to think that a girl called Jack should stick to budget cookery tips and NOT bash

[LordElpuss]

people who are losing their child benefit

Guardian article

[Rufus44]

You are right with your last post abritary, pensions will be means tested.

I may well be stuffed by that because although pre children I contributed to my stamp and the taxpayer have very kindly continued to do so while I have not worked, my pension will (I bet) be worked out on my husbands/household and I will get fuck all

My choice not to work full time and contribute to my own pension I know, before anyone says anything. And I am very happy with the choices I made regarding my home life

[Hamwidgeandcheps]

I agree with her. And she self defines as 'a girl' so get over it.

[IceBeing]

I agree with her recipes being a blessing and curse in equal weight.

It is nice to have the advice but the amount of actual calories you get on some of the stuff is just very low. If you were trying to feed a family of 4 by doubling up her recipes you would all be very hungry a lot of the time. And it enables people to say that it is possible when it isn't really.

[ArbitraryUsername]

It is definitely worth pointing out that looking at people's gross salary is largely meaningless. I think people are sitting there thinking 'that's double my salary, they must have twice as much money as me'. But that's not the case.

To double a net salary, you have to do considerably more than double a gross salary. Discounting tax credits and CB, you'd need to go from c. £26k to around £65k to double what actually reaches your bank account. If you have childcare expenses and 2 children you might be getting another £150 or so a week from tax credits and CB. To double the amount of money that hits your bank account every month when you include this income, you'd need to pretty much quadruple your gross salary. That's just the way the tax and benefits system works.

[ArbitraryUsername]

The pricing in the recipes also really annoys me tbh. You don't buy stock cubes individually, or 2 tablespoons of oil at a time, or 100ml of natural yoghurt to cool your curry down (the stuff that comes out cheap for 100ml comes in big pots). The stock and oil might keep in you cupboard so you can benefit from the 'well I only used 2p worth' logic but the yoghurt certainly won't. You have to use 100ml of yoghurt in all your bloody meals that week for it to have actually cost 35p or whatever is being claimed.

It annoys me because it makes it all look much cheaper than it is when you fill up a basket to try to make a week's worth of such meals.

[Trills]

If you look at her blog the pricing is actually reasonably sensible, She'll post one day that she bought a value bag of 3 aubergines, then post an aubergine recipe, then the next day post another aubergine recipe, to use them up.

[ArbitraryUsername]

Yes, but the pricing has displayed in the bloody guardian doesn't have the context of 'I bought a cheap bag of X and we ate it for a fortnight until we were heartily fed up'. No, in the guardian it appears that the curry (this week's recipe) just costs 60 or 70p a portion.

And the lack of context makes it appear that you'll be totally satisfied by this portion, because there isn't the explanation about how being poor means that you are often hungry even though you got some nutrients in to you today.

I think I'm more annoyed at the idiots at the guardian who genuinely don't see that by pretending you can actually source just 2p of oil anywhere, they're making it look like life is cheaper than it is. And ignoring the massive amounts of planning and effort it would take to manage to buy stuff so that your weekly shop comes in at £10 or whatever.

[frumpet]

If you earn say £52 K , does she really think you get all of that money ? Someone earning that amount pays a lot of tax , 40 % on some of it i believe . Which is fine that is the rules , but still i think it is naive to think that you get a wage slip with £1000 in every week !

[ArbitraryUsername]

To get £1000 a week after tax, NI, student loan and pension contributions (which is what comes off many people's salaries in professional type jobs), you need to be earning around £100k. It would be much better if people understood quite how little of their gross salary higher earners actually have to spend on anything.

Sure you earn nearly £2k a week gross, but you only get about half of that in the bank. Yes, £1000 a week is still lots of money, but it is much less than the gross salary people seem to imagine you have to spend.

[PeppiNephrine]

Why do you think people imagine you have 50k to spend just because they are using that figure?
We're not all that stupid. Even the poor folks understand about taxes.

[frumpet]

Not everyone who earns over 50k is toff banker either , most of the people i know who earn that have worked their way up or spent a long time training to be able to acheive that sort of wage . Or work 60 plus hours a week !

[frumpet]

Peppi , because in the link she goes on about earning a £1000 a week as though that is what you actually have to spend if you earn that amount , which clearly you dont . Not suggesting that the majority of people dont realise that

[PeppiNephrine]

But you're assuming that she is thinking you have that to spend. Perhaps she is assuming that we all know that you have to make deductions from that.
It doesn't really matter in essence when its about comparisons. 200£ a week or 1000£ a week...you make deductions from both, more deductions from the latter...but the basic fact is that one is still a lot bigger than the other.

[frumpet]

I earn a lot less than the magic £50 k , about a fifth of that infact , so to be fair i dont pay an awful lot of tax . The thing that i have noticed over the years , since i was a poor single parent student , is that so many things have shot up in price that effect day to day living . For instance running a car , i mananged to keep an old little car on the road when i was a student , but the cost of petrol/diesel , car tax and insurance have gone up substantially . The cost of utilities again have shot up . Food shopping seems a lot more expensive , perhaps that is just me i am not sure . These are all things that eat away at the money you actually do end up with on payday .

[Didactylos]

I didnt particularly like the article - I think shes falling into the divide and rule camp. I actually firmly believe that CB should be one of the few universal benefits - have you read some of the stories on here over the years of financial and emotional abuse, and people (who on paper would be financially stable if they had equitable partnerships) using this money to get them and their children out of such situations. And the social cohesion produced by

I am going to fill in a tax return and pay back part of the child benefit I recieve this year and am happy to do so if thats the current rules. I do earn a good wage - between 50-60 thousand this year so am not complaining about lack of money. But - I have an unstable job, change employers every 3-6 months and at the start of the financial year really have only a ballpark figure of my predicted earnings - and if any big changes occur during the year eg ill health & sick leave, maternity leave, paid and unpaid carers leave or even loss of job then the CB will be a comparatively larger part of my income and would be appropriate to claim during these times. All these issues have come up over the last few years and CB has variously gone from being barely noticeable contribution to 'depended on for groceries', depending on the month or circumstances. Also - speaking to a friend who had left the country with her children for a few years and thus not claimed CB, she had lots of problems accessing benefits for her children (uk citizens) when she needed to when her circumstances and needs changed partly due to the lack of the paper trail in their names.

btw - its probably not sexist and patronising to refer to her as a 'girl' since that is how she has titled her blog

[frumpet]

Perhaps i am misreading her intention . You are right of course one is more than the other . I accept that my earning power is less than say someone who studied for 7 years to be a Doctor and i have no issue personally with them earning more than me , nor the people who started off in call centres and worked their way up to directors . Why should i be angry about them earning more than me ?

[frumpet]

The thing is aswell those people over the 50k , will have to pay back that part of CB that is expected , so what if 165,000 people havent got round to signing up for self assessment , they will get fined and have to do it anyway , the tax office do not piss about when you owe them money !

[womma]

Oh the poor middle classes! Boo hoo. You have
no idea do you?

[Viviennemary]

I don't shed any tears for people losing child benefit. But I see why they are cross about it. I can't stand the Guardian and its sanctimonious approach to everything.

[Norudeshitrequired]

2 adults and 4 children is nit the norm though :/

Even with 3 kids they would be getting around the benefit capped amount of 26k, especially if their rent is more than £180 per week.

And housing benefit going straight to the landlord
The working person also has to pay rent or mortgage out of their income too - their housing doesn't come for free just because they are working.

I'm a big fan of the benefit system whether it be to support people in times of unexpected circumstances or to top up low wages. But it really gets my goat when people think 'oh but you don't need child benefit because you earn £50k, but I need it because I only get unemployment benefits'. When the reality is that disposable income might not be much different and both sets of people might equally need the child benefit to buy shoes or food for the children.
I think higher rate tax payer would be more supportive of the benefits system if they felt fairly treated and dint end up worse off financially for working (which can be the case once you factor in childcare and commuting costs). It's very difficult for a family who work many many hours and forego precious time with their children to feel happy about having their child benefit removed when the couple down the street don't work and have the same disposable income (or more in a minority of cases).

My household is not affected by the child benefit means testing so I have no reason to feel resentful of anybody. I just think the whole situation is a farce and set to breed resentment.

[frumpet]

Am sitting here trying to work out what class i am , if i am middle or working ? I think i am elements of both , but it would depend how it is calculated ?

[frumpet]

Womma , can someone start off in life working class and end up middle class ? in which case the middle class would have an idea wouldnt they ?

[fatlazymummy]

Why are people quibbling over her pricing? It's pretty obvious you can't buy a single stock cube. However , you can buy a pack for 20p, as she states. I shop at Sainsbury's (mainly), as she does, and I find her pricing quite accurate.
Regarding her portion sizes, she states quite clearly that her child is a toddler. Common sense tells us that older children, teenagers and adults will need more. She's only sharing what worked for her, not dictating that everyone should eat exactly the same thing. Personally I quite like her recipes as I'm a vegetarian and I already cook with lentils and pulses.

[Norudeshitrequired]

Research suggests that there are now seven different classes. Middle class is split into things like: emerging middle class, traditional middle class and upper middle class. There is also an underclass which is defined as those who don't work and have no desire to do so without good reason or are regularly engaged in criminal activity. It is more complex than that as there are lots of related factors that define class and status.

Middle class traditionally was defined by your education and job status, background, cultural awareness and housing status.
A teacher would be middle class because they are educated to degree level and in a skilled profession, likewise social workers, nurses etc.

I just don't think that class is clear cut anymore.

[fatlazymummy]

trumpet it used to be defined by the occupation of the male wage earner, so as a child you would be defined by your father's occupation (manual labour = w/c ,etc), then by your husband's occupation if you married.
Of course there's cultural elements to account for also.