£1,730 Aibu that this is alot of money

[RiceAndP]

Maybe I'm being judgey/pissed off on a Rainey day today. Friend of mine has just booked herself a weeks all inclusive holiday to gran canaries, leaving her 2 DC with her husband. He doesn't work and neither does she, has no intention of and says " Why should I". This will be the third time she has gone away this year not counting her four day trip away at Christmas, staying in a four star hotel.
Last week in the hot weather she brought an enormous swimming pool costing £180. I'm sitting there thinking shit, that would be my food bill for two months.
This week I would dearly love to take DC out for the day but cant afford to. I work but am taking this week as holiday.
I can never hope to have this sort of wage into my house of £1,730 each month? Granted one of her Dc has a mild disability and has an active life in all he does, goes to school every day. Has to attend hospital appointments twice a year for check ups.
She also gets full H/B and C/T so really that's a lot of money going into taking care of this household.
I need a bloody holiday just to get over the figures given to people that don't work... Aibu..

I went back to f/t work after being on benefits a few years ago and as I monitor my expenditure very tightly I know that I was worse off working, especially for the first year. I'd had a 'better off in work' calculation done and they showed I was better off in work by about £45pw. This included travel costs and childcare, plus I got a grant for clothes. But I've had to spend more money on work clothes, dry cleaning, have less time to shop frugally (can't get to supermarket in time for reductions) or cook from scratch, can no longer get certain discounted classes for me or the dds, pay for prescriptions/dental treatment (been quite expensive this year), have had to spend money on work social events, paying full cost for things like school trips, can't get cheap discount card for council gym etc or use off-peak offers etc. I've got used to it now, and I manage because I've always been good at budgeting, but looking at my spreadsheets I know that life was much cheaper before. The simple mathematics definitely puts me on a higher income, but it's quite blunt and doesn't take into account more discretionary grants/discounts, especially things like charity grants or concessionary rates for leisure activities.

I'd love to know where people get all these discounts for classes and gym memberships if you are on benefits, there's fuck all around here.

I am in a London borough and here you can get a discount card for a year for £5 which gives you 50% off swimming and off-peak classes, plus some extras like holiday courses. Also used to do some adult ed classes in subjects like languages and sewing, which was about half price for concessions.

Again would love to know about all these discounts.

My son is severely disabled, he is learning to swim. Swimming lessons cost £3.50 for half an hour. As my son needs higher supervision then this they won't allow him in the group lessons.
That means he needs to have 1-1 lessons at a cost of £20 for half an hour.

That's just one extra expense. It's lucky he gets DLA because without it we would have no chance. It's designed to cover the extra costs of having a disability and believe me they are huge costs!

Added to the fact that most parents of severely disabled children struggle to work and get the insulting amount of £55 a week carers paid instead it is really hard to believe that people on benefits struggle?

I was on a high salary, owned my own house, had a nice car. All gone now. When I get a phone call from school at least 3 times a week saying you need to come NOW its impossible to hold down any job.

Specialist childcare costs £15 an hour as he can't access mainstream childcare so even a low paid more flexible job is out of the question.

It's truely depressing to think this is our life now, and its even more depressing when you hear all these benefit bashers who would rather see you and your family starve. Noone chooses this life, but disability can happen to anyone and when it does it life changing.

We have Active Scheme run by the local council. If you're on unemployment benefit it's free to join and gives adults half price gym and swimming at council run gyms and pools. If you are school aged this is free and entitles you to free swimming. People on WTC have to pay £5 a year for half price gym and swimming. Classes are not included.

The vast majority of the leasure card discounts are not just available for those on out of work benefits they are also available to this on low incomes including people in work.

Protege, have a look on your LA's website under leasure centres they usually give the discount cards to those on DLA. And some will for the parents as well.

Penguin. You can't count things like more expensive food and dry cleaning and social events those are choice as are work clothes over and above the items you got with your grant. Even if it does not appear to be that is a choice you make plenty of people don't get dry clean only items and only have inexpensive and very few work type clothes especially in the type of job that is £45pw more than out of work benefits.

Also charities are nothing to do with benefits and a huge huge amount of them are also open to applications from low income families.

This thread is from 2013 !!

How on earth did you manage to find an 11 year old thread!?

Those were the days when you could buy two months of food for £180.

I really think that MN needs to lock threads after a few years so people can't dig up the zombies!

I saw it was a zombie straight away but read through anyway. Not sure what’s more depressing - that in 11 years spending £100 on a monthly food shop has gone from excessive to ‘on your arse’ minimal, or that carers allowance has only gone up £46 in that time….

I see why you feel aggrieved, l have a disabled child (who can go to school mostly) work FT as does DH and have never claimed a penny, I changed career to accomodate my child and still earn FT.
We earn relatively well but that is down to the choices we have made and the insane hours we work.
However l would hate to live a parasitic life, with the take take take attitude of this person.
Before everyone jumps on me l am ONLY talking about this particular situation not others.
l know friends whose disabled children require round the clock care and l am fully onboard that my taxes pay for a decent standard of living for their situation.

It is certainly an eye-opener.