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)

You really are talking out of your ar*e we had the misfortune of having to live on benefits after my dh got laid of 2 weeks before i gave birth, we certainly weren,t living the life of riley,i could only afford to put the heater on in sitting room as we were on key meter and storage heaters,we couldn,t afford a day out to the zoo let alone a proper holiday so im unsure where your getting your ideas about benefits from,think you may be living in la la land

We got the boys scooters from the car boot sale...2for £20.(and we dont get tax credits either)

well, I'm a lone parent and I work and earn an average salary

we have a wii, plasma TV...2 in fact and all 4 kids have bikes, we have stuck to uk holidays year on year but may go abroad next year, 1 car, i have normal phone but thats just because I'm not interested in the fancy ones!

I think its what you choose to spend your money on - or you have high housing costs. The OP could have bought a big house in 2007 and thus majority of income goes on the mortgage!

What a funny thread. Some people's ignorance is beyond belief.

Weird OP.

Firstly you have a weird sense of entitlement as to what essentials are.

Second, the vast majority of people who have the things you describe are in a significant amount of debt. That includes both "working" and "middle" classes. This is why the global financial crisis happened and why the uk is still in recession. People want things now that they can't afford and aren't prepared to save and wait for it. If you are not in that position and you envy that, then not much sense can be said to you really.

Third, children don't go to nursery for ever. Its temporary. You will free up £1000 per month per FT child soon. Even if soon is not for another 4 years, most people on benefits would love that prospect. Really, you need to get a grip as your "poverty" is most likely short term.

maypole I think we are all well aware that nurses do not get paid 'diddlysquat'

Some of us dont get all our information from tabloid straplines.

As far as I am concerned a good nurse is worth far more than they are paid but they are not on a pittance.

But then if you have no moral difficulty with enjoying the fruits of your relative's fraud I wouldnt expect you to be entirely truthful about your income.

I am only on pg 5 of this thread, but want to point out that having a big mortgage doesn't mean that you have a big, flashy house. There is not enough social housing available for all the people who would like to have it, so the alternatives are to rent privately or to buy a house. Renting privately offers little security and is often as expensive as a mortgage. If you have a mortgage then you have to have insurance to cover payments if you become sick or unemployed (because you won't get housing benefit). This comes to quite a lot of money, even if you have a good wage.

It's annoying when people blithely say, it's your own fault for not having very much money, just buy a smaller house. Some people live in small but expensive houses, are limited as to where they they live because of work or have bought the cheapest house they could get or are locked into a negative equity situation.

I get a mixture of benefits and salary so am working class. I buy clothes for me via ebay (and get a nice selection for a fraction of the price I'd pay for new), I need a new sofa and have my eye on one for £40 in the charity shop - it looks good and will fit nicely in my lounge. My son's bike was bought by my parents, his Wii by his Dad. The flat screen TV though I bought when working full time before my son's ASD became more of a problem.

Just because people have nice things on a budget doesn't mean necessarily that the budget is generous necessarily - just that things may have been bought FOR the family or may have been bought second hand.

It would be easy for people to look round my home and assume I am getting loads of benefits to top up my slary. Fact is once the rent/council tax/electricity/gas/water etc is paid plus petrol and food there isn't a great deal left.

My furniture is all second hand, mostly from dead relatives as we've lost a few people in the past few years, just as I moved out and became a single mum.

Bed was Papa's, sofas were granny's, cooker and washing machine were granny's, tumble drier was my Auntie's, fridge was freecycle, TV was through a mate, table through a charity selling second hand stuff, drawers and computer desk were granny's. I could go on forever, the only things I've bought myself were the chest freezer, so I can be thrifty with food, the computer so I could study at college and my children's storage furniture.

The Wii belongs to my mum, the playstation 2 was freecycled, DSi was bought by his working father, my DS is borrowed from my sister, the DVD player was secondhand, most of the children's clothes and toys are bought by my mum, any holiday we've been on is paid for by my mum.

You can look and see one thing, and actually it's another, so I wouldn't be quick to judge. I am grateful every day that thanks to me being thrifty and good with the little money we have that my children do not miss out, I go without myself to ensure this, and I am grateful that we have a generous family who loan or gift things that make life nice. I wouldn't for a second expect any of it and I don't take anything for granted.

Well there we have it - the furniture issue. As you probably know in terms of class furniture is where it's all at. It was Alan Clarke who derided Andrew Heseltine's class on the basis that Heseltine had bought all his own furniture (rather than inheriting) and thus was lower class.

maypole1 Im a Nurse and whilst I would like to be paid more (wouldnt we all ), it doing people a great diservice to say we get paid "diddly squat". What AFC Band is your OH on? Because I get tax credits and more than you, although that may change of course,at the moment I earn approx £30,000 with no pay rise for the next 2 years.

My DH doesnt work through the week and watches our boys so I support us all on my wage, we buy loads of things off Ebay and save with a Credit Union (wonderful organisations and the only "debt" Ive got when I have a loan from them).

To the person who asked if people on benefits can get access to affordable credit I think the general answer to that is no, the choice here for goods is Brighthouse (with extortionate interest rates) and for money door step lenders such as Provident - again with extortionate interest rates, I know Ive been there.

'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

We have some of the things in the OP; we're working class. Wed on;t ahve a home we know we will be in aftr Novembe, we don;t hve most of the things in OP- and we would dearly loe to work.

At the risk of being harsh in my world any family that can have 2 working aprents is a bloody lucky one that has been spared of the cure of multiple disability that we have had thrown at us (ds1, ds3 ASD; ds4 was referred for ASD clinic last week so yes, very raw).

Dh was made redundant, and works for a very low wage now as well as studying FT. The Wii / DS's / bikes? bought when we were employed; no Council bailiff comes to collect them when you lose your life, you know. The very cheapo mobile phone (under £9pcm) essential whentrying to negotiate palcements at 2 special schools as well as the two MS ones.

People never realise when theya re well off do they? it's not allc ash. heck, when we were cash poor but ahd a mortgage and thought we had NT kids we thought we had it ahrd. Then we learned the trutyh and we would ahnd over every material thing e have just to get the kid's life chances back.

That is a good point ponceyMcPonce. When I left my x and relocated I couldn't even open a bank account at one point. I did, but it wasn't easy. I was on benefits, hadn't been living at the same address for more than [whatever the period was]. Eventually I did get a bank account but it wasn't easy. And I only have a credit card because my brother 'underwrote' it as a signator or something like that. He knows I'm very responsible though. He never worried, I'm sure he's forgotten that actually! I feel for people who don't know anybody who the bank will listen to or take seriously.

I've been wondering why people have been ehre constantly for the last week
Now I know; Dh goes out for a day with ds2 and I find one of these, crash and burn.

I hate this.

Pretty similar to us Peachy. Sorry to hear about the latest referral

It suits those who like to bemoan their terrible livse where they can 'only' afford the one house, the two cars, the one holiday and can barely scrape together the fees for the ballet,tennis and piano lessons,
to ignore the fact that many of us who are in receipt of benefits have spent a lifetime paying in.

I do not despute that there are some people who have never paid in and never intend to. But these are in the minority.

Witness how these threads always go.
Bloody scrounger the lot of them
What about me - I have just been laid off
Oh I dont mean you
What about me my DS is disabled and I have to care for him
Oh I dont mean you
What about me I care for my OH
Oh I dont mean you
What about me I have paid taxes for 25 years and am looking for a job
Oh I dont mean you
What about me my DP fecked off and left me with three kids under 5
Oh I dont mean you
What about me my DP died a year ago
Oh I dont mean you
What about me I had a breakdown folllowing the loss of my DC
Oh I dont mean you
What about me I left my job for a new one and the firm went bust
Oh I dont mean you.

I could fill pages YET the OP and followers always have an anecdote about some slapper (almost always a woman natch) who had twenty braaan babies and lives in a mansion. Chuck in an Albanian boyfriend who stands in the garden and laughs at all the 'stooopeeed Inglisssh' and you are away.

Come next weekend they will be merrily buring the Union Jack whilst knocking back the voddie and neglecting their children.

Thats good point from Valium and GrownUp, those who seem to live ok-ish on benefits usually have close and helpful family. Those who don't have family to help them are struggling big time.

MrsD, given I am pretty sure you'd take the crap we have had for your DD back ten times over you are pretty amazing, you know that?

I am of course in a mixture of shock and bitterness

You are right though; there's always such a list of 'don't mean you' comments.

I have worked (and paid tax! [wik]) in family support and have yet to find a family where there's not something you can pinpoint, from abusive childhoos through to MH and dv (amongst those who look from the outside to be benfit- choosers).

And from the outside our life looks perfect: we rent privately (nobody else would take us atm due to self employment as much as anything else) and it's a nice house thank goodness but only becuase we were working and we couldn;t downgrade if we wanted (by nice I mean not falling apart or in a rough road- doesn;t ahve a shower, old floors falling part etc but we are happy and we repair as we go to keep it up). We have 2 cars; not becuase we are rolling in it but becuase we use the boy's DLA to help run a second one as the SNU is not accesible by bus or train (rural community), and ds1's 10 miles the other way.

You can't tell all that by looking though.

Xenia has spoken the most sense so far.

Just as people constantly and consistently insist on mixing up definitions of Ethnicity, Nationality and Religion in certain types of debates, people constantly and consistently insist on mixing up Working Class, Working Poor, non-working (previously working/want to work), non-working (lazy/feckless)
non-working (+criminal fraudsters)

It is more and more the case that Working Poor people (regardless of their Class) are worse off - day to day - month to month than non working people of whichever ilk.

I was raised to believe that

a/ WORKING CLASS means you work for a living!!!!!
b/ A decent diet, access to books etc is way more important than the latest shiny electronic gadget.

Right now I'm taking my second forced career break as my kid has SEN so am currently on benefits. It's not the life of riley when your kid gets no education for months at a time, the mortgage is in arrears, and you are wondering what possessions you have left that can be sold without detriment to your child to pay for the £2K worth of therapy your kid needs that the NHS doesn't provide, even though you waited 3 years to get to the top of a waiting list to be told that!

I dream of going back to being "working class" - we didn't have a lot, but if the boiler broke down I had a little rainy day money put by to get it fixed. I wasn't fretting over the gas bill if it was a bad winter, I could easily replace a school coat if it got destroyed at school etc. If my specs broke I could take packed lunches to work for a month or two to pay for replacements etc.

A lot of what's wrong with this country is that everyone expects something for nothing and looks down on the working class. As a lone parent I accept I'm never going to live in a Chelsea Town House and have 3 foreign holidays a year. I'm more than happy to provide the basics (safe home, decent diet, clothes, toys etc)

I went back to work when my child was 6 weeks old, rather than claim benefits as the government didn't give birth to him - I did! I expected to cover childcare costs etc too, though it is a lttle irritating that the CSA is no help at all in getting his other parent to provide.

However I did pay 40% tax for years before I gave birth and expected those taxes to cover his health care and state education. It's been a very rude awakening to discover this isn't so. There is a growing underclass in this country, and it's still shocking to find my own family in grave danger of becoming one of "those statistics", despite how hard I've worked since my schooldays.

I've never been one for coveting what possesions others have, but in recent months I've cried a couple of times walking past a state primary playground.

Count your blessings.

I can't even see us having a life on benefits; one or toehr of us will be in FT employment within 2 yeras agian.

But again, people don't know do they? That I am working my arse off at night school and voluntarily for a PGCE place, or that DH is doing likewise to get the business going (odds being one of us will manage it).

tell you what though, when we are doing better financially I won;t be sneering at anyone else becuse I cansee how bloody ahrd it is to get out. We simply could not do more yet there are no guarantees and a lot of it is sheer optimism- could well be here in a decade. Wouldn't take much- dh's ill health escalating for example- to secure that.

bochead

Nine weeks here, for going back to work after maternity.

How come we are not defined by that instead of the crap that came later?

Oh gawd I read on and found that OPs dd can't leave home becuase she doesn;t wnat to live in debt (WANT- why? We do, student only, it's called trying to make soemthing of yourself) or afford rent.

ha frigging ha.

Seriously, many of use here have kids who can't leve home. As in, ever. Becuase they cannot be independent.

CHOICE is worth so much more than material objects and cash in hand, really it is. true poverty is when that is denied.