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

The thing is, you're never comparing like with like. Ever. So this argument will rage on for ever - as long as there is a welfare state.

Aren't at least some of those benefits paid every four weeks rather than monthly. So you get 13 payments per year.

The increase in wages could come from the excessive profits that the majority of companies make.

After I've paid my rent, Council Tax and fares to work I have the princely sum of 32 quid a week left. THIRTY-TWO QUID A WEEK to pay for my mobile, internet, utilities and food. Someone try and circle that square for me because I bloody can't.

That's more than we will have left over after childcare to live on with both me and Dh working long house in professional jobs. We do have a mortgage which I appreciate MAY give us a level of capital gain, but it's bloody expensive and we had very little choice but to take out such a big mortgage since we live in surrey. Maybe it was a mistake though since we can barely afford our child which is on the way! We shall probably have to move but there is nowhere cheaper nearby. Quite stressful with mortgage looming and of course stamp duty and selling costs making moving very expensive, when you are not living in council properties.

Driven you're right. You can't compare rent and mortgage. And just because someone has a mortgage doesn't mean they are better off. I know many people that are quite happy to rent and not own because they don't have to worry about anything that needs doing to the property. As long as you have a decent landlord, if you need a new boiler, they have to do it. If the guttering needs repairing, they have to do it. And of course homeowners have to have insurance on the building as well as contents, unlike renters.

HereBe Do you have a goat?

I know which thread this is on the back of and people (on the whole) were not saying lone parents on benefits were 'rolling in it'.

What some of us were saying is that's it not fair that NRPs get away with walking away from their families and so the state has to pick up the tab. You have 'clung onto' pick up the tab and have a case of the sulks. It's about the non residential parent walking away from their responsibilities as a parent that is the issue.

So I've been lurking for years too afraid to register because lurking is basically a part time job at this point and I don't want to have to give up my job to mumsnet fulltime and this is the post that finally made me do it.

Good on the OP for doing what is best for her family but... this thread shows the real problem with benefits. It's not that people get them, it's that they distort people's viewpoints so much as to what is normal and real! So the OP thinks 900 quid after bills/rent is a pittance. It's not! Plenty of working families make much less. And honestly, I think 26k or it's equivalent is enough to live on. I don't think she is poor. I don't think she is badly off or on the breadline or to be pitied. That's really the problem. If you work, you are connected into what wages are and how the economy is doing, and typical raises and just economic life generally. If you are on benefits you think of yourself as making "900 pounds" a month, when really you are taking home 26k in total package and you imagine yourself to be worse off than everyone else (and maybe get a bit of a chip on your shoulder about it?) when it's not true. And I think that does lead a bit to a culture of entitlement. People like the OP (and her defenders on this thread) want us to feel sympathy for her for being on benefits (or not having a mortgage, or stigma or whatever, as if that doesn't apply to people on low wages), because it's supposed to be this "terrible life" but it's not.

I think one of the things that fuels the anti-benefits brigade is this kind of attitude. If the OP had another child (or 2) she could be making over 30k. And even if you accept that the govt needs to clothe and house its citizens (which I do) it's another thing to accept that they are somehow victims who should feel hard done by (by a society that is clothing and feeding them).

ABowlofPetunias Sorry, I meant I was £70 a week better off than being on benefits.

Though I'm not much better off working Full Time - about £30 a week - I'm working full time, I'm not claiming benefits and I am able to juggle work and childcare.

I also get a discounted rate for courses as I get working tax credits and so can train to give myself a better future once DS has left home and I can work in a city again or whatever. I live in a place too rural to earn much more than my £12,000 but it's not forever.

I will add though that I know that I am very lucky to be a single parent and still have the same income as a household with two parents. This has allowed us to go on holidays and to have day trips and extra curricular clubs for DS that two years ago I simply could not have been able to afford.

Ditto. Teacher in a decent independent school with London allowance type salary. Left with less than that after mortgage and council tax paid. And I live in a less than salubrious part of S London - not where the pupils live!

The government in 2013/2014 was predicted (Guardian.com) to bring in £477.2 billion in tax

The budget estimate totals £694.4 billion, of which £113.2 billion is allocated to welfare. An additional £129.6 billion is allocated to pensions.

£121.2 billion is allocated to Health Care.
£86.9 billion is allocated to Education.

So much money being spent vs what is coming in!!!
Apparently we spend £47.8 billion a year on interest on the debt! More than half the amount spent on Education!

www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/welfare_budget_2013_4.html

It makes me so sad how little people seem to value parenting. Not being in employment doesn't mean sitting in your bum all day doing nothing.

the excessive profits that the majority of companies make. Can you back that information up with some stats, Jack?

Can I just ask what happens to people who become long term sick, or unemployed or working but on a greatly reduced wage, if they are already have an existing mortgage? Do they still get HB or do they get something else? Or are they forced to sell their house and use up any equity before HB will be paid? Can you choose to take on a mortgage and still claim HB?

I have no idea.

I think HB can be used to pay a mortgage

The op hasn't asked for sympathy. One person who does deserve it though is BitterAndOnlySlightlyTwisted on what planet could £32 a week to live on be called a living wage.

You can switch your mortgage to interest only and the government will pay/help to pay that cost

www.gov.uk/support-for-mortgage-interest/overview

Dontdrink I think there is some limited help towards interest payments which is supposed to give you a bit of time to negotiate with the bank or hopefully get back on your feet. Also many have some form of Insurance that can pay for 6months or so. If you are forced to sell and rent after your savings are below certain levels entitlement to HB kicks in.

HB can not be claimed for anything other than rent. If paying a mortgage and claiming something like esa or is you can claim mrp which will help towards the interest payments of a mortgage. You won't get it if working in a low paid job.

As far as I'm aware, HB will only pay the interest on a mortgage.
I think you'd need some sort of insurance to cover yourself incase of long term sick or indeed, I would expect you would have it repossessed if you did not keep up with payments.

I think HB can be used to pay a mortgage

No, it can't.

There is a portion of Income Support that can be used to pay a v limited amount of mortgae interest for those in dire straits, after a waiting period, up to a maximum mortgage value.

A lot of people do manage to be a parent as well as to work. And have considerably less cash than this OP. It's not a question of not valuing being a parent.

LemonadeRayGun Wed 24-Sep-14 13:42:28

It makes me so sad how little people seem to value parenting. Not being in employment doesn't mean sitting in your bum all day doing nothing.

But they do value parentlng. The OP makes the average wage in this country on benefits. So parenting is valued as much as every other job on average. That's what I'm talking about. She isn't being shortchanged, she isn't being ripped off, she isn't being undervalued, she isn't being abandoned. She is being paid a good sum of money, enough to live on fairly well, by the govt. I don't understand why this thread and so many posts are acting as if she is living under some terrible punishment.