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?

your tax credits award sounds screwy.

i just made assumptions (two kids, one preschool, one school, your childcare is not-ofsted therefore unclaimable, no disability, no social security bens) and the result given is this

Based on the information you have entered, your household may be entitled to the following tax credits award:-
Child Tax Credit £1160.96
Childcare element of Working Tax Credit £0.00
Sub total £1160.96
Working Tax Credit (less the childcare element of Working Tax Credit) £0.00

Total £1160.96
This is based on your household income of £26000.00.
This is the amount your household may be entitled to from 23/10/2012 until 05/04/2013. This result is only an estimate and is based on the information provided assuming you make the claim on 23/10/2012. This means the amount shown may not be your entitlement for the full year.

that's more like £200 pcm for the rest of the tax year.

This is a worldwide problem. I have friends from all over the world and everyone is saying the exact same thing. I think its going to break imho It just cant go on like this.

It IS utterly crap OP. While I am on benefits I absolutely EXPECT it to be a struggle...in work although it might still be hard it should not be the terrible struggle people are experiencing. All wrong and not surprising that people feel bitter.

Our total income atm is under 20K (DH works f/t and i work p/t)

We spend no more than £50pw in Tesco. £25pw on fuel. £21pw on buses. We are skint, never known anything like it. DDs are getting new shoes from the GPs for Christmas :( GPs bought them both a winter coat in September, we just could not afford to. I am wearing charity shop shoes to work as I could not afford new ones and there's nothing wrong with charity shop shoes, i just mean with them being used already thri lifespan is going to be very short and I am going to have to go down that route again soon.

DD2 will go to school in August, so our childcare costs will approx half...which will make a difference...oh no wait, probably not, as it will mean a little less from TC every week

Also had overpayment of TC's still paying it off from April. Not due to go 'back to normal' until Feb!

EdgarAllenPond everytime i do the TC calculator, it spits something different out. All alot more than I get.

This post makes me weep, why oh why do hard working people have to struggle to survive, and people on benefits made to feel like scroungers.
We are now OAP's and have 2 dependent DC's and I am embaressed at the large amount of CTC we receive and as we have no mortgage we are comfortable financially with a bit left over, but we were boracic when young so I understand your angst. My point is I suppose is us "baby boomers" are very lucky and is does not seem fair when young people are struggling.
As expat stated just wait until universal credit comes in
Feel better for the rant thanks

We can all look forward to the price of food soaring too, best of all this will be in the next couple of months before Xmas. The harvests have been incredibly bad this year again and it doesn't look like they'll be any better next year either.

Root veg, meat and grain seem to be the worst affected so if you can stock up now, yes it might hurt your budgets a little bit but you'll be saving money in the long run.

I don't drink, don't smoke and haven't had a holiday for seven years! We manage, just, to get by, incidently our biggest outgoing after mortgage is petrol, at nearly three hundred pound a month, but public transport would cost us 250. We live an hour away from work and have to drive. But there are no jobs closer and no affordable housing closer.
But again its not my personal situation I am bemoaning, its that as things get tighter for us, I worry what it will mean for people with less. I don't consider myself in poverty (after all, I have my mobile phone with internet access which is a non essential I suppose), but am aware that people who are in poverty must be getting desperate.
As meepa says its got to break, something has to give.

I don't mean to sound patronising (this is not a stealth boast I promise!) but I honestly don't know how people in local jobs (i.e. not London) get by in the SE. We live in a 2 bed flat, £1450 rent per month, £200 per month council tax, £80 per day for childcare (outside london). I am often the first to drop off and last to pick up DD from her childcare and only work 9-5 so I can only assume other working parents are not doing the same commute as me. If I worked locally it would not even cover childcare. I don't get any benefits but I don't make any money after paying childcare and train fare, the light at the end of the tunnel is that one day DD will be in school and the costs will reduce, and I will have hopefully progressed in my career.

I've started to stock on frozen veg and tinned because although earns a fairly good wage which has to support 5 of us as I can not afford to work because of the cost of childcare.

The harvest across the world has been bad this year the cost of food will rise. in my local green grocer broccoli was £1.50 a pound this week.

YANBU op. We are struggling and worried about how its going to get worse. DH is doing freelance stuff and our savings are all gone.

And with energy prices and mortgage rates rising its getting tighter :(

Prettyplease, what shoe size are you? I bagged some for the charity shop yesterday, including a pair of practically brand new Clarks boots that I can't wear any more because they have a slight heel. If you are a 5 PM me your address and I'll pack the boots up and a couple of pairs of ballet pumps (that's all I wear) and send them to you.

And noisy what shoe size is your DD? I may be able to find some spares if you need anything between a 12-1?

I just got my water bill.
£80
I owe my landlord £100, and am permanently behind with the rent.
I need to move somewhere cheaper, but can't because I need £400 to catch up with the rent first, plus £700 for a deposit on a new house.
I have a plan with my credit card where I only pay £20 a month, but have missed the last payment.
Ds needs new shoes.
When I buy food I stretch out a small packet of mince, adding beans and carrots etc to make it last two days for both of us.
I need an extra job. No one is hiring. There are cleaning jobs, but I can't work 3-6 pm every night as no childcare.
I am really worried about becoming homeless. I have payday loan of £150 which I keep rolling over every month (charge of £37 each time)I had get this to pay the remainder of my last energy bill, or be cut off.
Applying for several jobs a day. Each one has over 50 applicants.

OP, YANBU.

Sorry you are in such a hard place IfNot

Have you thought about a DMP with one of the debt charities?

We're on about 15k here and although dont spend on extravagant things like going abroad, brand clothes, we do have virgin (phone, bb and tv), a flatscreen plasma 3d tv run a 03 plate zafira, eat ok, have 1 uk holiday a year (haven) (plus visit mil once or twice a year, but she pays our petrol there) So it can be done. However that is including tax credits, theres no way in hell we could manage without them.
If anyone is interested in incomings/outgoings i can break things down for you?

Ifnotnow, how old and what shoe size is your ds?

Ifnot, I apologise if you have already done all this but in your position I would really advise an appointment with the CAB. You don't have th money for £20 a month to the credit card people...you have seen that for yourself. They need a token payment of £1 a month as do any other non-essential creditors until your rent etc is up to date. You also need to be able to live and have money to replace clothes and shoes. I am sorry you are in a crappy situation at present, I have been there with severe money worries when my then husband lost his job and I can remember the sheer panic of not being able to pay stuff and getting behind.

Definitely get some advice and n the meantime feed and clothe your family, keep the roof over your head and sod everyone else. You and your family come first every time.

Bedmonster and tutti- I wish the world had more people like you. What a lovely gesture, the generosity you have shown is really heart warming. It's not all bad is it.

Thanks Vaga .
I have sorted my debts personally, so it's not the debts as such, just the being behind thing. If I could just catch up, I would be able to manage. No extras, but we would be OK.
He is size 10.5 I think sleepwhenIdie, but in a bizarre serendipitous turn a friend from his school has just texted me to say she is dropping off some nearly new size 10.5's her son has barely worn!
Ds has teeny feet, so I am the beneficiary of his contemporary's cast offs!

Crossing that off the list

Just been applying for Xmas temping. Most jobs I see lately are working for debt collection companies, which is a sad sign of the times.

Just an idle thought...do you think "we're all in this together" refers to those of us who DON'T have million pound trust funds courtesy of Daddy?

Just a thought....what they should have said is "you're all in this together" and we're in the other place where it's all a bit better.

Cheers Jake, I know, I should do that. I am just the eternal optimist, and have never in the past struggled like this. I have always been really resourceful.
I suppose I am just trying to hang on to my credit, cos If I don't my credit will be so fucked that ds and I will never, ever have our own home, and when my business is back up and running I am hoping things will pan out and I will get back on my feet.
Things have been bad for more than a year though, so you are probably right.

Emsmaman if you have a well paid local job, you pray and pray that it doesn't disappear with redundancy. I count my blessing everyday that I have a professional job outside of london in the SE. I don't know how would do it as I'm already dropping DD off at 8, and I can't pick her up until 5.30. My commute is about 15min.