Have you been worse off since the tories came into power?

[samram]

Just wondered if anybody else is worse off since they came into power?
i work 16 hours a week as single parent
Child care is £88 a week term time and £120 half term.
In april i had my tax credits cut by £65 a week!
I am really really struggling at the moment.
Just wondered if anyone else is the same ?
I dont just mean single parents and mean families too !

Yup..we are struggling a bit now too.

Not because of the tories as such though I don't think...it's more that the cost of everything in general has gone up.

Car ins - up
Gas and Elec - up
Water - up
Food prices - up
Clothing and shoes - up
Petrol - up
Council tax - up
Kids school trips - up

etc, etc

Everything we as a family use everyday has gone up in price and wages in our house have stayed exactly the same.

Of course we are going to be worse off since the Tories came into power - because they have to try to rectify the shit mess Labour left us all in!!!

Not in any sense that I could say was directly the fault of the government. I don't claim any tax credits or other state benefits, and as such the only thing that's dented my income over the last year has been a pay freeze at work and rising cost of living.

Well...

We're not 'struggling' as we have two professional salaries coming in, but...

We've lost child benefit. My job and my DHs job are both 'at risk'. DH has seen his pay frozen then effectively cut. We both expect to see our pension contributions rise. We can't move house due to mortgage companies squeezing (a) people with young children (deducting notional childcare costs from what they will lend) and (b) temp contracts (so won't take my salary into account at all despite the 'temp' being an 8 year contract).

We're expecting DC3 any day now (conceived in more financially stable times!).

We're both professional public sector management types with a lot of experience and qualifications coming out of our ears.

So we're not struggling, but we are worse off. The worst thing for me is the (double) job insecurity. I've worked in the charity sector, for a medium size private company, and for two universities before moving to the NHS and this is the most insecure I have felt - before this I always felt I could get something else, but this government are engineering the sector I work in out of existence.

Our wages have gone up I actally got a pay rise

To be honest this is wha we should of been paying for things its just labours buy niw pay later mentality made us think we were well off.

But were all living off borrowed money and although its good you work and a least try to support you own money the goverment are not their to provide for our families so even we should be happy for anything we get that we don't earn really

The tax credits tarffif was set way to high by labour they thought by giving out tax credits like sweets the people on a low income who usually vote labour would keep on voting but I think it became clear to the most hardened supporter that

Very few labour mps now have working class roots their as posh as the tories and that labour were spending money we didn't have

We are really feeling inflation.

it will get worse - child benefit will go and 2 of my children will be paying 6k extra a year in tuition fees - ie take on an extra 18k of debt each over and above the 20k+ they would previously have expected. and part of this will go to subsidise children with poorer parents - kids who may go onto earn far more than mine.

i'm waiting to see what happens with serps. the change in admission guidelines to schools could mean that my children won't get places at the best ones as we earn over 16k.

I blame the labour gov for getting us into this situation and they increased tax in every way they could.

if you are a hard working family it seems you are stuffed whichever gov is in power

Costs have gone up, but they were headed that way anyway and aren't Tory related (unless the Tories now control the weather/unrest in oil countries/etc). Otherwise, no, not seen any difference.

cost of living up up up and i was made redundant earlier in the year at the same time as a lot of other public sector workers. competition is fierce out there

yep we are really struggling now
everything has gone up
I have not had a raise for 3 yrs of any kind and pay has been frozen for another 2

my job is car essential and although i gat a fuel allowance insurance has shot up

weekly shop shot up

kids activities gone up

school residentials are ridiculous prices

gas n lecci up

we also need to replace the car but no way can we afford it.
It is utterly depressing

Only in terms of diesel and food going up. We don't get benefits/tcredits anyway.

I'm probably paying between £50 to £100 per month more for diesel & food.

I'm worse off big time but mainly due to the rise in cost of everything. It sucks but if the Tories hadn't come in we'd all be up shit creek without a paddle sooner or later. Mind you, if they stopped chucking money at other countries for a while and concentrated on our "Big Society" they not have had to make quite so many cuts....

I am worse off in the sense I have more to worry about, some of our loyal valued workers will now have to work until their 66 to get their state pensions and there is not going to be the option of going on permant (genuine) sick with a 'bad back' to be honest they are going to struggle to 'keep up' and I do worry about that.

I want everyone who has done hard physical work to have a proper retirement and selfishly we are going to have workers who can't hack it anymore. It is going to be a nightmare.

Yes, dh has just informed me today that he needs to take another pay cut (his 3rd pay cut!) or someone in the company gets made redundant :(

Everything seems to be going up in price.

Things seem to have got a lot more expensive.
I have just been told I am going to have a pay cut and lose a whole pay grade.
I will also loose annual leave and have no pay rise in the future 'unless the local gov can afford it'
I am losing allowances for the car that I am required to use for work and it costs me almost double to fill the tank than a couple of years ago.
My DS1 is losing EMA in August. I am two minds about that one tbh
My DS2 will lose DLA in the reforms.
OH will have to fight to keep his DLA

My job is not safe nor is that of my OH who works for a charity.

We are waiting to hear if school transport has been cut and if DS2's youth club is being shut.

I have never been this worried TBH. Its like there is nowhere to turn. No job safety and no safety net if we lose our jobs.

I loathe the Tories but have to admit that although I am financially worse off, I don't think it's because of them. I'm a single parent too but I work full time and earn enough that I don't/can't claim any benefits. I do worry that if I lose my job, I will be in a real mess but that was true before.

As others have said, everything has gone up in price and I am struggling now - much more than I have in a long time.

Food-Up
Bus fares-Up
Tax credits-down

It's funny all these people claiming that the Tories had to make these cuts...I am a single mum who is now about £20 per week worse off (huge to me) whereas the Tories can't seem to get some rather enourmous corporations to pay their freakin tax.
And those unpaid taxes number in the BILLIONS.
Nope, they would rather take it out on me.

Fuckers.

northernrock - good point re corporation tax. Very good point.

The real hit for us came before the Tories got into power. DP and I were both working in professional jobs (science/engineering) in the private sector and we were both made redundant within 18 months of each other post credit-crunch. DP is back at work on about half the salary. I have been told that the chances of me getting work again are slim because I will need the flexibility my previous employer offered to cover my commute and childcare arrangements. So... household income has dropped by 75%... and anything that has happened since is pretty marginal to be honest. We've kept the house but holidays, any form of childcare, are now out of the question (and I appreciate that still leaves us in a very fortunate position compared to many on here).

My fear now is for those public sector couples that are almost certainly facing the same scenario.

This is why it bugs me when there's a thread about someone allegedly fiddling their benefits. Some people get up in arms about it (ofcourse, it's wrong and iilegal) and scream "report them!" whether there's any actual evidence of it in the first place.

I'm personally spitting blood over companies dodging paying their tax, not to mention the banks fucking it all up royally. Their fuck ups amount to a whole lot more cash wise than some poor sod struggling on benefits accepting a bit of cash in hand work every so often.

And yet even though a lot of people are worse off right now there is no sense of pulling together only lots of begrudging others who are perceived to be getting more than us. We'll tear each other apart before we even begin to start looking at where the blame really lies. The scariest thing is we are relatively lucky in this country and there is nowhere better to run to without the means to support yourself.

"northernrock - good point re corporation tax. Very good point."

Shame she wasnt making it when Labour were in power for 13 years.

No tax changes for me and mine, though doing quite well at work now some of the deadwood has been cut away.

Of course we're all worse off.

I don't "blame" the Tories though. A combination of the global depression / banking fiasco has led us to where we are now. I don't actually believe we would be in any better position if Labour were still in power - just that they would lie about it instead of trying to deal with it.

The media are fuelling it big.

Dribbling stories of DLA claiments who are secretly jump out of planes and breakdance

Its designed to fan the flames of envy and cynicism.

Its this attitude that disgusts me, far more than any cuts made.

OP Not interested in the politics, just your money!

Unless you earn a fabulous sum per hour, you should have been taken out of tax altogether, or nearly so, on April 1st. That was the headline claim, wasn't it?

You should be at the top end of childcare tax credits.

You shouldn't have had your working tax credit cut unless you were overpaid last year (HMRC being crap).

You should still be on child tax credit. Didn't that go up slightly for the low paid?

Basically, people like you and me (working single mothers) should be better off. My tax credits have risen but I'm trying to work out which bit is which, and whether it has genuinely gone up or whether I've simply paid off an 'overpayment' [i.e. HMRC mistake].

However I am paying so much more for food, other groceries, clothes, utilities and insurance that I am starting to worry.