To think families that work get a bum deal

[accurate]

AIBU to think that if you want want to work, get a house, have a family then everythings against you. I feel ashamed to think it, raised outside by very accepting, hardworking lower middle class parents and hating strong rightwing views but I feel a bit hurt and jealous of those that can get so much by not working.

I can't help to feel upset that my DH and I will never own a home, squirrelling away to raise a family, idea of childcare in the coming months/years makes me breakout into tears. I feel ashamed sometimes that I spent so much of my time in uni and work experience only to cram my family into a small flat despite the nice London job.

Why is it so impossibly to work for things and get a break in life or am I just being unreasonable?

[PetitPiaf]

faaaaghinatub re: cutbacks - I'm with you, no haircuts for me either! Let's take it a step further...

The PetitPiaf Guide to Ridiculous Cut Back Suggestions

• Buy roe instead of caviar - it's just as good on blinis!
  
• Recycle your old bottles of Dom Perignon.
  
• Why not save some money buying a yurt and fashion your own out of old wedding dresses?
  
• No more second car? Why not dog pack race to work?
  

We are not having to sacrifice the trip to Kloisters this year in order to pay the kids private school fees (as the Daily Fail would think), we are real, professional people who are barely making ends meet!

[toptramp]

And as for getting a mortgage; not a chance in hell!

[toptramp]

I'm a single, working mother and yes; childcare is so expensive and should be made more accesable to all. By the time I bring home my wages most of it goes on childcare. if you are struggling though, you sould be entitled to some top ups -no?

[MillyR]

There is clearly an issue with housing. Part of this, as someone said earlier, is due to when you were able to buy a house.

Part of it is also about how people end up in the situations they do. I knew that I couldn't afford to live in London or another expensive place and have kids. I knew that I couldn't afford to run a car and have kids. So DH and I chose where to live and where DH would commute to based on taking that into account. I know this is of no help to the OP, but it is something that we should be encouraging our kids to think about when they choose what job to do and where to live.

When my parents had kids (and my Dad was a head of department in a Secondary school) he couldn't afford to run a car, and there was no central heating or washing machine. This was the same when I had kids. We didn't get central heating until DS was in Secondary school.

I think that people have unrealistic expectations of what standard of living they can have on an average household income with young kids. When you have young kids you are poor, and you generally get less poor as they get older.

Also, we are in a bad economic time. Lots of people have lost jobs and lots of other people are finding it hard to move into better paid jobs. This will not last forever.

[faaaaghinatub]

Thanks PetitPiaf, I always found it scary (but informative) to sit down and do a little "cost exercise" like that when I was feeling down about making fuck all at the end of the month at the worst time for us (around 2008 - 2009), because I had wibbles about whether I should just quit working every three or four months during that period - basically every time something broke like the washing machine and I was at the end of my tether wondering why I was working so hard to get my own "bum deal" - seeing the kids for 25 - 30 minutes before bed each night

I always love it on budgeting advice columns in the newspapers etc when they suggest you cut out things that literally don't exist in your budget. In fact I once printed out a newspaper article from the web which suggested so much crap about budgeting that I thought it would make DH smile. It stayed pinned up in the kitchen for about a year before it got too tatty to keep, but it was basically stuff like:

• Get rid of the 2nd car (what second car?)
  
• Cycle to work instead (literally impossible for DH due to distance/needing to work into the night regularly)
  
• Cut out paid lunch at work (what paid lunch?)
  
• Cut out coffee in the mornings (what coffee?)
  
• Spend less on work clothes (how can I spend less than £3.50 on plain work shirts from Asda every year?)
  
• Get less haircuts (I don't got to the hairdresser AT ALL unless it's a birthday treat from my mum, I once got DH to try cutting my hair but he did it lopsided, so now I just grow it until I next have a birthday treat)
  
• Make or cut back on presents (we do - only buy for children's birthdays and Xmas, limit of £5 per person)
  
• Cut back on holidays by going camping (we don't have any equipment and haven't had a holiday in... well, before DCs, and our oldest is 13!)
  

... and so it went on.

You can't "cut back" when there isn't anything to "cut back" on.

[itisnearlysummer]

applauds ledkr and dementedma

and I sometimes think this is what people are getting at on the threads that end up 'bashing benefits'.

[PetitPiaf]

faaaaghinatub Great "maths" post earlier.

I find myself nodding along with this thread. We also are in a position, like many others, of being working poor. During the property boom, we bought an 2 bed ex-council flat in a "deprived" area at waaaaay over the odds (another story!). Add to that being in negative equity by buying just before the crash (thanks Bankers!) and I cannot see a way out.

Rather depressing situation, and I lie awake at night worrying about EVER being able to get out of it but, we do have a roof over our heads (albeit a leaky one!) and a healthy family, so I have to be grateful for those things when many others aren't so lucky.

Doesn't mean I'm not pissed off though!

[ledkr]

When i was a lone parent working full time i was actually 600 pounds per month worse off than a friend who claimed benefits as she has rent paid but my mortgage wasnt taken in to account even tho it was the roof over my 4 dc's heads.
There are many people who live a sparce life on benefits but like it or not life is not as expensive, to add to dementedmas points there is also cost of work transport and clothing to add to expenses non working people dont incur.

[minouminou]

It will get easier, as many have already said.
I'm self-employed, but my income isn't reliable enough for us to send the DCs to nursery for any more than half-time. However, with DS starting school in Sept, our £900 monthly nursery bill will reduce by £350; DS will then go to the after school club for three afternoons a week, and DD will have an extra five nursery hours a week, leading to a net reduction of £230 in childcare.

Next Sept her early years funding will kick in and we'll start to make some headway. We haven't been on a proper holiday since DS was born, despite DP being (only just) a higher rate taxpayer. We're about to lose quite a bit in child tax credit, but my additional hours means I can take on more work when it's available.
I'm often working in the evenings to get projects done - which saves on nursery fees - and life just isn't all that exciting right now.

But it will be. We live in Oxford, which is essentially London in terms of living expense. We wouldn't live anywhere else, though. We were planning to move up north last year, but just couldn't face leaving here.
Like another poster said - think "childcare investment". My years of slogging are finally paying off in terms of prestige and reputation, and I'm hoping that by the time DD's fees are reduced, we'll see some serious blue sky!

Hang on in there.

[DamselInDisarray]

Glad you feel more positive OP. It can feel overwhelming and never-ending sometimes and that makes it very hard to see where you're going.

Your kids will probably look back fondly on the half-remembered scrimping and saving bits of their childhood, just as you do.

My DS1 remembers the days when we had a 40 minute walk to school and an hour walk home from after-school care every day as if it were some great adventure and not a product of being so poor that I couldn't stretch to the bus stop. I, on the other hand, am glad that's in the past now and things are definitely easier. We might still be watching every penny but at least I know it's going somewhere and that in, say, 5 years time things will be much easier financially (if not necessarily easy). It's all about the long game.

[Whatmeworry]

Starting out in London is about as expensive as it gets anywhere in the world I'm afraid, and always has been (thinks back to hovel bijou pied a terre DP and I first inhabited 2 decades ago in London).

On the other hand it gets better and you live in one of the most vibrant cities on the planet.

[dementedma]

this is both a comforting and scary thread. as most definitely working poor here, it is comforting to know we are not alone. nearly 50 and only had a mortgage the last 10 years and that's on a flat with only two bedrooms - one a tiny boxroom - for 3Dcs. An 18 year old and a 9 year old sharing is not fun, beleive me. Both DH and i work all hours and pay huge petrol bills to get to work as we live semi-rural and public transport, cycling is not an option. Everything is budgeted, and checked, and cost compared and debated and budgetted again, and there is still too much month left at the end of my money!! so hard to keep working and have so little to show for it. No savings, no secure retirement and just the endless grind of bills.
I have lived on benefits too and it can be equally hard as you also have to budget but there is relief in knowing you can be home all day to look after DCs and cook meals etc, you can get heavily discounted admission to swimming pool and other venues, get your teeth fixed when you have toothache and have your council tax paid for you.All of these are luxuries denied those who are actually out working for a living.
I sympathise with OP. Childcare does drop as the children get older but other costs then creep in with school expenses, clothes etc all in bigger and more expensive sizes!

[Insomnia11]

My parents bought a house together when they got married but had nothing to put into it. Just about had a bed and a couple of chairs to sit on I think. No fridge, no washing machine and no central heating (and this was in the High Peak - they would get snowed in).

[accurate]

....I want to thank so many you for the replies. I forgot all the hand me downs, the terrible brown shaggy carpet and the noisy car my parents would drive us around in. They really made do and I shouldnt feel so overwhelmed because my parents are doing great now and love their jobs/holidays now. Childcare isn't forever, work is accommodating with hours if I need to dash out or if someones poorly at home and regardless of the stress my DH and I are still hanging in there.

I just felt like this is going to go on forever when honestly we have a six-ten year plan for a mortgage and you words mean so much because things will have to get better. Thank you.

[accurate]

I want to thank so many you for the replies. I forgot how t

[aprilbear]

Damsell- I completely agree- it makes no sense to cherry pick certain aspects of life when making comparisons, while disregarding others.

My mother was 'lucky'' in that they could afford to buy a house on just my fathers income. But I don't consider it 'lucky' that women of her generation were expected to give up work and revolve the rest of their entire life around domesticity. My mother may well have been a lot happier having a job rather than being pigeonholed into SAHM as so Many mums were then

[DamselInDisarray]

My parents struggled to buy their first house for £16k. They looked at one for £18k near their families but couldn't stretch to it, so they moved to the other side of the city as it was the only other option with good schools.

It doesn't really matter if you think your parents had it easier than you. The point is that they didn't have it easy. I bet they found it hard to buy their house and to budget from month to month. Yes, they've benefited from the enormous rise in house prices, but that doesn't mean that they didn't struggle when you were young.

There really is no point in being bitter about the opportunities open to your parents. It doesn't get you anywhere and just makes you unnecessarily bitter.

This is especially true when you don't factor in all the opportunities they didn't have that you did, only the ones you don't that they did. Yes, my parents could buy a house shortly after they got married (and I certainly couldn't/can't), but I've had opportunities that my parents couldn't have dreamt of. My mum would have loved to go to university and study for a more highly paid, and more highly regarded, profession but girls from her background were discouraged from doing so and she was steered into a more 'realistic' and 'sensible' going to college and becoming a teacher route. And that was a big step up from the choices open to her parents. When it came to it, I had the choice to apply to any university I wanted to do whatever I wanted and no one was anything but supportive. I even got to do a PhD and pursue an academic career in which I earn more now than my mum does after 30-odd years of service.

[HorridCold]

OP totally understand where you are coming from...

DH and I work bloody hard and would desperately love to have another child, but we have to wait until DD is in school because we couldn't afford two lots of childcare (currently burying our heads in the sand about how we'll cope with two needing childcare in the holidays...).

My sister on the other hand has never had a full-time job, used to work part-time. Now doesn't work at all. A percentage of her rent is paid for and she gets various other benefits. They're currently expecting a second child and are not at all bothered about cost, because they will get more money when number 2 arrives (apparently).

It's all very well to talk about pride and being proud of what you've achieved and that you're standing on your own to feet etc etc, but when you have to make a choice between surviving on your own and having something as close to natural in having another baby, there is clearly something wrong.

Good luck OP, I'm also banking on other advice on here that things will get better.

[faaaaghinatub]

lesley33 yes, god, yes we are. that is one thing i am grateful for. and is the thing that kept me going when i realised how much of a disparity there was between what I was earning and how much was going out in childcare a few years ago. now that's a sad number to look at.

i wish i'd had the idea of calling it my "childcare investment" as someone else mentioned - would have made it even more palatable, i think

[cricketballs]

"feel like they're getting fucked from every angle." hear hear!

[faaaaghinatub]

oh yes, and I mean truly provide for them at a basic (not comfortable) style of living. Without tax top ups and credits - before anyone starts saying "oh but I'm on an income of £16k and we have 4 kids and 1 of us is at home" - that was not an era where handouts were around to the level they are now. That's a good thing (because people in genuine need I hope are getting it now) and a bad thing (due to how unsustainable it might be, etc).

[lesley33]

faaa: Are you in a job where your salary and your OH's salary will increase as you get older? If so then hopefully this will be a temporary situation.

If not maybe longer term you need to be looking at moving. I moved out of London to the north of England years ago because the costs of any accommodation in London were just so prohibitive. Although wages are lower, your money does go much further.

[faaaaghinatub]

My mum and dad also had it much much easier, because there were choices involved, true choices.

My dad supported my mum being a SAHM on a non-professional salary. The type of job that would pay above minimum wage, but not a professional salary these days e.g. the manager of a shop. Can you imagine working 37hrs a week for around £16 or £18k a year now and being able to provide for your family of 4 children and a wife at home? The very idea makes me laugh at how silly it is. It's just so far out of reach!

[aprilbear]

Thats a very good point damsel. I think its easy to forget that probably most families struggle in some way when the kids are little. My own parents were 'lucky' in so far as they bought a (small) house on my fathers income alone. My mother was a traditional stay at home mother. However, like damsel I remember the crap clothes, no holidays, even days out to anywhere which cost anything were extremely rare. And more importantly, many women then (probably my mother included) didn't work because it wasn't the norm then. Lots of bored and frustrated women beneath the surface I suspect. When our kids were below school age we struggled a lot financially, but tbh I am glad I stayed in work then as we are reaping the reward now