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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to not understand how peiple afford to live?

320 replies

pregnantpause · 22/10/2012 13:04

I'm so fed up ATM. Me and dh work, me part time, as young dc, we live in a very cheap area if the country (and I suppose our wages reflect that), jointly we bring home under 26 thousand pa). We get 40 a month tax credits, which doesn't seem much, and I've just got a letter to say they've over paid us by 200 in the last year. HOW? Forty quid a month, and that's overpaid? How do people survive? Paying that back will take us into overdraft ans furture payments will now be around twenty quid less? Are we the scroungers everyone talks about? Am I the lazy feclkless parent that won't get a full time .job and sponges off the state? I can't go full time, my employer has no hours to give. Dh can't get a better paid job- there are none. With energy bills going up and food costing the earth how do people live. I seriously worry that people with even a little bit less than me will be pushed over the edge, old people, disabled people, how can people afford to survive now? Aibu to think that it won't be long (or already happening) before people are made homeless, just because the cost I'd living is so far apart from what we earn?

OP posts:
londonone · 23/10/2012 20:05

I am not quite sure what our issue is vintage. You seem to be well qualified with plenty of options. What exactly is the problem you think you are facing?

londonone · 23/10/2012 20:05

Your issue, not our issue!

WilsonFrickett · 23/10/2012 20:17

Vintage, you would have to take a teaching qual, yes. Interesting London suggests working as an untrained teacher in the private sector, as there are posters on another thread swearing blind that the private sector doesn't employ untrained and unqualified teachers, but that's another fred I s'pose...

FunBagFreddie · 23/10/2012 20:21

I'm self employed and I work my bloody arse off. I'm far from being rich, and I understand exactly where you're coming from catsmother.

I think this is everyone's problem tbh.

londonone · 23/10/2012 20:41

Wilson I can tell you for definite that you don't need a teaching qualification to work in independent schools.

QueenofWhatever · 23/10/2012 20:41

I'm a bit scared now to post on this thread but have a genuine question (I'm not sure I know what I think):

Up thread people were talking about Workfare and saying how wrong it is that people are doing unpaid work. But if you get housing benefit, council tax benefit, income support etc. surely you are getting money for it?

Is that not better than me going out to work, paying taxes and putting DD in childcare for someone to get that money and not do something for it?

expatinscotland · 23/10/2012 20:49

'Up thread people were talking about Workfare and saying how wrong it is that people are doing unpaid work. But if you get housing benefit, council tax benefit, income support etc. surely you are getting money for it?

Is that not better than me going out to work, paying taxes and putting DD in childcare for someone to get that money and not do something for it? '

Here's the problem, Queen, and it is not about the people doing it. It is the fact that for-profit businesses are getting people to work who are paid for by the government. So let's see what the logical sequitur is: it's that, if they have a choice between paying a worker NMW and getting one that is free for them, but whom the taxpayer is paying for, whom do you think they will chose?

So can you see what is happening with workfare? It is for-profit, big business getting people to work that you and every other taxpayer pays for.

They walk off with the profits and you get stuck with the bill and pay them money for their product, too.

THAT is what is wrong with workfare.

2old2beamum · 23/10/2012 20:50

Went on link for universal credit.
Useless for old farts who are OAP's who are caring for 2 severely disabled kids and 3 adults with Down Syndrome with health needs.
Am worried

expatinscotland · 23/10/2012 20:51

And, if these for-profit businesses already have staff paid NMW but can use someone to do the same job at less or no cost to them, then they will quite logically make the NMW person redundant and take the freebie.

The NMW employee then finds him/herself doing his old job, quite possibly, but not for an honest wage from an employer, but for the government.

And people have a problem with Big State.

mathanxiety · 23/10/2012 20:51

Why generate all the admin costs of workfare so that a someone else can be paid to bring up your child? Why not just pay childcare costs directly to the parents and be done with it? That has got to be the most stupid scheme I have ever heard of.

How many people are paid to push paper around offices keeping track of Workfare? Talk about completely useless waste of time and money...

londonone · 23/10/2012 20:53

It would be better for people to do community work. Al the things that are currently not funded not jobs people already do.

QueenofWhatever · 23/10/2012 20:58

When the global crash happened, I was in the US and when we went to the state parks we came across lots of things like walkways and footpaths that had been built as part of the New Deal in the '30s.

The thing with Workfare etc. is that it's quite black and white. I would have a lot more time for it (as I think would many) if it did do things like that. I don't agree with people working in Poundland for exactly the reasons you describe. But for me there is a fundamental issue that you get benefits and don't have to do anything.

DizzyHoneyBee · 23/10/2012 21:00

We struggle a lot, take home less than 1k a month here but not entitled to FSM or council tax benefit :(

IfNotNowThenWhen · 23/10/2012 21:02

But for me there is a fundamental issue that you get benefits and don't have to do anything.

Except pay your taxes and NI for your entire working life, whether before you were made redundant, or after you have found work.
The idea that I could work full time for 25 years, and then find myself redundant, and have to stack shelves to "earn" my £65 a week might make me think that all that tax and NI I had paid were for nowt.

nkf · 23/10/2012 21:03

Ifnotnow, the payday loan will not help. I know you know that but somehow you have to avoid those sharks.

MrsDeVere · 23/10/2012 21:03

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 23/10/2012 21:04

And what catsmother said. ^^

WilsonFrickett · 23/10/2012 21:05

Yep, I do admit I'm a bit Hmm at the whole 'earn your benefits' schtick. I have been earning them. I'm 41 years old and I've been earning a wage, paying tax and NI, since I was 16. I have earned any benefits I may need in the future.

londonone · 23/10/2012 21:09

Mrsdevere public services were and still are to a lesser degree massively bloated and inefficient and I say that as someone who works in public services

londonone · 23/10/2012 21:09

Wilson you have received a lot of services for your contribution.

WilsonFrickett · 23/10/2012 21:12

I've also put in a very hefty contribution London.

londonone · 23/10/2012 21:15

If you have put in more than you have taken out then I would suggest you have had a relatively high income and could have made additional provision for yourself.

freetoanyhome · 23/10/2012 21:17

bollocks are they crying out for teachers. DH has a PhD is maths and physics and has spent 20 years at the cutting edge of research. He lost his job. He cant get a job as a teacher. He is nearly 50.

londonone · 23/10/2012 21:19

Well is he a teacher?

Meglet · 23/10/2012 21:19

Retraining costs a fortune. I have got a few weeks to cobble together / e-bay stuff to pay for a small £200 OU course.