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

what's the point - you'd end up having to give them housing benefit, huge tax credits and childcare elements etc - people hate to have this pointed out but in some cases it is literally cheaper to keep people on benefits than top up their wages.

if that was someone in an expensive area taking that job and with two kids they'd literally get more in benefits than from their salary.

Savvy I assume your "etc" includes a generous pension something someone on benefits would not get. Also do you have a ore payment meter that costs a small fortune? One child or two?

Even accepting that that is true on a widespread scale, there is a psychological cost to the individuals involved.

That's why refer to poverty and benefits traps.

Human beings want to be engaged in useful activity (paid or unpaid). It is actually necessary for health.

Maybe we need to move towards recognising voluntary work as worthwhile and worthy of respect? Recognising it with enhanced NI credits and other perks? Instead of using it as punishment for unemployment.

maybe. and maybe we need to recognise that a lot of 'work' has move away from being useful activity that makes people feel useful and engaged.

I've pointed that out on here on numerous occasions Honeybadger but it's generally been ignored. People don't seem to have a problem with single parents getting £££ in in-work benefits. If I had to pay for childcare which thankfully I don't, I would indeed receive more than an unemployed single parent.
It's the not working part of it that annoys people. They shout about tax payers money without realising the majority of benefits are paid to well tax payers.

yes the vast majority of benefits go to working families (subsidising low wages for the profits of millionaires and lining the pockets of landlords with inflated housing costs) and pensioners.

this 'those lazy people who choose not to work' are a total red herring really but by focussing on them governments can fool people into feeling righteous whilst watching the very benefits that keep their family and the economy afloat slashed.

look over there whilst we slash your entitlement to child tax credits or child benefit, direct your anger at that fictitious army of shameless extras who are fleecing the system whilst we leave the elderly and disabled unable to afford heating or adequate housing.

it's pathetic really that so many people are suckered into it.

i must admit i wondered whether the OP was actually a daily mail type in disguise stirring up malice because what she gets bears no resemblance at all to what i got as a single mother on benefits and i cannot figure out how her income support and child tax credits could add up to £900pm - income support is what about £70? and child tax credits for children about £100? it just doesn't add up.

The op breaks it down the amounts are accurate.

i don't know but i'd also imagine that a large chunk of housing benefit goes toward emergency housing for the homeless - re: paying hotels £300pw for one bedroom to house a mother and her children fleeing domestic violence.

again that's a cost of eradicating council housing stock by paying off a generation of babyboomers with the grandiosity of 'home ownership' over their council homes and never reinvesting the money raised into more housing.

everything is very short sighted, balance the books today and fuck it we'll find someone to blame for the mess tomorrow. re: destroy the industrial industry and the economy of huge chunks of the economy, stick them on benefits then a few terms later berate them for being lazy, entitled scum bags who don't 'want' to work.

i hate that we're this easily divided and people don't use the brains they were given to see context.

To ovbtain their old age pension at age 65 or whatever those people have paid national insurance contributions for 40 or 35 years so it is not qute the same as non contributory benefit for others. However I agree it is true that tax credits which Labour made sure went to so many people because they wanted to make benefits claimants of us all, and housing benefit go to people in work. If we could abolish the minimum wage and stop paying benefits to those in work then employers would have to pay market level rates. The socialist state under both Labour and Tories has kept pay rates down for those in work.

It actually worries me how easily fooled people are. Cameron and co will be laughing all the way to their very comfortable and early retirement. Hard to believe that many are reasonably well educated too.

the figures op states are accurrate

i got £90 incapacity benefit plus about £54 ctc (comparing like for like with the OP re: money after HB, CTB). £134pw.

minus bills of utilities, phone and internet (and please bear in mind judgers that to claim jobseekers now you have to search online every day for hours to prove you're looking for work so you HAVE to have internet and you have to have a phone number because most job apps online can't be completed without one) say £90.

From which I needed to transport myself to a supermarket (minimum £4 return bus fare) and buy all food, clothing, toiletries, etc for myself and my son and if i was a job seeker i'd have also have had to pay the £5.50 return bus fare to my nearest job centre to sign on. realistically after transport and very frugal food buying that was about £45pw for clothes, household goods, repairs, travel to doctors appointments, anything else.

it was doable. it certainly wasn't a long term lifestyle choice. people also tend to forget council houses can come with plaster falling off the walls, no flooring, no curtains or decor, no cooker or fridge etc and rather than being a cosmetic issue you need to spend a fortune just to make it safe and inhabitable for a small child and to be able to chill and cook food and wash clothes.

i survived - i found it enough to 'get by' in a hunkered down survival fashion though probably helped by the fact that i'd had a good profession and some savings behind me before falling into that position rather than running from domestic violence with the clothes on my back. a long term life style choice though? god no. and even taking a low paid job made me a LOT better off financially and in terms of mental health.

i also recognise that if i'd been forced to live on the same amount but in a nice home and knowing that i was working my way up the career ladder, paying into a pension, only that skint till the kids left nursery/my student loans were paid off it would have been a very different picture.

to look forward and only see scraping to make ends meet and fear that they'll take even that away from you is so anxiety making.

anyway long post but wanted to describe realistically what it was like for me when i was there as an ex home owning professional who got ill, was out of contract and pregnant at the time of a housing market crash and recession.

If we could abolish the minimum wage and stop paying benefits to those in work then employers would have to pay market level rates.

Then we would have real starvation and mass homelessness.

We are massively oversupplied with cheap labour. There are lots of childless, house-sharing immigrants who can work cheaply (no childcare, low housing costs) and without time constraint. Not to mention large numbers of illegal immigrants who are ripe for exploitation by employers.

Our labour market has been hugely affected by free movement. Which is fine, as long as we have a minimum wage and enforced employment rights and other safeguards and protections.

Removing those protections and imagining the market can self-regulate without enormous human cost is madness.

I'm a teacher and by the time I pay my rent and council tax you have more 'left' than me. I live in the North East so rent isn't extortionate either.

Just done my calculations based on my rent increasing.

Financially I am now worse off in work than out of work.

A bit crappy really.

In reality on paper I should be better off but as I am now paying full council tax and a big proportion of my rent I am now bringing in less.

I was significantly better off but so much has increased I no longer am.

Not for one moment would I want to be in the OP's shoes though. I love my job and am lucky to have it. I get lots from work beside a salary, I get adult company, a sense of purpose, and huge satisfaction and enjoyment from the child I work with who is just a joy to be around.

...and I still support our current welfare system so that people in a crisis (like the OP) can get the help they need.

I should add in here that my DS is autistic so I got higher benefits as a result. It allowed and helped me to take two years out of work in order to support and help him. Had he not been autistic then I would have been better off in my current low paid job by a significant amount. My benefits would have been less for him.

Whatever happens, electric, gas, water etc still have to be paid as does council tax (which all working age people have to contribute to now). So any amount left over is a red herring.

know the gratefulhead - the local authority here gave all their housing stock to a housing association for the princely sum of £1 - since then my rent has gone up (on a yearly basis over 5years) to nearly twice what it was! without that i'd be so much better off working as i do now. as it is now my rent will be no cheaper than private rentals within a few years time as they put it up by the maximum legal amount each year rather than have to be influenced by market price - so private rents have stayed the same in that five years whilst mine has rocketed till there is only a very small gap itms.

rent is the real killer. we have a society where housing is seen as private investment rather than a public need necessarily for society to function.

that should have said, 'know the FEELING' sorry.

Sorry I have been away a while and noticed this thread is still going.

Honeybadger said:
'i must admit i wondered whether the OP was actually a daily mail type in disguise stirring up malice because what she gets bears no resemblance at all to what i got as a single mother on benefits and i cannot figure out how her income support and child tax credits could add up to £900pm - income support is what about £70? and child tax credits for children about £100? it just doesn't add up.'

I'm not any type of newspaper reader, Honeybadger. Never buy them or read them.
But the amounts are accurate. Chikd Tax credit and Child Benefit increases with each subsequent child, perhaps that's why your benefits were different to mine? I am also on JobSeekers Allowance, not Income Support.

The £900 a month isn't 'spare'. That's the total income. Food, utilities, clothing, sundries, transport etc are to be paid for with that.

Somebody upthread asked why I have to buy new school shoes every term.
The answer is because I had been buying school shoes from (I don't really want to name them, but they're in the zone, let's say) at only £12 a pop, but they are not leather, and they literally last around 3 months before the heels wear down or the Velcro straps snap, etc.

So I began to pay for Clarks leather school shoes (I still don't understand why they can be as much as £42 a pair...) and they do last almost a year.

I am currently in the process of a 'time lapse' project with said cheap shoes, photographing their progress of deterioration on a weekly basis until they fall apart : average school time use by a 5 year old boy. I'm hoping it wil convince me not to buy cheap shoes anymore, even of it does break the budget temporarily.

I am currently in the process of a 'time lapse' project with said cheap shoes, photographing their progress of deterioration on a weekly basis until they fall apart : average school time use by a 5 year old boy. I'm hoping it wil convince me not to buy cheap shoes anymore, even of it does break the budget temporarily.

Why are you not blogging Hubbubs?

I'm due another back to work calculation frm the Jobcentre this Thursday, which I'll update here, as some people have been suggesting I will not be better off in work.

That may be the case to a small degree, but as I have said before, you can't look at this benefit income and think to yourself, 'what's the point of me putting in a 40 hour week when the OP gets more than me on benefits?'

The point is, being unemployed sends you into a downward spiral of debt and depression, you lose perspective, you fail your children as a role model if you make benefits your lifestyle choice - which most of us don't - and you will suffere prejudice online and in real life.

I'm hoping that the new back to work calculation on Thursday will be encouraging.

Arsenic I don't know how, and I'm nowhere near articulate, witty or knowledgeable enough . I don't read blogs to be honest. Only ever heard of the lovely girl called Jack's blog through Mumsnet but haven't actually read it.

Ah, we could start a whole other thread about the cost vs quality of kids shoes! I can never never get over the cost of clarks shoes, yet have tried buying cheap versions and you're right, they fall apart v quickly. My dd has very princess and the pea type feet that seem to blister and hurt if placed in anything other than an expensive leather clarks shoe