Here is my total income as a lone parent on benefits.

[HereBeHubbubs]

Inspired by a thread which is glorifying us lone parents as 'rolling in it', I'm prepared to declare my benefits income. It's not gauche to do so, because it's your money after all (looks at taxpayers), and you should probably know that I am also grateful for this support, prepad to pay back into the pool when working again, and am not extravagant nor consider this a 'lifestyle choice'.

I don't have Sky, a plasma tele, holidays, credit or catalogue accounts, smoke, drink and rarely socialise due to childcare issues. I buy all our clothes from charity shops. I do however have a concession rate council leisure centre swim membership of £18 a month and a £10 rolling contract mobile phone, with a phone somebody gave me.

I am terrible at budgeting and have been living on a £500 overdraft for at least the last couple of years - I never have enough income to return the account into the black, so I'm generally always at least £400 overdrawn.

My utilities are on prepayment meters currently eating up old debt weekly and a not competitive tariff.

I'm currently looking for work and can't understand how people sit at home without good reason, because since my youngest started school, I have been going stir crazy and begun to feel quite down and despondent about not working.

Fortunes will change in the near future as doubtless I will find work, but meanwhile, when you break down the cost of my outgoings, hopefully you can see that lone parents really are not 'rolling in it'.
Especially the ones who receive little or no maintencance from their absent children's father.
Unimagined outgoings include things like termly Brownies subs, school snacks at £8 a month, school shoes every new term, birthday and Christmas presents, rent shortfall £75 a month, winter utilities alone are £40 a week each gas and electric.

Lone parent age 45, two children 5 and 7, private rented three bed (officially two as one leads off the bathroom) terrace Anglia region.'Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit don't enter my bank account, they're paid direct to recipients.

Weekly Income
5.00 CSA
72.40 JobSeekers Allowance
34.05 Child Benefit
114.08 Child Tax Credit

£225.53 week
£902.12 every month

"To ask her if she is embarrassed about 'all that money' was pretty low on the part of that poster."

I agree that there is nothing to be embarrassed about (with such a big, fucked up system, morality doesn't really enter into things), and that the ultimate beneficiary of the system are land owners (employers not so much IMO - though they do benefit from unlimited low-paid immigrant labour).

But saying all that, the £225.53 week figure is simply wrong because it doesn't include council tax and rent. Nobody would quote their income after deducting these.

I thought it was £900 a month after the biggest bills are paid?

Arsenic, I feel like a rude person now. Sorry OP !! i accept i came across as rude with my question and I thank you again for being so brave with your post.

I'm a solicitor and spent 5 years at university and 2 years training on the job before qualifying. After housing costs and council tax my take home pay is less than £900.00 PCM. To me, it seems that you are better off than a lot of working parents. Well that's all relative to how much your housing costs are isn't it?

i'm just lost because when i was on benefits my income (not including council tax and housing benefit) was £150pw including child benefit so not sure how you get so much. out of that i had to pay about £20 in rent and council tax shortfalls (down to £130) and about £50 a week in utilities (down to £80). That was £80 to spend on mine and my son's food, clothing, cleaning materials, toiletries, travel etc.

do you really get a whole extra seventy odd quid a week for a second child? that seems madness.

I thought it was £900 a month after the biggest bills are paid? No, before Unimagined outgoings include things like termly Brownies subs, school snacks at £8 a month, school shoes every new term, birthday and Christmas presents, rent shortfall £75 a month, winter utilities alone are £40 a week each gas and electric.*

as I understand it, OP, your income has to cover £75 towards rent, utilities, food, travel etc etc. It also covers some other things which may not be essentials to life but make it fun - and so it should.

your utility bills seem to be £240 a month which is huge - even on prepayment you should be able to reduce that. Of course you are paying off debt on it so it may reduce as that clears.

You should also cut right back on presents and sparkly Christmas tat to get rid of your overdraft.

I live on about that without rent/mortgage, but as I own my place I have to maintain it - but then I don't have kids here. I don't have Sky etc and also generally buy clothes in charity shops; where there is more choice and stuff is cheaper. Who wouldn't?

my (rambling) point is that it seems enough, which is as it should be. The tricky bit is whether it is financially viable for you to work - and of course why sperm donor doesn't pay his share.

The plain fact is money doesn't go as far as it used to. I had far more money 6/7 years ago, since then bills and petrol has gone up 20/30% and my wages about 2%. We could manage a few years ago on my salary quite nicely with the odd treat, now I'm struggling the end of every month and well into my overdraft permanently.

I can't see the incentive for the OP to work, frankly. To earn more than that, plus account for the extras (such as free school meals, prescriptions etc) is going to take more than £26,000 and that's assuming she could command that wage after many years out of the workplace (I don't know her qualifications).

I don't know any other country that operates a system where wages are topped up as they are by tax credits in the UK, it's absolute madness and the beneficiaries are the companies who pay low wages while we all pretend that work pays. Given that we are still printing money, and given that mortgage rates are (artificially) low and have never stayed this low before, I do fear the day of financial reckoning is around the corner. If most of those with mortgages suddenly had to pay 7% or god forbid 10% as in previous recessions, the consequences would be dire.

I don't have any more spending money than the OP for doing a professional job, but I'd much rather be me than her. I have the potential to earn more in the future, and if the shit hits the fan and benefits are slashed, I won't be affected as much as those very dependent on them (same for tax credits which I don't claim after under/overpayments and a fluctuating income). I also like my job and feel productive, not judged and wondering what the future may bring. I don't have any of the supposed benefits of working though- like a mortgage (we rent), holidays (go to stay with relatives), nice meals out (KFC bargain bucket anyone?) or fancy clothes (charity shops do nicely for me too). I can see why for those who haven't got a professional job, or many prospects, or who have been out of the workplace for years (if for ever if they had children young) then working full-time is extremely not tempting.

another child doesn't cost an extra £70pw - a) the children are young enough to share a room, b) your food bill doesn't double due to one more child and your utilities stay essentially the same.

i do think we need to relook at a situation whereby having an extra child sees you with much higher income in real terms. i can of course be accused of being biased but i think child benefit should be a flat rate amount (say the current equivalent of two children) and whether you have 1 or 10 children that's all you get. i also do not think you should get double the child tax credit for a second child - instead it should again be a flatrate parent with care allowance at say the rate of two currently and you get no more and no less whether you have 1 or 10 children.

i don't however think that i was rolling in it on benefits - my total income (including hb and council tax benefit) was approximately £12k from which came everything. i'm a bit amazed that the OP has nearly the same as that AFTER housing costs just by having one more child [shocked]

Arsenic, I feel like a rude person now. Sorry OP !! i accept i came across as rude with my question and I thank you again for being so brave with your post.

I can see now you probably meant the source of her income?

The truth is (i think) for a non-property-owning woman who has been screwed over by the father of her children to make her way back to full financial self-sufficiency can be a long road. Lack of practical childcare support, lack of child maintainence, (lack of family nearby helping out maybe) added difficulties like disabilities or DV trauma can make a big difference.

I wish truly absent men got more of the opprobrium. The women who stay and do everything are the heroes.

Has no-one one here made the connection that the reason why they have so little left over after working is due to the high taxes required to pay some 900/month + rent to stay at home and do nothing?

Call me hard but we need a proper, contribution based benefit system - like our 'socialist' European neighbours. You pay in. If you lose your job you get xx% of your pay for 18 months. Then very little.

UK benefits are a joke. They punish working people and reward the idle.

we do not have high taxes and i was massively better off when i went back to work.

this is myth peddling. i'm also still trying to get my head round how the OP could be on so much. it bears no relation to what i got.

I don't understand why people work full time in the UK. What's the point? If you are lucky you get a few pounds a week more than being on benefits. Why work all those hours for £70? Once you knock off work costs like travel, clothes, lunch etc it means you hourly rate is about £1 an hour.

Now housing costs are so high, people daft enough to work are just being farmed by the government to generate more taxes to pay for shrewder people living off the state. This is why Osborne did his Help to Buy scheme. Make houses more expensive, so workers have to work more hours to buy one and because they have to work more hours they pay more taxes.

People are living longer blah blah blah..... so retirement has to be at a higher age blah blah blah.... it's just a trick to try make the workers pay those taxes for longer. So shrewder people don't have to work and can live off the state.

Unless you have a really good job paying lots of money, working is just for mugs in the UK. Pop a couple of kids out and get a council house is the way forward. You just need plenty of activities to keep you busy. Walking is cheap.

The point is that work is about more than financial reward surely. But even on a low wage I am still much better off than I was on benefits.

I was discussing something similar with my friend. She's a lone parent divorced with 50/50 shared care so no maintenance. She is about to start an additional part time job on top of get full time job to get extra money for Christmas.

This is what's changed over the years. When I had ds 1 17 years ago. We were on a low single income but not legible for tax credits so in irder to get more income one of us got part time work. Now those on low incomes and entitled to tax credits housing benefit etc are often stuck. If they earn more money it often needs to be a huge jump up from the main earners salary.

If a couple with two dc, husband working full time at minimum wage and so they receive £150 a week in top up benefits. This means to be better off the other income has to be more than £150 a week? Until they earn more than the top benefit they won't be any better off as it will be deducted from tax credits for example.

Whilst tax credits are good in theory they have also created a trap. You can fully understand why a mum would decide to stay at home and claim too up benefits on top of dad's low paid work than the life my parents used to live which was crossing in the hallway as my dad got home and my mum went to work. I know that is a very sexist example but I hope it illustrates what I mean about the tax credit trap.

Has no-one one here made the connection that the reason why they have so little left over after working is due to the high taxes required to pay some 900/month + rent to stay at home and do nothing?

The numbers of benefit claimants are not high.

We could have even lower unemployment if we weren't importing large amounts of unskilled labour.

Affordable (lower case or upper case) housing would also ease matters.

Taxes are not particularly high, in fact.

The OP couldn't stay in her current circs long-term even if she wanted to, because a punitive sanction regime is in place and jobcentre staff are under pressure to issue sanctions (stop benefits) for the slightest infringement. This is not a long-term entitlement.

Whilst tax credits are good in theory they have also created a trap. You can fully understand why a mum would decide to stay at home and claim too up benefits on top of dad's low paid work than the life my parents used to live which was crossing in the hallway as my dad got home and my mum went to work.

Absolutely true Help. Unfortunately the chance to correct that (and other) perverse incentive/ flaw in the system, which Universal Credit offered has been used as an opportunity to grind faces even further into the mud.

Sorry, you are wrong. The number of claimants - tax credit claimants - is sky high.

Family tax credits. Working tax credits. Whatever tax credits.

The cost is running ~20bln/year. Its nuts.

The number of people on the 'dole'/ JSA etc IS low.

Which are you discussing? Out of work benefits? Or in work top-ups?

First you said;

Has no-one one here made the connection that the reason why they have so little left over after working is due to the high taxes required to pay some 900/month + rent to stay at home and do nothing?

Then you said;

Sorry, you are wrong. The number of claimants - tax credit claimants - is sky high.

Family tax credits. Working tax credits. Whatever tax credits.

The cost is running ~20bln/year. Its nuts.

The number of people on the 'dole'/ JSA etc IS low.

It is two different issues.

Wages need topping up because they are inadequate to meet living costs. We could solve that at a stroke by drastically increasing the minimum wage, but there is a lot of resistance to that idea.

As you say yourself, the number of people on OOW benefits is low, so can't possibly be the cause of (allegedly, not actually) high taxes.

Or living costs need to fall to meet wages.

Which they will not if benefits are bumped up, forcing more working people to pay more tax.

Our taxes are high.

The UK spending is even higher - we are running a ~8% budget deficit.

You get a bit more than us and my dp works full time (and lots of extra unpaid hours!) while I work part time.

Like us you get enough to cover rent, bills, food, and some clothes and extras for your dc. That seems reasonable to me, you're not going to be on job seekers forever and will hopefully be back working soon. I much prefer to have a safety net where children have a roof over their heads, food, and clothes than out on the street begging for money.

Tax credits are not inflating living costs.

You are not seriously proposing to attempt the cost of living back down by withdrawing tax credits?

£505 pm month after rent/utilities/council tax here.

Arsenic what do you think about politicians who suggest (a) raising the minimum wage to 10 an hour and (b) raising the tax personal allowance to 10k a year?

I agree that we can't just cut benefits and hope that wages rise.

Could we force at least some wages up with a rise to the minimum wage, improve tax home pay by a rise in the personal allowance, and perhaps recycle some of that back to the employer with a cut in employers' NI rates?