to wish that people would acknowledge people like me

[sweethoneytruffle]

I work full time, but a combination of rubbish working conditions and poor hourly pay means I take home approximately £270 a week. This varies a bit and it sounds okay until you factor other costs in.

Out of this I obviously have to pay living costs, including council tax. I also have to pay for car insurance and petrol (job is based in the car so I can't sell it) I work anti social hours, starting work at 6:30 and finishing at 11 but not being paid for that as it's split shifts.

I don't know if I am really bad at money management, but I always seem to be skint, even when I have just been paid, I'm broke!

But we are not mentioned much, it's always about benefit cuts and delays and sanctions. I seriously have £5 in my purse, one tin of soup and a packet of biscuits until Friday!

Fair enough. I'm sure I've seen a few, but not in a little while.

OP could you retrain? How old are you?

Retrain as what?!? I'm not very clever haha.

31 :)

Unison is trying to highlight the issue of care workers being paid less than NMW. It's been raised in Parliament.

There's a petition at campaign.goingtowork.org.uk with 11,000 signatures.

Split shifts? What is the gap in between? I'm off benefits a year nowand worse off financially. If I didn't pay tax I'd be on the same as when on benefits!

Sweet stop saying you're not very clever. What would your ideal job be? In a completely perfect world?

Baffled that's very helpful...thanks. My Mum is a carer (home visits) and earns little but to her it's just a little part time job as she's mostly retired so she doesn't "need" the income it's more of a hobby almost...but for someone like OP ...this isn't on. She's got no other income unlike my Mum.

But I'm not ... I don't really know what I'd want to do. Never really thought about it.

26 usually two hours in between approximately, so no time to do anything useful grr.

I know loads of people like this. On min wage like myself it's so disheartening.

At the moment I don't have a permanent address as such, I am staying at my brother's.

JSA is really low I know. But other benefits, if I had children, pay about the same as what I earn now. Obviously I wouldn't have children, just to be on benefits, but this is sort of what I mean when I say we're forgotten. As if working full time, you should automatically have money and you don't.

Op could you look on the nhs job site and search for health care assistant jobs. I have a friend who done the same job as you and is now a bank hca at our local hospital.

I really don't like hospitals, though - much nicer working in people's homes. The pay isn't that much different. yes you don't have the travel time issue I suppose.

Sweet - have you looked at being a Personal Assistant?

I have one, she's paid £9 an hour, soon to raise to £9.50. She drives me to appointments, helps get my wheelchair out (but it's electric, so doesn't have to push it.)

Cooks basic meals, does light cleaning and supports me with other things relating to my condition. There is some personal care, but not much at all.

I advertised on a site for people in Essex - there are loads on there, ranging in hours, and what's needed. Each county should have one.

No qualifications needed, I went by personality/interests in common and whether we clicked.

It's much more personal than caring through an agency, and usually better pay!

Glitter I've tried, but no joy thus far - we'll see.

Pensioner it wouldn't be difficult, but impossible really to go to night school. And even if I did go to college how would I afford it and how would I get to classes - I work in the evenings!

It is more personal going to homes. I'm on 7.30 an hour as a bank worker. Think the hourly rate for normal hcas is more than that. Hopefully something will come up.

I have to work 2 jobs and still have no money, I have dc1 and am pregnant, husband earns over 16k a year so we are entitled to no benefits at all or tax credits/free childcare, apart from child benefit that we put in an account for our first because we want him to have some money to go to university or buy a car.

All I hear is "might as well have a kid so I can get loads of benefits" when you have a kid that doesn't happen.

People are in receipt of benefits because they have no money to survive, wether it be DLA or JSA or child benefits, there have been recent heavy cuts and sanctions to all of these, I am broke and would happily pay more tax so people didn't suffer that can't work.

I do sometimes feel like I wish I could have a few hours free nursery a week so I could work more and earn more money but that's the governments fault, not the fault of benefits claimants.

The food bank thing is so so depressing, government agencies are referring people on the charities to support their basic living needs and have the nerve to charge expenses at our cost, on top of their heinously high wages.

I think single working people are forgotten and so many have ended up back living with parents, or have never left. Out of interest I calculated my income if I was single and working £8 an hour for 25 hours plus benefits, as I have two children it was £30k which surprised me. But without kids it must be a lot less. I get the impression the government are pushing these people into moving in with family or house shares. Its awful that companies can get away with paying so little and especially how care work is regarded when it is so important.

Have a think what you want to do OP, you don't have to be clever, it just makes it a bit easier, it's the working hard that will pay off and finding something you'll enjoy. I'm retraining and am 32!

There are day time courses or you can, like me, do it at home in your spare time which is a lot cheaper it's books off ebay. You can apply for funding if you are low income.

If you get a HSA job, a lot of places will fund a nursing degree for you, they will give you a bursary to complete a degree and train on the job, I tried to get one to become a psychiatric nurse but I couldn't fit the study around my kids at this time, definitely something to consider though.

When I was starting out as a carer I looked on sites like gumtree and in the papers to see if anyone had advertised for PA or carers with flexible hours and got some work that way, they usually pay more than agency and the job satisfaction is a lot better.

lost - I work! I'm not trying to sound difficult, but I work typically 6-10, 11:30-13:30, 15:00-17:00 then 3/4 evenings a week 18:30-23:00.

So I don't get much spare time. And I don't know what I'd want to study, or if it would help. In all honesty I don't think I'd be very good at studying anyway, people presume everyone's got a basic ability, I'm not sure I have. I missed a lot of basic schooling. Anyway that's by the by.

Is it so bad to want to live off the full time job I've got?

I couldn't possibly do nursing.

Yeah I look on gumtree, papers, I have been looking but never been successful, when I have applied. Maybe this year I will which would obviously be great but in the meantime I'm working, full time, and struggling, really struggling. How is that fair?

Hi op, can I ask what your budget/weekly spend is on things like food, phone, car etc?

Because if you live with your brother I'm assuming you aren't paying rent, council tax, electric, gas, water etc?

What do you spend 300 a week on with no house or kids when you work all hours? Sorry to be blunt, and you don't need to answer on here but maybe if you wrote it all down for yourself you'd have an idea where to start cutting back?

Is it 6-11 in the evening so five hours work making it 30 hours a week as that's less than full time so £270 a week for part time work isn't bad. It's not too late a finish so you could top up with a second job during the day until you find something else.