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?

[aprilbear]

If its any consolation OP, I think the govt is starting to wake up to the fact that hundreds of thousands of working families feel the same. Welfare reform is being driven first and foremost by the fact that the country cannot actually afford any longer to fund people indefinitely, no matter how Many children they produce, or whatever the size of their rent. But the mood of the country isn't far behind that first reason. I honestly believe even if the country wasn't in dire straights financially, the govt could not have blocked it's ears much longer to how people feel. As others have said, people have been encouraged to get educated, strive to be independent etc and then have ended up realising they are bankrolling people who don't. Same with retirement- people who have been responsible and saved up, just get their assets stripped off them to pay for care homes . If you live the life of Riley and spend your money, the state will pay for you. The system has been very unfair for a very long time (as well as unsustainable) but the tide is turning, and I think in the longer term op, you will be very glad your standard of living isn't subject to the changes in welfare reform. Take a look at some of the threads about people who might not be able to remain in the house they live in any longer because - shock horror- the taxpayers will no longer pay more
Than 2 grand a month for them to do so! In the long term you will be grateful you have more
Control over your own destiny

[itisnearlysummer]

Don't know about now, but I'm sure that because it used to take into account parental income, the children of those parents earning below a certain amount got their full tuition fees paid, then it ran on a sliding scale until parents earned £33k+ when the children had not support.

I could of course, be talking out of my bottom! Or it could have been a dream! But I'm pretty sure it was along those lines.

I'm happy to be corrected (so long as it is done politely and courteously of course!)

I just remember it being something that bugged DH and I a few years ago because we fall into one camp and some relatives fall into the other and it seemed hugely unfair. That we'd be considered better off than them because we earned more, yet they owned their house and their mortgage was a fraction of our rent (they are significantly older than us!)

Oh and it could have all changed recently anyway. Haven't looked into it for a while. Uni seems off the radar for our 2.

[faaaaghinatub]

I think it's far easier for people to cry out "benefit bashing thread" without actually paying attention to some of the very real problems the OP has highlighted.

OP has my sympathies - it's absolutely shit to be a member of the working poor - I never knew there was a name for it until a couple of years ago, I just knew in my bones that for 2 able bodied adults struggling to pay our basic living costs when there was nothing to cut back on besides the food bill that the growth of wealth inquality that's happening more than ever was wrong.

And yes, I've been in the situation where I've had friends on benefits (not working, or working the minimum hours to qualify for credits on purpose) and had less money than them, for a good many years. Our problem was always that "middle section" of household income: too much to get help with anything like free dental care or school meals or housing, but less disposable income than our income would appear due to the housing costs around here, plus commuting costs to work plus stuff like work clothes and childcare too - it just near killed us for a few years, and there were a good many times I thought to myself, why am I doing this? I'm working so hard I'm almost at breaking point, and I don't even get to see my kids for more than 30mins unless it's the weekend.

But you know, it didn't kill us.

Things did get better.

Because I didn't take 10years out to be a permanent SAHP, and DH took his share of it took, we're now (finally) financially stable for the first time in well over a decade, childcare costs are down, income is up. We're not flush, and I still have to budget (e.g. not had my hair cut since last winter since we can't afford it - keep having to tell people I'm growing out the short elf cut I'd had done - which I actually really love, and no holiday in sight, but that's ok). but we're ok.

The friends I see on benefits will never be more comfortable than they are now. In fact, if things continue the way they are going, they'll be less comfortable, because through choice or no choice, they're at the mercy of the government benefits pot.

And that's what you're working towards, OP -choice, freedom, and LONG TERM gain. Just repeat the often used saying around here: THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

I could have written your post a few years ago myself - but trust me, if you stick with it, it does get better. You won't be the working poor forever.

[GrownUpNow]

I think you are looking quite simplistically at the situation, the monetary support from the government is all very welcome in my life as a lone parent, because I'd definitely struggle to keep us out of poverty if it wasn't there, and my kids have a tough enough life already without adding poverty into the mix.

I'd give every penny up for a stable family, both parents working, the opportunity to work to own my own home and to be able to live worrying about what other people get rather than about whether I'll be able to afford food and bills money, and when I'll ever be able to afford to move out of the deprived area I live in so my kids don't grow up next door to a drug dealer.

Alongside all this financial worry, I have to try to cope raising two children on my own, without getting any child support and with only one child having any contact with dad, whilst also dealing with two chronic illnesses and the usual everyday childhood sicknesses. My son has had to move several times, has experienced an abusive step parent and has generally lived an unsettled life. My daughter wants to know why her daddy doesn't see her like her brother.

I deal with this guilt, with the constant pressure of budgeting and going without so they don't have to, and with my health problems with a smile on my face because I feel like I have disadvantaged them enough already.

Life isn't always about money, you may feel disadvantaged because you have to work for everything you have, but you should also feel grateful that you are setting a good example and that you have a functional happy family who will hopefully emulate you and not end up stuck in the benefits trap.

Almost everyone I've met in my circumstances has a sad story as to how they got there, and I've yet to meet an honest claimant who is doing as well as people seem to think you do on benefits, there's no flat screen tellies here, or holidays, or luxury, not without outside help from family or being dodgy. In fact, I've seem homes so empty and run down they make me want to weep, children who get school uniform for their birthday because affording it is beyond their mum, mums coping with children with illness and behavioural issues alone, disabled parents, women left with nothing leaving abusive relationships, children going without food, just stuff I in my pretty middle class upbringing (until my mother fled my father) I had never even considered as being present in our society.

I am not saying you have it easier than me, or me than you, or that you're wrong and I am right, just that things aren't as black and white and that rather than focusing on regards money, look at the positives of what you are doing. I want what you have, it's much more positive in my eyes than you are putting across and I urge you to see it the same way. x

[itisnearlysummer]

faaaaghinatub Thank you for that post!

It does give hope.

[TheMonster]

YANBU at all. We both work full time but cannot afford a house to buy, and when out current tenancy is up (the landlord wants to sell) we won't be able to rent again either. I wish we could get a housing association house, but we earn 'too much'.
Such is life though.

[LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726]

Excellent post, faaaaghinatub, really.

[cricketballs]

bodyofeeyore why can't you rent another house privately?

[aprilbear]

Excellent lost faaaaaginatub.

I think you sum it up perfectly. It may be shit to be on benefits, but its even shitter to be working poor. Having to get up and out of the house every morning with young kids is harder than not having to- especially when you have no financial gain from it at the end of the month. Suffering crippling chronic toothache because you cant afford treatment is harder than being able to pop along to the dentist knowing you wont be presented with a bill for several hundred pounds on your way out.

But as you say, in the long term, you are doing the best thing for yourself and your family op- keep reminding yourself of that.

[fanjobanjowanjo]

I'm a member of the working poor. I would love to be able to put insulation in the house to stop us freezing so badly in the winter (we have no central heating, which I also can't afford to put in or get any help with. We can't use electric heaters because we can't afford it etc etc.) I can't afford to, and all those schemes and grants you can get don't apply to me because I pay my bills.

[GrownUpNow]

And I can say, university definitely isn't free for claimants, and now neither is higher education, before the government changes I had to pay a minimal amount for the course, about £60, plus fund a computer, transport and some childcare outside of the allowance because they don't take into account travelling time for those on public transport, and only funded for the travel time for those in cars. Unfortunately a kidney infection at exam times meant I did no complete the qualification, so I requested to go back the following year to complete and it was all organised until I discovered that childcare funding was cut back to less than 40% and there was no way I could afford to fund it. Not that it mattered anyway, my deferred university place would probably have cost too much with all the changes in course fees and the like.

It's not going to stop me trying though, I will find a way to fund more college once my youngest is in school. And if my poor work history, marital status and lack of experience stops people wanting to employ me, then I'll by blooming well employ myself. We're honestly not as well off and wasters as is portrayed in the media, you only get the worst of the worst there, and there are lots of lovely people stuck in difficult situations.

[Jenmummy]

this resonates so much with me... sometimes feel as though we're banging our heads off a wall and that the treadmill to nowheresville is never going to stop! BUT the childcare that we have paid for the past seven years and will continue to for another 3-4 is an investment in all our futures - I've actively chosed to see it this way rather than a cost per se.. thinking like that used to put my head in a spin!! OP - hold your head up high and focus on your family and your circumstances - it's an horrific waste of energy, I feel, trying to speculate about others'...... You'll get there. I'd say (and hope) that most of us do!!

[YouDoTheMath]

What's difficult is when you earn just slightly above the threshold under which you would eligible for help, but you're not "rich".

[DamselInDisarray]

OP: It's probably also worth considering how tough your own parents had it when they were in a comparable situation to you now. I bet they didn't have it easy.

My parents both had good professional jobs--a teacher and a surveyor. They still struggled to buy their first house (and also to rent before that) and when they did it was absolutely tiny. They furnished it with crap hand-me-down furniture which we had for years and years (I think the last vestiges of it were finally replaced when I was a teenager). They ran crappy, unreliable cars because that was all they could afford (I have memories of the neighbours helping to push the car down the hill to start it). They skimped and saved and we wore cheap, usually itchy and unpleasant, clothes made my granny, had crap home haircuts (even for the period) and we didn't go on holidays (a week in blackpool was the highlight). I'm sure it all felt like there was never going to be an end to it, but there was. Over time, they got more comfortable and everything got easier. They earned more, bought a bigger house, extended it and we had exciting holidays and meals out. Now my mum is really very comfortable in her 50s.

Yes, the house buying situation is likely to be trickier now, but you'll still be more comfortable in the future OP. Struggling is what young families do.

DH and I remind ourselves regularly that we will have some money in a few years when we're no longer paying nursery fees and desperately saving for a deposit to buy a house. It can feel unrewarding now to see so little from good salaries, but it won't always be that way. We feel lucky that we can look forward to a point where we might feel like all the education and effort at work has paid off.

If you think about it in the long term, OP, you'll be able to be a bit more hopeful too.

[Birdsgottafly]

Aprilbear- yes its great. The government asked itself, should be build and invest in more social housing? Should be properly inspect private lets and rent cap? Should we do our utmost to create employment? Should we higher wages? Sub childcare fees? No, lets cap HB and make lots of people homeless, the 'feckless poor', they must have run out of ideas and studied 19th Century policy, we are straight back there with the idea of the 'deserving poor' and 'non deserving' except this time even the disabled or the old qualify.

I done both, working poor and on benefits and being on benefits is worse, for those that want to work, which is the majority.

Travel up to Liverpool and ask all of the T J Hughes/Thortons/JJB staff why they aren't celebrating being made redundant because lets face according to you all they are joining the privliged benefit claiments and leaving the working poor.

BTW i think that the situation of the working poor in this country is a disgrace but won't be bettered by taking off those at the bottom level of society.

[faaaaghinatub]

YouDoTheMath, let's do the Math!

The minimum we need to live on is this:

£685 accommodation (cheap for here, we live in a shithole, but at least we have enough bedrooms in this one for DCs)
£140 council (roughly - might be out by a tenner or so these days)
£50 petrol commuting for DH (needed - no public transport/cycle option)
£48 bus pass for me (4 buses each day )
10 work clothes, gotta put something in there even though we barely buy anything
£200 food for 3 DCs and 2 adults

there you go. That works out to £1133/month, which needs an income of £1416.25 a month before tax.

Now let's add in a few other requirements - not optional.

100 car insurance (needs to be insured for work too since he's on call every third weekend)
£5 MOT kitty
£50 car repairs/service, based on last year's total yearly bill split up
£10 kitty for school uniforms spread through the year.
£10 kitty for school trips spread through the year.
£10 house insurance (this might be higher, can't recall)
£15 gas.
£50 electric.

Now we're at £1383/month, which needs an income of £1728.75 a month before tax.

That's £20745 a year salary, minimum. Which is a great salary for around here.

Then let's consider dentist bills, glasses, haircuts, stationary for their homework, home repairs, and other semi-optional items like life insurance or a Christmas kitty.

You could easily add on a few grand for that each year.

And this is only living to the most basic standard of living, subsistence living, what I've described above. It doesn't include a telephone line or call costs, it doesn't include money for a computer for the DCs to use, no cash for buying them a bike to cycle to school with (to save on the need for petrol outlay), there's no money there for a meal once a year. The food bill is also quite lean, but that's because I do a lot of batch cooking and I've had years of practice.

Then consider the childcare costs most families have, which can easily swallow another person's fulltime wage even if they earn a decent income.

There's no way you can support a family on the minimum wage, or even a "semi decent" wage these days.

Is it any wonder there is such a thing as working poor in this country? no wonder so many people are considered "rich" enough to earn too much for ANY help but feel like they're getting fucked from every angle.

It does put things into perspective a little, eh?

[itisnearlysummer]

Well Damsel. My parents had it much easier. My Dad in one of the emergency services, my mum was a SAHM.

They paid £27k for the house my mum now lives in.

Houses on her road are now 'valued' at around £200k.

There is no way a man at the same stage of career as my dad was and a SAHM could buy that house now!

[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

[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!

[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]

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).

[cricketballs]

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

[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

[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.

[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.