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

Sorry - I am coming to this quite late and have been unable to read the thread through.

Thanks for your disclosure Herebe - interesting stuff.

I really don't know where people would draw the line if they think Herebe (and others) get too much. Should we stop private landlords being in receipt of "taxpayers money" for instance. In any case, I assume that a large proportion of benefit money goes back into the national and (even more importantly) local economy.

More important to concentrate on a significant increase in the minimum wage IMO. I favour that over the re-distribution of money through the tax system (e.g. working tax credits - let's not forget that most benefit recipients are in work) because I am getting increasingly annoyed at subsidising employers. And - a bit of joined-up thinking required - the country needs to provide good quality & heavily state-subsidised childcare for all.

I am a higher rate tax payer and would be willing to pay for for the above by the way - especially the childcare.

The are sex work.

They are verbal, aural, mental, spirital prostitution.

^spiritual

I dont see why as surely self employed it is an expense.
Not a sensible reasonable one if you are trying to make a profit.
It sounds like fiddling without techically doing anything wrong.
As with giving up work voluntarily and then claiming

Wages should be enough we shouldnt need tax credit etc. (except maybe if you need to work round school hrs.)

I dont understand why OP had no money before having kids at 38, surely some savings, property, morgage etc. something just seems wrong here as usually you would expect it to be young women making the judgement errors seen here - wrong man who doesnt want to provide for kids.

If she was working before kids then again it comes down to low wages not enabling savings (but also to what would be the point saving as then you dont get any help)

I only pay £100pm gas and electric. Are you running a sauna?

The more we pay the people on benefits it puts the cost of living up for those working as others can afford to pay £230pm for gas/electric, fuel costs, food.

Cost to tax payer over £1000pm plus fsm, prescriptions, admin, dentist, optician. But say 12k a year say 5yr since youngest was born so £60k on a low paying job that would take a very long time to pay back so could only realistically be done if Op earnt enough before kids to pay 50% tax rate.

It does seem stupid we let companies get away paying so little that so many are taking out when earning. Lets even out the wages of those working. Bosses only make mpney out of the sweat of the lowest workers

These threads always feel as though they are goaded by Tory news bots.

If you work ft, rent, and have the same familial situation as the OP and have less money than her then the failing is in national minimum wage.
Or in pay rises not following RPI

Why do we always look to take more from those who have least and in fight?

This is exactly what the govt want.....ooo look what the lazy bastard dole hoaxers get......

If this is the least you should live on we should be on the streets demanding a better national minimum wage.
We should not be being cruel to a mum who has suffered enough and is trying to get by on benefits

Beastofburden- that is not prostitution, that is only chat, flirting, completely harmless.

blurgh, no they are not. They offer to... well, I am at work so can't type what they offer/pretend to do.

You mean you were actually serious?

Yes, chatlines are legitimate forms of work.

Not prostitution.

They are very difficult issues. If you have a welfare state which allows you to stay on benefits for life (rather than the 1 3 years of many EU states) then how do we make the benefits so low and painful people have an incentive to get up at 4.45am to take 2 buses to a minimum wage job when their net receipts are the same? We can never easily square that circle. We either make benefits living much worse or we allow things to continue.

If we wanted to make benefits living much worse we could_

1. No benefits until you are 25.
2. Single mothers to share 2 bed flats with other single mothers like many 20 somethings who are in full time work have to share or sofa surf.
3. Benefits cap of say £13k a year before tax income equivalent rather than £26k which is £34k of before tax income and in my view rather high.
4. Forced moves to much cheaper areas for those on benefits for more than a year.
5. Workfare for all including those with under 5s.

Most of the social budget in the UK is by the way spent on the old not on benefits claimants despite what the popular press says.

Arsenic- how is it Scrooge like? It's supposed to be the thought that counts! Not buying all this materialistic crap for kids doesn't mean you love them any less!

Sugar you said;

P- you haven't answered why you think your children deserve birthday and Christmas presents- payed for by the taxpayer.

Which is it?

Birthdays/christmas have never been materialistic in this house, not now on a very healthy dual income, not ever.

But I would never tell a child they had no cake, no special birthday tea, no candles, no presents at all, that they had to make do with 'thoughts'.

The three years (like the OP, post-DV escape) I was living as a single parent on a combination of Carers Allowance, Child Benefit, Tax credits etc my budget for christmas and birthdays was £25 per child. I trawled around charity and pound shops to stretch that, bought flour, cake candles and sugar weeks in advance in addition. Made wrapping paper from brown paper.

One christmas I went £30 overdrawn in the process and was furious with myself.

That is the kind of birthday a benefits income funds, if you have the wit to be resourceful. What the hell are you imagining?

What kind of alleged human being dictates that a child doesn't DESERVE a modest birthday celebration because their shit of a father has beaten their mother up and is refusing to pay child support and their mother is struggling to rebuild their lives and find work?

it would be good for your 'issues', you could take your children with you and you could all do a little dance together to entertain the public, a free, fun, family activity and you'd be earning your keep!!!!

Instead of going to school, I expect.

SugarMouse's posts neatly demonstrate how inter-generational poverty develops- the children miss school to work as street entertainers due to low family income. When they grow up, they have few qualifications and are no longer cute enough to do well through street entertainment, and the cycle may well continue.

Fortunately, we live in a country which has, at points, had minds more sophisticated than Sugar's in charge of policy.

So, child performers must have licences from their local council. www.northyorks.gov.uk/article/23970/Licence---child-employment

You know sugar I am now remembering the sweet faces of my then 6/7/8/9 year olds who never asked for anything (expensive or not), never failed to say thank you for and appreciate what ever cheap tat and secondhand trinkets I scraped up and wrapped for them, always treasured and looked after whatever they were given, and I am having some distinctly unchristian thoughts about you.

I think a flat rate should be paid. And then all this you're much better off than me would stop. Because at the moment the system is totally crazy.

Yes, chatlines are legitimate forms of work.

This is from a woman unaware of regulation around child entertainers, so it doesn't mean much.

I've watched this thread and kept off it but now suagarmouse you've drawn me out.

Yes because us lone parents should be on our knees begging shouldn't we? We should be down there in the dirt, humbled, meek and oh so grateful for the chance to give our child an orange for their birthday.

You ignorant person.

Do you think ALL lone parents chose this life? There but for the grace of god.

I fled domestic violence. I spent months in a refuge where most of us had survived horrible ordeals. Benefits take weeks to process and crisis loans had been abolished. We had NO money. We relied on donations to the refuge for food, I remember one week having 3 tins of soup for me because there wasn't enough for both me and my children to eat well. It took months to catch up with money to get to a point where I'd payed off everything I'd borrowed during that period and to cover the extortionate rental deposit I'd payed to secure a home for my children.

So I've got through that. I survived it. I got my children out and protected them. And now, just when things are looking up, just when I can safely say that I can buy my children some new clothes, take my daughter to the farm for her birthday, buy some decent food and splash out on a few presents for their first abusive dad free Xmas, just when I can look forward to all that "luxury" I read your post.

You are inhuman. I can tolerate the media judging me. I can tolerate the ignorance on this thread. But I will not allow your post to go unchallenged. To think as you do shows an absence of empathy.

My children are 1 and 3. They are beautiful, precious. They have lived through a very traumatic life up til now. They have suffered. They bear emotional scars. They have begun to heal. They have a chance at a better life now. But hey, fuck that, let's kick them back down into the gutter. Let's make them suffer for the injustices they didn't chose to endure. Let's make them beg for one lone toy for Xmas. Let's make them grateful, so very grateful. Let's make their mother go back to living on a third of a can of soup a day. Lets punish the poor, the survivors of abuse, poverty, circumstance.

Because we reject empathy. Compassion. Humanity.
Let's go further shall we. Let's decide that we as taxpayers are "worthy", and these "scroungers" that dare to buy their children presents, are the undeserving. Lesser. Subhuman. Let's line them up and shoot them, rid ourselves of the expense.

May you never find yourself at the mercy of others. It's a long way to fall, and a very steep mountain to climb to get back out. A climb riddled with the judgement of others.

After reading the relationships board, it's easy to see why so many women wind up as lone parents.

how do we make the benefits so low and painful people have an incentive to get up at 4.45am to take 2 buses to a minimum wage job when their net receipts are the same?

People do get those buses Greengrow. Lots of them. I've seen them. Dressed to clean. Presumably (hopefully) they don't include lone parents leaving young children home alone to do so.

Are you advocating that five point plan?

Greengrow makes a very important point about the proportion of the welfare budget that is spent on the elderly. In 2013, £74.2bn of the £159bn benefit spend went on pensions (£16.9bn on housing benefit for comparison).

I really think that state pensions should be means tested. There are some really wealthy pensioners out there (including my parents) who do not need it. I also think about my grandma who was really poor for most of her life. Last 10-15 years she had a lot of disposable income from the state - a hefty proportion of which was given to us grandkids to be honest. It made her really sad that she didn't get the money when she really needed it (4 kids to look after alone), but got it when she was too old (in her words) to enjoy it.

I wish someone gave me £900 a month for doing nothing .

Sugarmouse is just goading people - ignore her

she hasn't told us how much tax she pays - and how it compares to the amount she claims from the state - for education healthcare etc

she's probably too busy 'slaving away' but please don't let her get to you - it will only fuel her vitriol

Yes gordy you're right.

Us lone parents know the reality - we get how hard it is - as do many people with the basic ability to empathise

I wouldn't have any family live in poverty - even if the parents fit every single feckless Daily Fail 'poor person' stereotype that's not the childrens fault

I wouldn't force any person to degrade themselves for money either

The welfare state exists - get over it

There need to be more honest and accurate descriptios of the reality out there.

The anti-poor people propoganda is shocking.

^propaganda

something just seems wrong here as usually you would expect it to be young women making the judgement errors seen here - wrong man who doesnt want to provide for kids

are you that judgemental in real life? is it really that simple?

I did everything - and I mean everything - 'right'. I travelled the world, was financially independent, educated to Masters level, didn't marry till I was 30 after living with the guy for a couple of years, didn't have children with that man for 6 years, built a business with him, nice detached house in expensive area, children in private school, 2 new cars on the driveway, nice, normal relationship, no overt abuse.....none of that stopped him having an affair and changing into a man I no longer recognise. He is most certainly the 'wrong man who doesn't want to provide for kids'. If I didn't know that with all that education and independence and years of living with someone...jeez. Just fuck off.

Beast said:
"I dont mind my taxes supporting OP and her kids... I bloody well do mind paying renard to do a little light art work on the days she fancies it."

Precisely. OP has got out of a horrible situation. She is currently not well off but not really skint either, and she is keen to get back into work. She also paid into the system (I assume) before she had children.

There are people on benefits (and before anyone jumps on my head, I know one) who are quite happy to avoid paid work at all costs and think it's fine that other people's taxes pay for their food, fags and accommodation.