to think that there are people who choose to live a life on benefits?

[autumnlights12]

the recent threads about George Osbourne made me wonder..
A high number of posters say that people don't choose to live like that, they stumble into it, hate it, what a miserable existence it is, nobody would ever choose it etc..
but if you have two or three children through choice, whilst at the same time having no job to provide for them, or if you turn down the job at the local factory (as I know someone who did) because it pays £7.50 an hour and a full time job there doesn't give you the same unemployment rights and benefits, isn't that choosing to live a life on benefits? Or being trapped on benefits? I'm not talking about people who can't work, disabled people, ill people, women dumped by feckless ex and left to fend for herself etc.. of course they should be protected.
I was watching 999 What's Your Emergency and I know that area. And I know people like that exist. And it's often a second, third generation who have never worked a day in their life, even during times when work was freely available. In the town I live, we have numerous Eastern European immigrants who all seem to be working, but mostly in low paid work the locals wont do
What say you?

[Xenia]

I know it is hard to advance yourself but it's better not to be defeatist. Too many women just give up. I was trying to be helpful. If people prefer to assume I am useless I will never get anywhere let the state provide and I will just about exist that is up to them but there are certainly possibilities out there for many of us and people come from all over this planet because they know what good chances they have in the UK compared to so many other countries so let us make the most of those chances. None of my ideas are bad. My own grandmother moved continents in the 1920s to seek work and that was live in service work and that expanded horizons and really did help even if the work itself I imagine was pretty low paid.

[nkf]

The problem is what happens if/when benefits are cut? People on benefits are in a very vulnerable position. I don't want to sound all apocalyptic but this government is going to slash the benefits system to ribbons.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

When I was at college I saw it as an investment too. Im good at budgeting so really, that wasnt the issue. It really was the workload. DD was in day care but she kept picking up colds and flus and then I was missing days. I had no broadband at home as I couldnt afford it. So work would pile up.

Even that I could have coped with. I was more than capable of the work. But when my banger of a car broke down it was the final straw. There was no public transport from where I lived and it was just impossible.

Being a single parent really has more complications than just the money. You are mum and dad and student or manager or whatever. Its hard to keep every plate in the air.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Oh and £14k a year really wouldnt support anyone who has a child. Maybe with TC topping it up it could be a stretch. But with rents as high as they are its really not realistic.

[nkf]

Wannabe, I can sympathise. I'm single too. Oddly enough though, living in London makes things easier. I would hate to be dependent on a car. And I am surrounded by lovely free things. And I can buy fruit and veg from the market and the Turkish shops.

Do people car share where you live? Surely everyone wants help with petrol? Can you trade childcare with another mother? I know some women who've managed to work part time and never use paid childcare. Okay, on your days off, your house is always full of kids but that can be quite nice in a way.

[nkf]

Seriously Wannabe, the last time I was on a salary/budget thread, there were people who said they could manage on those sort of amounts. I think the figure was £15k. In the title. I was amazed too. Nobody was pretending it was a great life but not everyone felt wretched on it.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

The thing I have noticed about those threads is that the food budget is always the first to be cut.

And then we get back around to the whole bad diet depression thing. Since DP lost his job we have went through about a month of true poverty. Literally feeding DD and not eating ourselves. Malnutrition is honestly not to be taken lightly. Now we are spending £60 a week and its IMO not enough.

Aside from that, people here dont really car share. We live in a village which has one B road to it. The bus service is sparse and costs nearly as much as running a car.

I know no one. And wouldnt be comfortable sending DD to a near strangers house or having kids in mine incase they got hurt etc.

I will probably look for nightshift work in the new year. So I can work nights, do the school run and then have the baby during the day while DP works. Paying for 1 or 2 nursery mornings a week would be worth it on two wages.

[nkf]

I've seen this before on MN. Villages are for rich people. I'm convinced. There is poverty in cities sure but rural poverty is something else.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Rents in cities are extortionate though. Unless you want to live in a damp and mouldy house.

And then you get asthma or constant illness. DP has asthma so we really couldnt tolerate damp.

Its a vicious cycle.

[Xenia]

Rural poverty is the harshest often because of transport costs.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Definately. DPs parents gave us their old car otherwise we really would be stuck.

But once we get jobs a major priority will be getting a more economical one.

I guess it just frustrates me that the government are focusing on the money and making it all so black and white. But people are complex and lives are difficult.

[morethanpotatoprints]

Wannabe.

I totally agree with you, I have several friends who could manage without benefit at all if their rent was lower.
There are a few single parents who are trapped like this that I know, it isn't that they won't work they wouldn't be able to survive.

[garlicbutty]

Bit, just in case - you did check whether you'd still be entitled to any top-up benefits? Probably not as DH is working, but it's worth a mention.

Assuming you'd be £85 down With all benefits taken into account, this basically tells you you're worth more as a carer than as a barmaid. Nobody else would advise taking a bar job that pays less than your current one, so there you go.

It's bloody logical from the nation's point of view, as replacing you with a professional carer would cost a grand or more a week.

Congrats on doing your GCSEs! Good luck with part 2 :)

[BitOfACyclePath]

That's with any benefit entitlement. Thank you.

[Acumens100]

Bit, on the form where you report your income for Carer's Allowance, there's a section for your childcare costs. If you ask them to send you one, and then call the Benefit Enquiry Line (Telephone: 0800 88 22 00) and go over it with them, it's possible that they will disregard the earnings you've had to pay out for the care of your daughter while you work. It's possible! It's worth asking.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

bit with regard to paying someone else to care for your children,under ca rules you will only be able to have a max of half your income disregarded for all childcare even if it included the care of the person you claim ca for.

so if your total childcare costs are say £200 (for ease of the sums) and you earn £110 they will treat this as tho you earn £55 but you will still have £145 to find.
so you will still need to factor in childcare costs.

it is also a none protected taxable benefit so if your childcare costs would mean that you could get a childcare contribution then your ca will be added as income to decrease your entitlement to wtc as opposed to a benefit like dla that is protected.

[Xenia]

If it is the road to much higher earnings as it often is for women then some sacrifice if that leaves enough money to eat is often worth it. If a weekend job away as a live in carer is possible as the father is home all weekend then that might just tip the balance to making it worth working under my plan above. We paid £10 an hour all night for my father's care = £100 a night.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

xenia he is only home on sunday. a professional carer for a child with sn is way more expensive than for an adult.

now im sure you think your very wonderful and what not for doing that and im very glad it worked for you but can you please stop banging on about it and being unrealistic you know that wont work for many other people who arnt in the same suituation that you used to be in.
times have changed and this posters suituation is possibly very different to yours. so will you please stop going on with your quite frankly stupid unworkable surgestions its offensive and nasty. your talking about her suituation as if she is a scrounger, she isant she is a carer who saves the tax payer a fortune.

and incidently if she provides care for a different disabled person the liklyhood of that money (the wages she would get) also coming from the tax payer are high.

keeping on at her just makes you sound like a cunt for the above reasons.

[Wallison]

The father isn't at home all weekend though - the only day he has off is Sunday. I don't know what your job is Xenia but I do hope it doesn't involve reading and understanding.

[Wallison]

You have been told this at least four times now.

[Wallison]

And a bar job isn't a route to a job with higher earning potential, unless you want to be either a bar manager or landlady, both of which involve many many hours of work a week (yes, even more than you) and most of them unsocial. I don't see any way on this earth that you could do that when your partner is only free one day a week and you have caring responsibilities.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

Tbh I find xenias attitude repulsive.

I truely hope she never finds herself caring for someone while her husband works six days a week.

£85 a week is not a compromise for the future. Its the weekly food shop fgs.

[Wallison]

She's just full of shit. The situation that CyclePath is in doesn't fit with her worldview, so she's trying to bend the facts so that it does.

[Xenia]

She was saying she might be offered the joba dn should she take it. I was being helpful. The defeatism on this thread and lack of enthusiasm for any of my ideas makes me very glad we are going to cut benefits right back. So she has the whole of every Sunday free to work so look at peopleper hour, look at going out to clean people's cars on Sundays, look at doing babysitting on Sundays. There are heaps of possiblities.

[wannabedomesticgoddess]

No. Her husbands only day off is sunday. Her DD still needs cared for on sundays.

So sunday is the only day they have as a family.

But oh sorry. Poor people should never have any family time or enjoy life at all should they?