as I dont need an I phone ect, mine texts and calls just fine.

Does this mean I should be whining about bieng poor? Coz I thought that you just went without to provide for your kids, simple as.

God, it was breast feeding last week...now its benefit bashing again how original.

Who cares what you have got or what you haven't got? TBH as long as you haven't got debtors coming out of your ears your doing all right at the moment.

There are going to be a few people who suddenly can't afford to house their x boxes and plasma tv's in the coming year or two as interest rates rise.

Some will lose there homes through no fault of there own and others through overspending on all the trapings of a life they brought on the hock.

What you do with the money you earn is up to you and leave me to decide what I do with mine.

mercibucket you're right its not actually funny.

I used to live in a block with a single mother with two kids. She had no washing machince.

She went to brighthouse and "bought" one for 3 quid (2,98756 % APR)

She missed two payments. They kicked her door off, broke into her house and ripped it out :(

hmm, at the risk of being crisped by flames i agree with Op in principle, if not the wording of the post.I have lived on benefits and been bloody grateful for them, and I have lived while working full time.
Round here there are many families on benefits and yes, they do seem to be able to buy nice clothes for the DCs and also have holidays etc. In my local hairdressers where I have a 6 weekly dry-cut (£10) I listen to the girls having full colurs, blow dries, manicures etc talking of their holidays for this year and how much it cost and how much they are going to spend on clothes/drink etc and yes, i feel resentment.
DH and I both work, and can usually afford to hire a cottage in the Uk for one week. This year, we can't afford it. DD2 is the only one of her friends not going on the "leaving" holiday abroad with the gang, because we can't afford it. We don't have a fancy mortgage in a good catchment area - we live in a run down flat with a leaky roof and kids get the bus to the local state school. But we work and we try and pay our way. Most of our furniture is second hand. When i was pg with DC3 unexpectedly and after a big gap, i had to frantically buy second hand stuff in. I answered an ad to buy a buggy for sale for £30. The girl selling it "didn't like it any more" she said and had got a new one. She showed me the new one, all £180 quids worth! I know this girl and I know she, and most of her family, don't work. Similarly when my mother's friend's granddaughter became pg, mum offered her the perfectly good highchair which she had used for her granchildren (my DCs).
Friend was most offended. She said "L's baby is not having second hand stuff! She's buying everything new." L was 18, housed in a lovely council flat, rent-free, and given money to buy baby stuff. L now has 3 children and still hasn't worked a day in her life!. She, and the DCs are all off to Disneyworld this summer!.
So you can be shocked and cry "daily Mail" all you like, but the OP has a point. All of the above is true. Now I'm off to let down DCs school trousers in the hope they will do him one more term - and I'm not joking either!

if people are living that lifestyle on benefit then they're fiddling the system or putting everything on credit.

People don't live like that on benefit money. If they do they are doing something they shouldn't or getting into debt. Been there, you are talking shit.

They're on the fiddle then, or in tons of debt.

Not sure quite what you mean. We don't have plasma or sky, the dc have wii and Xbox and bikes, and 00's of books and a pool table and trampoline and lots of activities outside school - currently running at 000's a term. We don't have package holidays or trendy clothes and I have an old and scruffy car. We rarely have takeaways and aren't much interested in whizzy phones. We don't want many of the things you mention. We could afford them in spades if we did but it isn't what we want and it isn't how we chose to spend our money.

Since when does 'working class' mean 'doesnt work'?

Spot on Super

demant.......................you had 3 kids that you cannot afford.

Gawd ...all the I know a bloke/woman up the road ...stories will start now

my dd worked and paid for her own leaving holiday abroad, she knew I wouldn't pay and not due to me being tight fisted either. dd1 worked cleaning to raise the money and I took it off her and stashed it away.

I know a bloke up the road you know the one with the whippet who always takes it out at 7 am and it does a poo on the corner............you know him his sister has five kids and one on the way she lives next door to the big fat bloke the the cortina his wife drives a BMW..............................HE IS ON BENEFITS.

blimey what a miserable op - try to me more optomistic
xxx

Also the OP's and Dementedma's lifestyle will improve once they do not have the expense of the DC's, whereas those on benefits, their income will drop.

Oh come on have you never heard of Ebay? Thats where I got my TV, x boxes, bikes etc, and I could afford them all second hand.

we nick em or get them down the boozer

at goodbyemrschips

My cousins best friends aunties mum has a swimming pool in her council house 16 kids shes got ...NEVER WORKED A DAY IN HER LIFE

"They're on the fiddle then, or in tons of debt."

No they aren't, benefits are loadsamoney dontcha know.

I'm waiting to get mine, they hand them out on a silver platter.