To believe £780 month lone parent benefits income is adequate to live on.

[goldfacegreen]

There's some myth busting required at last I think.

As a lone parent of two under 6, I receive a total of £780 a month in benefits:

Income Support, Child Tax Credit, Child Benefit, CSA (£5 a week).

I receive full housing benefit for a two bedroom house (£75 shortfall which has to come out of my income support, currently being paid via Housing Discretion Award) which doesnt go into mybank account, it gets paid direct to landlord, and £16 a month council tax shortfall also has to be paid out of income.

I'm on meters and gas and electric are around £20 a week each, some of which pays off accrued debt. Water is deducted directly from my income support via an 'attachment of earnings' type court order.

I don't have loans or credit cards, no landline, no satellite tele, no car, no travel expenses, no socialising costs, don't smoke, my Internet is paid for by someone else although I should have organised a bill swap ages ago and I run an old phone on £10 month contract. My other costs are regular swimming, yoga, wax salon, and I buy school uniform and children's clothing as and when required.

Childcare such as nursery (pre-school), morning and after school clubs are free to those on income support, school holiday clubs are heavily subsidised, as are school meals, dentistry, doctor's prescriptions, council run leisure centre swimming and gym classes, and many other recreation facilities.

My budgeting skills are atrocious but having recently done some sums, I actually have around £250 a month 'spare' from all benefits income. Although for the past year or two I've been constantly overdrawn by around £500 so whenever income is credited, I'm always 'one step forwards, two steps back' amd because of this will never get back in the black again.

So, with better budgeting (I don't buy a regular weekly food shop for instance, instead spend a fortune every few days buying dinners and sundries at the overpriced local Tesco Metro) I just don't understand how so many lone parents claim they can't afford to live on these same benefits.
Even if you have debts, there are features in place to reduce your debt payments to just £1 a week or even write them off altogether as a last resort.

Also, the father of my children earns thousands but fraudulently claims benefits, so he is only required to pay the minimum £2.50 a week per child direct from his benefits. Many lone mothers receive full child support which isn't deducted from their other benefits income, so can be receiving up to £800 a month on top of their benefits depending on what the chikdren's father earns. I have noticed that rarely will lone parents on benefits state this fact or include it in their income along with their complaint.

Yes, it is a struggle trying to support myself and two young children on £780 a month (but mostly because I can't get over this overdraft debt shackle) but on paper, budgeting well, it is entirely doable, and if you are frugal, you could even save a little too.

Why does the Daily Mail stereotype exist that single mothers are rolling in handouts, given the above figures? Just under £195 a week is an adequate income for one adult and two young children, surely..

Not having a go justtoomessy, just pointing out that you have far more than you realise. And if you didn't work you would not get to spend every evening at home.....because eventually you would not have that home. You have money tied up in your house..,..it will be yours and worth far more (hopefully) in the future than it cost.

I am currently on benefits and I don't have the surplus cash which tbe OP seems to have.....not by the time I have paid the bills, I only habe one child though so don't habe the same struggles which perhaps others do.

I was far better off financially when I was in work.....and work also has other benefits too. Not least the sagisfaction of feeling you are doing something.

I am lucky enough to have a qualification which means I can walk back into a job one day, Until then though I will claim and not feel guilty (been there and done that).

I can understand why you feel this way in response to the OP though.....I used to feel the same way when I was working. That ship soon sailed once I was in a position of having to leave the job I loved and the lovely £38k salary it gave me. It isnt the same and it isnt easy.

Justtoomessy - you simply cannot base your conclusions on you being better off simply by looking at one post from one person in one part of the country when you have not been on benefits yourself. I used to think like you - and then I lost everything (as in all I had for my son and me was 1 suitcase of clothes between us). I most certainly was not better off (except for not having an abusive partner in my life anymore)

You have no issues triptrap with the breakfast club issue and were not being snidey?

Read back over your post and count the incredulous amount of question and exclamation marks.

Yes you were.

I am not being sneery nor do I have an issue.I do,however,find it wrong,in one sense,for clubs to be free for those on benefits only but can see why some do it due to perceptions and possible familial difficulties.

None of our local schools offer a free breakfast club....everyone pays the same regardless of ehere their money comes from.

I suspect the only "free to use if on benefits" breakfast clubs are running projects and have additional funding to enable them to do so,

There are some "facts" in this thread that simply aren't true for everyone.

Rent assistance/deposit scheme is NOT available to all. My local council for example abolished it soon after the first wave of austerity cuts (as did many, many others).

"Free" white goods/furniture are NOT available to everyone. It is available in my area only through referral, assessed level of need and availability. I know people who have not had a washing machine for upward of 9 months because it's not considered a valid need (apparently they can use some of their benefits money to pay for the laundrette, as well as the £3.10 busfare each journey several times a week).

"Free" childcare univerally for those on benefits is a myth. It doesn't apply in my local area, and I suspect more places don't offer it than do. Any child over a certain age qualifies for a certain number of free hours, regardless of the parental working status. The limit to those on income support with children aged 2 is simply an extension of this. While it is certainly a welcome bonus, as is the subsidised childcare for those working but on a low income, it won't make it possible to work in many cases. It's only up to 70%, and even at the full 70%, if you have to find 30% out of a very low income it can leave you impoverished. Furthermore, those on low incomes are far more likely to have to work shift patterns, which mean the hours of 8-6 (the hours offered by most CMs, preschools, nurseries and school clubs) aren't much help.

Benefits in this country have been set at a very precise level. They are adequate for daily/weekly needs in the short term. However, as soon as something goes wrong or an unexpected expense occurs, you are shafted. And it always does because that's life. THat's not taken into account often enough IMO.

Also, IMO, there is not enough recognition of the fact that many people end up claiming benefits as the result of some sort of disaster which has incurred substantial costs already - family breakdown and job loss being the two most common ones. Chances are that people in these situations will be starting a life on benefits with debts that require servicing or a whole load of items they need to buy from scratch which will create debt (crisis grants now being no longer available).

Everyone's circumstances are different. You don't need a car other people might even to get to their local supermarket. But I do think benefit needs to be looked at. What puzzles me is how some people seem to do very well and others seem to struggle even to afford the basics. It can't be all down to financial planning.

cant read all but dont you think if you can afford waxing,yoga etc YOU should be paying YOUR own blardy rent and council tax top up,NOT get the poor fund to pay it,ffs

please can you answer this one please op

these funds are for genuine cases,not so you can go to yoga,you do realise you are depriving somebody else of help

and if you did pay the full amount without this help,i dont think you would find it so easy

Consider someone living in location x which is a small village in rural Lancashire. The nearest supermarket is about 10 miles away and a day ticket for the bus costs £7. It's not the biggest supermarket going and doesn't stock clothes, the town it is in isn't the greatest for shopping for children's things. So yes someone in that kind of situation has more outgoings before you even start buying things. Look on the brightside though x still has a bus service y & z recently lost theirs .

There was a thread recently about driving secondary children to school and some people stated cost of public transport, the wide variation in costs of public transport was staggering.

People wanking themselves off about their excellent budgeting skills are either not living on benefits now (even in the last two or three years, the cost of everyday living has gone up a lot more than the amount of benefits people get), have never tried living on benefits, or have only been doing so for a short time.
Everyone who is on benefits (or NMW) for any length of time will have debt, and it will be expensive debt, because the only people who will lend money to the poor are people who intend to make a major profit from them by charging interest rates of up to 3000% for short term loans. Poor people get into debt because of emergencies, no matter how 'careful' they are with their money.
To those with savings or access to a straightforward overdraft, something like a broken cooker/window or a child having a sudden growth spurt and needing a while new wardrobe is not an emergency. To the poor, it is. It needs fixing. It costs money, and you have to borrow the money. Then you're repaying it for years and years, several times over.

theywillgrowup

Have you considered the possibility that your questions may have already been covered in thread with over 600 posts?

Just a thought.

Solid gold is right but consider someone on benefits who has had to move and needs to furnish a house what options do they have? Brighthouse is often the only option, in my area there are no furniture recycling places, there are charity shops who sell furniture but don't deliver so if you don't have access to transport your options are limited even more. There is an auction house that you can pick things up very cheaply from but again you need transport. In so many little ways life on benefits can be so much harder in ways that most people couldn't imagine.

Sorry,but as much as some struggle on benefits not everyone ends up in debt.Out of those who do,like it or not,some are for gadgets or other non essentials.

Also,for needs such as clothing,household goods etc there are budgeting loans from the DWP.You do not need to go to expensive lenders or brighthouse.

Triptrap if you are leaving a relationship and can't take anything with you and starting to claim benefits then you don't qualify for a budgeting loan and often these things do go together. You have to have been claiming for 6 months to get a budgeting loan.

Budgeting loans are not available to all, TripTrap

FFS gadgets are essentials, these days. If you don't have some form of internet access at home, you are pretty much crippled and excluded from society and so are your DC. You need internet access to fill out forms, save money on bills, for DC to do their homework, etc etc. And never mind all this waaah, waah, send the peasants to the library - the library might be miles away, only have one computer, or only be open two days a week. And trying to go online in a library with two toddlers in tow is hardly desirable.

I really am tired of all these smug shitbags who think that the poor should live at subsistence, outsider level, humbly grateful for a diet of bread and water and a sack to wrap themselves in, indefinitely. One day it could be you, you know. It wouldn't take much. An incapacitating illness or accident which suddenly means that one family member needs 24/7 care. Another wave of redunancies and cutbacks which mean that not just your job but practically every job in the area you're capable of is gone. Your partner becoming so abusive that you have to leave with nothing but what you stand up in (Yes, the police could escort you back for your belongings, but if your abuser has made a bonfire of the lot, there's nothing that can be done).

At the JC they expect you to use the internet to find jobs. They give you websites to look at.

I wouldn't have got my interview tomorrow if it wasn't for the internet. I applied Monday night and received the call for am interview yesterday morning.

So having the internet is a big help also a necessity

when I split with exh I was on benifits for a few months untill found work, i was astounded to find once all in place all inc, so hb, income support, cct, ct, I was getting almost 2000 a month.
ridiculous amout , way above what we we needed.
I dont understand how some say they cant manage.

ginger read the thread and you might realise!

Its not too bad if your house is already set up, if youve got nothing or something breaks then it really is bloody hard to get the money together, It took me years to carpet the place and for most of that time I waa working on nmw

and when I separated from ex, it took ages for the benefits to get sorted, so I had to get a payday loan just to make sure the basics were paid for.

Not everyone gets almost £2k a month gingermop. In fact, a lot don't. Just because you did, doesn't mean everyone does. It all varies according to circumstance.

I have worked out that I get around £822 a month including HB.

theywillgrowup

I read replies every day so I try not to miss any questions put to me.
To answer your's, I believe the housing discretion award runs only for a limited time, 12 months here I think.

Maybe my calculation are wrong but I looked into this when leaving my exP and I made it considerably more a month without housing and council benefit.
Surely you receive more like £950 a month though.
Income support is 71 a week or 305 a month.
Child benefit 145 a month
Child tax credits £500 a month

I really am tired of all these smug shitbags who think that the poor should live at subsistence, outsider level, humbly grateful for a diet of bread and water and a sack to wrap themselves in, indefinitely. One day it could be you, you know. It wouldn't take much. An incapacitating illness or accident which suddenly means that one family member needs 24/7 care. Another wave of redunancies and cutbacks which mean that not just your job but practically every job in the area you're capable of is gone. Your partner becoming so abusive that you have to leave with nothing but what you stand up in (Yes, the police could escort you back for your belongings, but if your abuser has made a bonfire of the lot, there's nothing that can be done).

Well said SGB