To be really upset to read on MN

[shootingstarz]

That parents are going without food because they can?t afford to feed their kids.

Ah that is excellent news as she was wondering about this herself last week.
No she is n't making stuff to sell, just selling bits she has or bits she might pick up from elsewhere.

Possible undeclared work for one, but the other 2 are bone idle (not generalising here but they have worked very little in 30 yrs between them). The two single men both live in a low housing cost area. Can probably walk anywhere they need to go. They probably always have a bit extra so never fall into bank charges etc. they are also both long term claimants so aren't affected by delays in claims. They have also both lived in the same houses for a long time so costs if rising are comparitively stable than someone moving properties.

Also I hired someone who had been unemployed, who didn't have a financially terrible time. He was also paying a mortgage, so is it easier for a homeowner to cope with the current system of benefits?

Not really, Wasabi, though it does depend when this happened. The HB rules have been tightened to shrieking point - for example, a single person under 35 will only be entitled to the cost of a bedsit in the cheapest 25% of the local market.

Up until now, the same person would get HB to the cost of a one-bed flat in the bottom 30%. So, if your employee was buying a flat and had a good interest deal, he'd have received more help than he would now. Until about 5 years ago (I think) it was possible to get HB for the entire cost of your mortgage interest.

The new harsher rule is being implemented now. By this time next year, almost everyone needing HB will be expected to top up their rent or mortgage. This money will have to come out of - well, their food budget. My housing benefit has already been cut by £110 a month. Luckily, my landlord matched it but there will be further cuts next year and I think the landlord's already reached their limit!

The BBC did a harrowing feature on the resurgence of slum rentals. We'll be seeing more of that, much more.

toomanycuts.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/hidden-housing-crisis-impending.html

For the last few years I?ve made do on one meal a day and it?s often a bit scraped together. I sometimes pretend I had it earlier because needs must when the devil drives, and he?s been driving here for the last 7/8 years.

We've ten units a day heat for one room, another two for everything else, haven?t had hot water, washing machine or dryer for some years, don?t have a tv, consoles, etc, smoke or any of the DM stuff.
We strip wash daily and rely on the local bathes for a hot shower, but we don?t actually live in poverty just have quite a bit less than others around us, but constant making do and mending means everything?s worn very thin including my desire to keep going.

Yes, we?ve chosen to live at this level to fund luxury choices; a 25year old car that I honestly can?t manage without (am disabled and an unpaid carer and can?t self-propel up this road) this computer and PAYG dongle internet which is totally essential for access to education in this family, (most of it is provided through it) so they stand a chance of not being stuck in this cycle, and a phone which is only used for basics. That?s it, our luxuries are education, transport and communication.

Alll my debts are to the government and the council as a result of not understanding the benefit system. I have done nothing wrong but am treated abrasively as a wrong doer even when just politely asking about why I?m in trouble.
Apparently I was put on the wrong disability benefit (the one I should have been on was higher!) and now have to claim the correct one (DLA) so I can hand it over to cover the ? wrongful payments?. At the moment it?s being deducted from ESA. (I?m in support group, no permitted work) If I don?t get it I will be taken to court in one years? time. I can see myself choosing a more dignified solution.

I owe council tax for the duration of a very long hospital stay post-accident and now a CCJ for my inability to pay it.

Also took out a crisis loan to cover the rent (same hospital stay) after eviction proceedings were started and believed they were taking it back a small amount a week . I?ve just found out they stopped taking it back after the first week, though they don?t know why, and it will now be deducted at £18 weekly, so I?m going to be scraping further.

I became disabled through caring single handed for too many others instead of leaving it to the state, and didn?t realise I was ill until I fainted in the wrong place, at the wrong moment in time, leaving life changing injuries and my business gone. Bad feckless benefit claimant that I am.

Those of you who don?t get it, feel free to put the boot in, I can?t be in any more pain and I?m too worn out to care, but just remember you think you have lots of things protecting you, but reality is you could end up here too.

Garlicbutter my HA?s just called in an auctioneer to value the properties, our rent?s gone up £12 annually for some years with no cap in sight, and we were expecting to be struggling to stay but thought we'd be rehoused by them into something cheaper, but now we?re expecting to be sold to private landlords and become totally homeless again.

Codandchops, if she's selling things she originally bought for personal use but no longer uses, she doesn't have to declare that. Most of the time you won't sell it for more than you bought it for anyway.

If she is buying things at car boots, jumble sales etc to specifically sell on and try to make a profit, then strictly speaking she should set up a business account on ebay, declare profit to HMRC etc. If she's only doing this occasionally then I don't know if it would be worth it.

As a business she'd be able to offset expenses such as the cost of the items, internet, phone, packaging, petrol/fares to and from PO against income and there probably wouldn't be that much profit.

You don't have to declare income from gambling but if she kept winning bits on the lottery and her savings go over £6000 then she would have to declare that.

JustGettingOnWithIt what a harrowing story, I have tears in my eyes reading it. It is exactly the reason the judgeyness makes me so bloody mad.

How the hell can you prepare for something like that?

What part of any of that was a choice?

How can anybody be so blinkered as to think "it can't happen to me"?

I'm so sorry for you, more than that I'm flipping angry that you felt you had to share you're story just to try and hammer home the point to some narrow-minded idiots who still won't accept it happens.

You are obviously a fantastic parent, I know that doesn't help at all but I for one am in awe of your strength.

Thanks MyDogShitsShoes, that's kind of you. I'm pretty pissed off at the judgyness too. I'm doing everything I can to keep it together here, and am sure there's many more just the same, and am so, so, sick of reading about fags, plasma tellies and scroungers.

In fairness though, if you weren't so thick you'd batch cook, cancel your internet and sell your car. Problem solved

Another one who has had her eyes opened

Dont know what to say otherwise

The worst comments are about the internet I mean quite unbelievable. Apart from anything else a lot of major employers now conduct their ENTIRE recruitment process online.

Justgettingonwithit - yours is one of the stories that needs to be posted on all the DLA-bashing threads as well. It seriously narks me how holier-than-thou some posters can be about it when we are ALL only one accident or severe illness away from being in the position of needing it ourselves - we would all do well to remember that. AND the same re. the redundancy/partner walking out with all the money situations as well.
:(

Garlic, it is 3 bed house with a mortgage of 250k appx

They have shut most of the libaries in our borough and reduced the opening hours of the others.
I cannot imagine trying to sort out a complicated transaction or fill in a job application form in a library with three of my five kids with me.

I was without internet connection for about 4 weeks recently. It really bought home to me how difficult life is without it.
My university course is entirely online. How the hell are you supposed to complete an entire degree using library internet?
I couldnt look up discounts, use vouchers, get the best deals?

If you take away the use of a car you are also restricted to what you can get very locally. This is usually far more expensive.

You pay more for your lecky and gas when you are poor. They charge you MORE for having a metre. This is scandalous.

You may have to rely on a payg phone with high tariff.
Everything is harder work when you are skint.

We are a family who are very vulnerable due to disabilities and working in the public sector. We are ok right now but I know we might not be.
Having been so poor when DD and DS1 were tiny, this terrifies me.

I am so sad to hear of posters wishing they could have a razor and some salt and vineger. This takes me back to when I couldnt buy ketchup for DD when she wanted some. When a packet of crisps was a once a month treat.

I look around me now and most of what I have is extras. I am SO lucky. I have makeup and can buy knickers whenever I want them. I see a little pretty bit of nonsense in Sainsburys and I can buy it (I mean a picture frame for £4).

None of that was possible 15 years ago. Picture frames and makeup are not essesntials. We can do without them but it is pretty soul destroying to be surrounded by things that you cant have, that are so far out of your reach that they might as well cost £100000.

I remember when DD got into nursery and I was so relieved because it meant I wouldnt have to feed her at lunch time.

I am beyond sad that there are still families dealing with that.

curtain people didnt belive or understand when it was happening to me so I am not that suprised that they still dont get it.

Its very easy for people to be unmaterialistic when they can afford to buy most things they want.

In the 80s and 90s we had a spate of MPs proving they could live on benefits. They would do this for a week. They would then declare it was refreshing to live a simple life and that they had managed perfectly well.

In their well made clothes, with their well fed bodies, in a place they only had to put up with for a week, with no disasters like losing a child's shoe .

These experiements were seen as proof that benefits were fine and people should stop whinging.

I remember that series. It was beyond ridiculous. I wonder how responsible that series is for starting off the benefit bashing.

It is so sad that we now live in a society which doesn't feel responsible for itself; in which individuals have no sense of collective responsibility or moral conscience; where people who have much do not feel that it behoves them to share a bit more of it than the small amount that the state requires (and yes, even on the higher tax bracket, that is a small amount in comparison to how much you have ).

People's lives are so empty that they just fill them up with stuff that they don't need, and the, complain because a tiny proportion of their tax goes to people who have not had their advantages, luck, background, whatever.

What happened to that world we used to believe in where the strong helped the weak, the rich helped the poor, and society was enriched by it?

Its very easy for people to be unmaterialistic when they can afford to buy most things they want.

I'm guilty of that, too.

I often think I don't care about material things but if I knew I couldn't have them if I wanted, it would be different.

I'm just so angry with myself at the moment for being ignorant to how others are forced to live.

Totally agree Jux. But I don't think it is always about the rich not wanting to help the poor. It is obvious from lots of threads on here that lots of very well off people do not think they are well off and see themselves as struggling.

It's true it feels very different to freely chose not to buy something and not being able to buy something.

For example I am not that bothered about going on lots of holidays but not having the choice to go is depressing.