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

(so presumably she has 'form')

Arsenic no. There's more than one route out of homelessness. That might include moving into an overcrowded relatives home where your entire family sleeps on the floor in the front room or taking a private rental which is too small for your needs, damp and in a poor state of repair where the tenancy is insecure and your rent can be put up at a whim and you have to share a room with your children.

Believe me if you had spent a night in one of these places you would understand why no decent person would spend a night longer than they had to in them if they had a child with them. I know people who've used their parents address to take out high interest credit cards that have crippled them financially and they'll probably never be able to pay back to get out of one of those places. Arsenic, if you think all homeless people are in hostels or b & bs you're deluded. You've obviously never spent a night in one of those places. I spent one night in one because a friend was absolutely terrified because her room was so insecure people were actually coming in and stealing things while she and her children slept. I spent one night there with her and the next day sold my TV and car and replaced them with cheaper models to give her the money for a deposit. We listened to the girl next door get howling drunk and scream incoherently at her infant child for hours before her boyfriend came home drunk as well and beat her up in front of the child. We had to barricade the door to stop people getting in. You couldn't report it to the police because you still had to live with these people and they just target you worse if you do. She has lived in a one bedroom flat with two children for two years since. No doubt the people who were breaking in and stealing off her are now comfortably ensconced in council flats with enough bedrooms and cheap secure tenancies.

I know several people who have been through similar.

Good luck with the search, OP.

I'm the same age as you and also left because of dv. But that was 4 years ago now and life is good.

Aer that rant isn't actually a logical progression from what you said earlier, which was;

I have friends who live in the south east who watch people who've never bothered working but have gone into the benefits and council housing system living in relative comfort whilst they live in a studio with two children and can't get into the council housing system because they're not prepared to put their children through the trauma of the homeless system.

The point of homelessness provision (like refuges) is to put a roof over the heads of people who are in a dreadful position and have no choice, no other place to live. They are not supposed to be the main route to social housing. A family who has a private rented studio or living with extended family isn't the intended client group of a homeless hostel. Those people can still apply for social housing though and will get a reasonable level of priority if they are overcrowded, lacking facilities etc.

All I questioned was the strange note of moral superiority about not 'putting their children through trauma' by not using emergency services they don't need. Why would anyone use emergency services for homelessness unless they were truly homeless?

The system is not great but it seems to be the best we can produce. If you have a fairly generous welfare state (and most of us on this thread are probably surprised benefits are so high that there is so much paid after council tax and housing costs are all covered to be honest) then how do you incentivise people to get jobs. There are no easy answers.

I don't think we've come up with any on the thread. On a more practical level if we can all help the original poster get a full time job we will have done well....Let us think of ways and means. East Anglia. Not that prosperous but better than some places. Not that far from Cambridge which is currently booming - that might be a route out of poverty.

Cambridge certainly is booming if you're in the right job. For normal workers it's as much a nightmare as affluent parts of London.

Just out of interest where is the other thread that states single parents are 'rolling in it' I would be interested to read this? Does anyone know?

Yes, but if areas are booming then that tends to mean there are more chances of jobs like gardening, cleaning and other satellite serviecs which those people who are in Cambridge high tech work etc and have high pay can pay. Whereas go round where my parents were from the NE of England and in their original area there will be no one who could afford a cleaner in a month of Sundays. Anyway Cambridge is certainly worth looking in for jobs particularly as the students are not supposed to work in term time so they don't take as many of that kind of job as might be the case in other university towns.

I linked it upthread Lush (i've lost track of it now)

Thanks Arsenic.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2191962-to-think-i-will-have-too-much-money-on-benefits?

Found it

arsenic people do put themselves through the homeless route to get social housing, even if they have other choices. I know more than one person (with kids) who have done just that. People who have other places they could live, even grossly overcrowded, round where I live will not get anywhere near a council house unless they are 'homeless'.

That's nice for you op my we are a WORKING family and often don't have that much to spare nice to know my husband rises at 6am for somone to winge they get more than he oh actually works

Money for nothing. How lovely.

I suppose that isn't particularly surprising Bauer and it must be annoying to people on the housing list, I'm still a bit bemused that anyone would want brownie points for not cheating the system though.

FGS fishwife learn to read, OP ISN'T whinging.

Have the fishwife and windchime read the fucking thread or just the first post? .

Is it okay wi you if the OP is fleeing domestic violence and having to claim benefits until she gets sorted? Or do you think she should have stayed there in danger and putting her children at risk?

Answers on a postcard please.

Fishwife

I take it he doesn't batter you black and blue before he leaves for work then

Undoubtedly Shamelessly bumping this thread...jeez Friday night them laydeez will have something to say, to be sure....

The OP and her DC have £900 to pay all bills (except the rent and council tax) buy food, clothes, pay for transport, kids' activities, christmas. A lot of people sound really angry about this. My question is what would you like them to have? Half that? So they can pay for electric, oil or gas, a bit of basic food and nothing else? So young children always have to decline party invites because their mum can't afford a present for the birthday child, can never go to an activity or go to the swimming pool or get presents on their birthday? It would be horrible if this is what happened to children who had parents who were out of work. Is that what you all want?
To those who say you have less - if you have kids and have less than £900 a month after just paying your rent and council tax (not all outgoings as some people have been saying) then either you are not claiming what you are entitled to or your housing costs are too high - e.g. you have a mortgage on a property beyond your means.
It is good that we have a good benefits system. It is for all of us. We are cheating ourselves by wanting cuts to be made in it. It is our insurance in case we lose our jobs, in case we cannot work. We pay for life insurance, house insurance, car insurance, pet insurance and are trying to demolish the best insurance we have. Our children would be cushioned from poverty and all the upset and loss of opportunity and social exclusion that entails if something goes wrong in our lives and we are letting rich top earners convince us that this benefits system is terrible and wrong.

What would you like the OP and her children to have to pay all their bills and expenses and buy food and clothes with?

Herebehubbubs - "I'm not rolling in money" - please take a reality check - yes, you are.

£900 is a lot of money to have coming in each month not including HB & CB payments.

The interesting point on the thread (leaving aside the awful domestic violence) is that may people who work have less left over after their housing is paid for. So a thread started to say look I am prepared to be honest about what I am paid has opened the eyes of many workers to how things could be if they did not work.

The difficult issue is how you give enough so people eat and are housed temporarily whilst they try to find work but not so much that they might as well not bother working.

I suppose ultimately it will have to resolve either through a boom with huge tax receipts or cuts. Cameron has been pathetic at dealing with the UK's over spending and the deficit is huge and even if it were zero we still have a big national debt we have not even started to pay back so are paying huge sums on interest payments (which will be even bigger if interest rates rise) which could be spent on all kinds of other things.

Workers pay about £10k per child for child care, then they have travel costs to work etc and might well have less than £900 a month once housing and childcare are paid for. So it can look a bit like those who don't work living in clover.

Excellent post lornemalvo

As a society surely we should be encouraging more empathy, not less? When reading stories like the op's, I always think 'there but for the grace of god go I' not 'wow what a cushy number' ( no offence op, I think you'd agree you've had a pretty shitty time of it the last few years)?
My partner and I have a similar amount to the op left over per month (often a little more fortunately) and it would never occur to me to be envious of her lifestyle. We're comfortable and happy, and she seems able to get by and support her children, doesn't that mean that all is right with the world, and that our societal safety net is working exactly as it should?

For those critical of this, please go and spend some time in a country without a decent welfare state, ask yourself whether you could live with seeing children begging and starving on the street, or whether you would enjoy the high level of violent crime mostly caused by desperate sections of society with no alternatives?

Also, you should face the fact that a lack of welfare state would not improve your standard of living as a worker. Do you really think the working poor in America have a better deal than those in the uk?
I hate to break it to you, but if we abolished the welfare state tomorrow, all that extra money would most definitely not be flowing back into the pockets of the working classes, I'd be willing to stake my life on it! And you would all have the extra stress of knowing that if your employer went belly up or decided to sack you, there's a chance you and your children could be destitute in a v short space of time.

Personally, that's not a society I would want to live in. I'm proud of our benefits system and am sick of it being derided. That and the NHS are the two greatest things about being British.
FYI, not that it should matter but apart from CB, neither I nor my DH have ever claimed benefits. You don't have to be a recipient to be a supporter.

we both work and our disposable income is less than 500 pcm - we have to eat from that too so I'd say you're doing ok op

I am hugely grateful for our benefits system as I had to use it for two years while I cared for my autistic son.

I am now back in work...I am better off even though I have extra costs for travel etc.

Thing is that the OP is using the benefits system while she copes with a crisis. That is what it's there for and yet she is being condemned here for that.

I certainly didn't have a spare £900 a month on benefits ...and I don't think the OP does either as she has clarified the breakdown much more since her OP.

If those working feel they are badly off then perhaps look at your expenditure on housing etc. I would bet your housing is a better quality and more secure than what the OP has.

iamdivergant....is the OP really "doing okay" ? She is fleeing domestic violence.

Is there a part of you that thinks "only £500 a month disposable income....but thank God I am not in the OP's position? "

The OP has clarified things. ...she doesn't have £900 disposable income.