to not understand how peiple afford to live?

[pregnantpause]

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?

Thoroughly depressing isn't it.

And some people who have been given "community service" for being unemployed might then think
"Well ive done the punishment. Now im going to commit the crime.

Interesting darkeyes that you see working as a punishment!

No i see workFARE as a punishment. Oh and londonone you have just outed yourself. Katie Hopkins said EXACTLY the same thing during a 5 Live discussion i took part in back in Feb. so helloooooo Katie!
I see work for NO WAGE as a punishment which is what i was talking about. i was talking about workFARE not work.
Stop trying to put words in my mouth like you did 8 months ago. (would have thought you could have thought of something more original after all this time tbh)
The whole point of going out to work is to get paid.

Most posters have ranted my concerns, so dito but ill add holidays are something I never had until I got married, not even family ones. Since marriage I've been to the Cotswolds only because I went there on a school trip and had fond memories, and Scotland, which I loved so much that I now call it home. anyway I don't have many things but I don't see them as sacrifices I'm content . But different things make people content, what I'm content with others won't be.

anyways question: is supermarket meat really cheaper than the local butchers? I've never bought supermarket meat, mainly coz I couldn't get halal. but in some stores it is available yet I don't. It's way cheaper if u eat meat regular to buy from the butchers. you could buy the whole sheep and get a better deal than buying just the leg in a super market.

Most muslim families I know now have a small chest deep freezer just for their butcher shop meat and fish. Im not suggesting u go out and buy a deep freeze, unless u want to stock up a lot. Im south asian so we eat a lot of fish, even king prawns from the asian stores are cheaper than the supermarket. the odd occasion i get prawns from the supermarket i feel like ive been robbed. Plus why not go for cheaper cuts of meat?. Another bone to pick why are the English so fussy about boneless meat, not many decades ago they too ate off the bone. Seriously more flavour and the meat is moist, not dry.

So if you've got a large family or mad on meat go check out your local butchers it may work out cheaper.

An old post of mine from an old thread which shows the conflict of interest when charities get involved in workfare.

carernotasaintFri 17-Feb-12 22:05:03

OMG can you imagine the sheer fucking irony of having a workfare placement at Shelter and then not being able to attend cos of illness and then Shelter reporting you to Job Centre and causing you to get sanctioned which could make you homeless. I know theyve pulled out now but it still boggles the mind that they fucking agreed to participate in the first place.Was their chief executive asleep or hungover while agreeing to it FFS.

Darkest eyes - I have no idea who you are, sorry. Nor am I Katie Hopkins! Working in return for benefits is not working for nothing. If it was working for nothing, no one would do it as they would have nothing to lose.

justanuthermanicmumsday I wish I still lived somewhere with Asian supermarkets. I'm in the arse end of nowhere now and miss them.

'Working in return for benefits is not working for nothing. If it was working for nothing, no one would do it as they would have nothing to lose.'

It is working for the government and the taxpayer instead of being paid a wage by an employer. It allows further government subsidy of big-business by allowing the business to use the taxpayer to foot the bill for its employees, as well as buying their products.

Government by big business is not capitalism, it is fascism.

Not if the people aren't working for businesses expat.

FFS londonone here is why it is a conflict of interest for charities in workfare as well. posting this for the second time.

OMG can you imagine the sheer fucking irony of having a workfare placement at Shelter and then not being able to attend cos of illness and then Shelter reporting you to Job Centre and causing you to get sanctioned which could make you homeless. I know theyve pulled out now but it still boggles the mind that they fucking agreed to participate in the first place.Was their chief executive asleep or hungover while agreeing to it FFS.

justanuther 1) we eat mostly vegetarian, a bag of beans is still cheaper than meat 2) we need to drive quite far to go to an asian grocer 3) I do eat meat off the bone. I think most people have no problem having meat on the bone. Roast chicken, ribs, I'm not sure where you get that idea from.

Sorry darkest, could you direct me to the post where I mentioned charities? You appear to be ranting about something I haven't mentioned.

I think I got it off the plethora of cooking programmes tv toddlingterror, sorry my ignorance, I stand corrected.

Yes veg is cheaper, I do make veg sides dishes , but if I'm honest my small kids love chicken. I'm not fussed as long as I eat, but given a choice south Asian fish or veg it's my cultural food hard to not have cravings for it. Anyway enough of my diet off topic :)

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

That is the same mindset that resulted in roads to nowhere, walls built up the sides of mountains, etc., during the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s. It was a stupid idea back then and I am gobsmacked to see it rear its ugly head 150 years later. What lay behind the theory then (as now) was the idea dear to the heart of people who never knew want (mostly because of tremendous luck of birth or good timing) that the poor are poor because they are actually work shy.

Useful huh? Important to make sure people earn their pittance or else they might just become spongers, right?

Here is a 'Cotton Famine' road near Rochdale in case you think what happened in the 19th C in Ireland isn't pertinent.

Does it matter at all how much it takes to administer the Workfare system?

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

Do you know how much it would cost to administer?

Are you kidding? The Tea Party is the embodiment of all things conservative and capitalist. They abhor socialism in all its forms. They want small government, minimum taxes, and everyone to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

They are idiots. They do not realise at all that the competition that American business faces is companies whose workforce they do not have to pay (thanks to Workfare and similar), whose health insurance is covered by individual taxpayer (employee) contributions plus government, not by business owners, and whose employees who are paid can be paid less because of the panoply of benefits (children's allowance, housing benefit, etc., that make the lives of the working poor possible on the lowest possible wages). A great example of blind ideology getting in the way of rational thought.

If you buy meat that is priced by weight then paying for a bone that is going to go in the bin does not seem like such a great deal. Yes, you can make stock, but one bone goes a long, long way, stock-wise.

mathanxiety surely a whole chicken gives you more meat than the equivalent price of breast fillets. I don't cook red meat but I guess it's similar with the cheaper cuts of meat like lamb shanks or pork shoulders?

justanuther the boneless fillets are faster cooking. And those cooking shows! Have you notice how all their meat comes out in parchment paper? And veg is always from farmers market too. That's not the average Brit at all!

Can I ask you all a question?

Would you move to the UK right now, if you weren't already living there? Do you really think things will get apocalyptic?

We lived in the UK for many years until 18 months ago (now live in France). We are thinking of coming back for work purposes but threads like this make me think it's a crazy idea.

Everything is cheaper for us here, the quality of life is much better. But it's difficult for us to work here (long story).

So do we move back to London, where DH can definitely get a job right away and I have at least much more opportunities, or stay here and retrain/try to do something different?

It's a real dilemma for us, just interested what you think, how really bad things will get.

dreaming no, we would have gone to Australia. But who could have predicted the future.

Forgot to say DH and I are kiwis.

dreaming I can only speak for my own family (in The Netherlands) - but we have put a caveat on not moving back to the UK unless our earnings are significantly different. I can handle being "poor" here, but do not want to be poor in the UK.

dreaming in fact everyone thinks we are crazy to stay here when we are free to live and work in Australia. But like a lot of posters already said, you have to have money to make a move. And a move to Australia is a lot more costly than say from Wales to London.