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

this is going to achieve the complete opposite of what you intended Herebe.

I applaud you for your honesty - have to agree with others though, I don't think you do too badly.

Probably not the best thread, I knew pre paid was more expensive but £80 a week combined gas and electric seems very excessive.

Working people can claim hb as well ... And wtc/ctc to top up income

After bills it's not a huge amount

No where had the op said she's unhappy she's simply pointing out she's not on £3000000 a week with free goats and a unicorn

Isn't the average wage £26k a year?
And when you consider that the average cost to commute to work in the UK is £6.16 a day - so that's £130 a month unavoidable cost.
If you're earning £26k a year I don't think you are eligible for free school meals (?) or concession memberships either.

So you are able to manage to live - i.e. have enough money for food, to clothe yourselves (not talking designer brands - even Tesco wanted £10 for a pair of age 3-4 trousers yesterday!), heat your home and travel about from place to place. Also buy something for your DCs at Christmas and on their birthdays.

You do not have enough money to pay for lavish holidays, designer clothing, iPhones, high spec TVs, laptops or brand new cars etc. etc. etc.

Sounds about right for 2014 UK. Why on earth do people seem to want families to be living firmly in poverty?

There seems to be a certain sort of person who thinks that anyone out of work, or unable to work, should be forced to rely on foodbanks & charities and be grateful for someone throwing a scrap of bread at them. Not the mention the 'free' house they get .

Unless she is highly trained in a particular field, it is very likely that the OP will be living on a very similar income when she does find work. I don't think she has started this thread to claim it is a pittance or insufficient - just that she has enough to survive but not enough to live the "benefits lifestyle" we read about in certain areas of the media.

Not to mention.

No she isn't gordy I agree, but it's very clear that she's actually doing pretty okay on benefits, she has more than many working people do, so I can understand why posters are pointing that out.

I'm also a single parent of 2.
2 years ago (just before the changes in IS were introduced) I applied for college to 'better myself'. When I did this my lone parent advisor at the job centre told me not to worry and that I'd be able to stay on IS under the old rules.

This wasn't the case and my income (after rent was paid) was £612.52 every 4 weeks. It was a struggle but doable.

Of course I could have dropped college and got a nmw job I hated but I'm so glad I didn't.

I'm failing to see the problem of living on that amount of money.

It’s not that benefits should be lower, what the OP gets is not a pittance but it’s not mountains of disposable cash. As some PP have said it’s disgustingly low wages that are the problem.

What is the point of getting out of bed in the morning. We won’t be doing a food shop this week let alone the impossible dream of ever running a car, mortgage, holidays despite working REALLY hard. So fucking depressing, I want to step off the planet because it will only get worse. Sorry to rant.

Sorry OP, but if the point you're trying to make is that you don't get much then I think you are deluded. DH and I both have to work to end up with a similar amount as you after housing costs. We have considerably less in school holidays. I'd be very happy just to be given that amount.

OP I'm not a benefits basher, but I think that's quite a lot too!

When DC1 was small, we thought we may never be able to afford a second child. DH earnerd about 25k, I earned 13k (both full time), but by the time we had paid mortgage (750), council tax (110), nursery fees (600+) and the usual utilities bills, we had about 400 per month left. Yes we were paying overdraft charges too every month which was dead money, and we were running a car each as necessary expense to enable us to work (mine was paid for outright, minimal tax and insurance, less than a tenner a week in petrol) we were left with about 400 per month for food shopping and any activities/subscriptions and expenses like car tax, tv license and other one off things. We completely struggled with how to afford a second baby - luckily I had a series of rapid and substantial promotions.

I'm actually quite that we would have been significantly better off if I'd been a single parent not working! All of that stress and juggling time and guilt at DC in full time nursery.

Having said that, I suppose those lean years were the foundation for what I have now - a great job with good prospects and a decent disposable income. But I can't help feeling that there must a numbger of people out there who are still on simialr wages to what DH and I were on who will be simmering with resentment reading this.

There seems to be a certain sort of person who thinks that anyone out of work, or unable to work, should be forced to rely on foodbanks & charities and be grateful for someone throwing a scrap of bread at them. Not the mention the 'free' house they get

I would have thought that most people think that everyone should be - where they can - sustaining themselves independantly.

There is a big difference between thinking that those who cannot work should be in poverty and thinking that those that can work should be looking after themselves.

In a lot of countries, if you can't look after yourself then you're a goner. I am not AT ALL saying that this is correct but it is true.

Santas - I'm also proud of our benefits and welfare system, and loathe what the Tories are doing to set people against each other - yes the 'benefits lifestyle' is a myth, but it's also not the case that everyone on benefits is living in utter poverty.

You have more than we have left after paying our mortgage and ct.

But the point is how much would a person have to earn gross to be totally self supporting. Seems very generous indeed to me.

And someone working FT for £26k would need to cover childcare costs too.

There is something very wrong with the system.
I haven't a clue how it could be fixed, but it is wrong.

(Wrong because of low wages, not talking about benefits)

YANBU

That is not a lavish income. I have no problem whatsoever if a couple of pence of my tax bill is contributing towards keeping you afloat in modest style until your luck improves.

Ten years ago, I was in the same spot (but with the luxurious addition of Carer's Allowance, £25pw of which I was allowed to keep, the rest being clawed back from Income Support payments)

I know exactly what you mean about going 'stir crazy'. I hope it doesn't last long for you.

I appreciate my job, the chance to earn money, do interesting work and further my career every single day now.

It's like the Four yorkshireman sketch on this thread. Such daftness.

Agree with WookieCookiee

I would say that is a reasonable amount to expect someone to live on. It's a struggle with paying off the prepay meters & always feel like you're chasing your tail when something unexpected comes up.

The issue is that it's such a struggle to find a job that pays (much) better than that, there are an awful lot in the £21-£29k region which leaves you in pretty much the same place.

There needs to be an increase in wages so that working families can afford the luxuries like "sky, a plasma tele, holidays..."

Yeah £900 after rent and ct is pretty decent imo.

I love the way people on benefits always quote their 'income' as being the
££ that come directly to them to be apportioned/spent as they choose, excluding council tax benefit, housing benefit, free school meals, fully funded or subsidised childcare etc.

Whereas they always quote a working person's income as the full amount before tax. And then they do a comparison and say 'how can I manage to live on X when they get Y?'

But the thing is you don't get as little as X, and they don't get as much as Y.

I came on here to cheer you on but actually I get about £100 less than you and work full time - unsociable hours too.

What these figures do show is that if a person chose to not work then they could still live a reasonably comfortable life - taking from the pot but never contributing to it.

That's where the resentment creeps in and it isn't 'jealousy' it's just a sense of unfairness at a system.

(that's not aimed at the OP who I know is very keen to work)

OP, that's a lot more than I have left after paying the mortgage.
Well done to you for at least looking for work.

I'm a single person with no children and earn just under £20,000 per year, which, after tax, gives me £1240 per month. When I take away my mortgage (£389) and council tax (£79 because of single person discount). That leaves me £772 per month.

Now, as I said, I don't have children, but I can live very well on that, pay all my bills, have no overdraft, clothe myself without charity shops, feed myself, go out with friends once a week for drinks and a meal and generally have what I regard as a decent standard of living. I run a car which with petrol, insurance, servicing etc probably costs me the best part of £80 per month. I even managed this year to have three weekends away, two in the UK and one a 5-day break in Brussels.

I would imagine my car costs, together with some clubs I belong to, would easily equal the OP's school, after school clubs, Brownies and school shoes etc. I don't smoke, don't drink a lot, have no Sky TV (just Freeview) but do have a mobile phone (£11 per month) and landline with Broadband.

I have no overdraft and do not own a credit card.

Yup, its 26,000 salary equivalent before counting fsm, prescriptions, dentist, optician, discounted leisure.

I initially came on in support too, and we've been on benefits when my husband was made redundant, but it amazes me that so many working families are on so much less. I think we must be on less now in total than you are and my husband works away much of the week.