To think the benefit cap is going to plunge families into poverty

[Firsttheworst]

Next month the benefit cap comes in. It sets out the maximum that can be claimed in a week across all benefits. This doesn't include disability or wtc. Its aimed purely at women (mostly) claiming income support. You can only claim income support if you have a child under 5 and don't work.

The benefit cap is in the government owns words designed to get IS claimants out to work. The cap is currently £500 and will be reduced to £384 a week.

This includes, housing benefit, CT benefit, tax credits, income support. So all in total cannot be more than £384 a week. Over a 30 day month that comes to £1645.

From that £1645 I need to pay

rent £900 a month (no I can't move, its impossible to rent on benefits as it is, not giving this house up and its below market rent as it is)

CT - £60 a month

Electricity £80

Oil £80

Diesel £ 120 (rural don't drive anywhere other than school runs and supermarket/town once or twice a week)

Car insurance £49

Car tax £19.99

Phone/internet £40 (thats a basic mobile and broadband)

House insurance £13

TV licence £11

That leaves 272 a month to pay for food, clothes, car breakdown, school trips, birthdays, miscellaneous and god knows what else. For one adult and 3 children.

AIBU to think that the government have just decided that if they starve us out for long enough we'll be forced to go out and find a job? Like I said rural area so jobs are rarer than hens teeth and believe me i'm looking. It is pure discrimination against single mothers with small children (i doubt many men claim income support)

Honestly, £900 pcm for a 3 bed house is unbelievably cheap for the SE.

You'd need to double that - easily - for a small 3 bed place where we are (also SE). Actually £2k would be more like it.

It's all very well saying 'well move somewhere cheaper then' but as the op says it's not that easy. Moving costs alone would be beyond her reach even if she could find a landlord to accept her.

Some of these responses are baffling:

Just move to a cheaper place - how is that possible with 3 DCs, presumably a house full of stuff and no money to move?

Get rid of the car - fine if there's public transport.

Get rid of broadband - impossible when you need it to look for work and your DCs need it for school. It's 2016.

Take a low paying job with not a lot of hours - if she did that, it's very possible she would end up with less money than she gets now. It's okay to take a low rung job with a tiny amount of hours if you can afford it, but getting "experience" is no use if you can't feed your kids.

People keep banging on about the OP leaving her community and support system but it seems that she lives far from her children's schools and has a waste of space ex who contributes nothing- not really a support system. In some cases of extended friends and family groups it can be true i.e where grandparents offer childcare and school runs are shared with other parents but these do not seem to be the circumstances with this particular op. Maybe there is more support she can access from friends and family that will make her present situation more manageable.

"I'm sorry but I can't get over how much your rent is !!!!
Mine is 320£ a month "

Out of interest, I checked to see how much renting would be up to 20 miles radius from my semi-rural SE home.

£320 won't even get you a room in a house-share.
Rental (for a tiny 3 bedroomed house) starts at £920.

The op should be angry with the kids dad not the state! He is the one not giving her any money. Why should my taxes pay for his family when he won't? 2 parents expecting everyone else to fund them but contributing jack shit themselves. Shameful

Midday assistant, although not enough hours, would give you a chance to develop a work ethic

What makes you think she's lacking a work ethic?

What she's lacking is an accessible job.

There are plenty of your listed bills that could be reduced, you just need to start doing it instead of saying you can't. There are jobs/education you could do from your home, you actually have options.

Your also choosing to take on ALL the burden of paying for your children, why aren't you taking your DC around to their fathers for half the week so you can work. Why still a big gas guzzling diesel car. Why driving rather than walking 1 mile to a bus stop. Why aren't you making the councils life a living hell to get your DC in the closer school, or free transport. What about your family?

There are lots of small things you can do that will add up to living off 20 grand a year and start improving your chances for the future.

The cap is very fair and still too high.

The majority of women have nine months maternity pay and then either have to return to work or accept that they will have no income of their own. It's always been deeply unfair that some get thousands for numerous years for failing to take responsibility for themselves or their children.

Nobody is made to have children, women are responsible for their own fertility and choices. If you can't many afford three children or don't want to work then don't have dependants.

She chose to live in a £900/month house in the countryside, where she would need a car to get around, and would have no nearby schools, childcare or jobs. She chose to live near her ex, who (apparently) gives no financial or childcare support. She chooses to limit herself to only looking for school hours jobs (which are like hen's teeth).

As an (unexpectedly) single parent, I chose to live in housing I could afford on my wages, in an area which had shops/schools/buses/childcare, not run a car or live where i needed one, and to keep working even though I needed childcare to be able to do so. I'm not buying this 'no choices' thing. I lived on a council estate, it wasn't pretty but it was ok and it was affordable and practical. I don't think it's awful to expect adults to work to support themselves and the children they bring into the world. I do think the ex needs a hefty kick up the arse as he should be contributing. It's not evil to question, when there is limited money, who needs it more. I'm more than happy to pay taxes for NHS/welfare state, but why shouldn't I question a system where people make a lifestyle choice to not work, or to work very part-time so they 'earn' as much as an average full-time worker?

Just as an aside - you're looking at around £200 a week to rent a room in London...

dawn I suggested cleaning because I found that the most flexible option when I was in a similar situation. I certainly don't look down on cleaners as you appear to do, in my experience it's hard work, but keeps you fit!

Anyone who has witnessed the harsh reality of life on great swathes of this planet would see how fortunate we are here........ Grow up love.

dawn donna - I should imagine cleaning was suggested as it is flexible and has extremely low startup costs, but don't let that stop you trying to make it about snobbery with your ridiculous Lady Muck comment

I agree with this ^^ Fed up of people thinking certain jobs are beneath them Cleaners can get £10+ an hour in this area, where the average wage is the minimum wage.

What's wrong with a cleaning job? You can do very well cleaning independently in the SE.

Without wanting to criticise OP even more, what about the hidden / passport benefits you receive whilst on means tested benefits such as IS? Prescriptions, other health related costs( dental etc),free school meals, help with uniform to name a few. It all adds up!

"It's also very, very callous to expect people to uproot just like that"

Those people saying 'just move!' would be outraged to see widespread 'cleansing' of poor communities in developing countries from their traditional homes in areas made unaffordable by profiteering and property speculation.

I get less than the OP and both me and DC are disabled. and theyre cutting disabled benefits by £30 pw I believe, next year).

I pay bedroom tax for a room needed for medical eqiopment, a tiny room more like a store room cupboard, no amount of fighting this has helped. I gso I get limited HB. I had to give up a fulltime job after becoming disabled, plus being a fulltime carer for DC.

disability living expenses, specialist food like gluten free and lacto free which are more than double 'normal' foods.

pull ups for DC£12.00 a week. tgovernemtn wont supply them even thought hey supply for others with toileting needs. (DCs a teen).

we cant move as our place (council house) is adapted for our disabilities. that took forever to have done.

im lucky if Im left with £20.00 a month and that's for emergencies.

im surprised we haven't died from hypothermia the last 2 years as I cant afford to put heating on.

we don't even have a sofa, and only a small tv (given to us), and laptop (given to us).

our mattresses are on wooden pallets for bedframes.

Im on a PAYG donglefor the internemt so really limited internet use, and only have this cos most things are online only.

same with phone (a cheap captain kirk type, no tablet/ipads).

now theyre going to take evn more away.

Just a minute I was the lone parent with shit credit and no assets 10 years ago. I went to thrscrounging git job centre interviews, I juggled shopping bags on the freebie bus to the nearest town to save a fiver, I moved into 1 room at my mums to get on the housing list and I took the first place offered. Rural living is hard but you know what I got through till the childcare hours licked in, I applied for every shit job within walking distance till I got one, I then accepted the first 2 hours of each shift would pay my babysitter.

I'm still grateful for the help I received, luckily I married and we no longer need help at all but I am very aware that the safety net is there. Its not a kings ransom but you can live on it.

Sounds like the government needs to provide lump sums to help people move properties, and legislation or a system for emergency childcare when DC are ill. That's what would really make the difference, probably to a lot of people who would want to move and/or work but currently can't. Doesn't make sense to support people full time at ~19k /yr when providing a lump sum of 3k for a new deposit / school uniform / negotiating with landlords in new location / van hire / boxes, and eg 500/yr in backup childcare for single working parents with children would be so much cheaper! And yes - non-resident parents should have to pay shared childcare costs if the resident parent wants to work, and half the emergency illness cover if necessary. Emergency care for ill children should be something you can find, as lots of people don't have a local support network.

It's understandable that people working their hearts out at crap jobs for 17k will resent someone like the OP with a 900£ 3 bed house in the southeast and plenty of time to spend with her children, all paid for by others' taxes :(
But in itself, that doesn't mean it's any easier for OP to move.

I'm pretty die-hard pro-benefits myself but I can't pretend it doesn't grate to hear from parents at the school who don't work that they now have a council flat in [expensive London place] (despite both of us working FT after much higher education, in our fields). The state supports them to live somewhere we'll never be able to afford. We've moved far from our families and friends, as have many people we know. I'd prefer to have better support for those who can't work, for people leaving domestic violence, for mental health services, than support for people who could work if some relatively minor barriers could be removed.

Behind What is the thinking behind this remark of yours?

Anyone who has witnessed the harsh reality of life on great swathes of this planet would see how fortunate we are here........ Grow up love.

Surely the conclusion drawn from this insight should be that there is still a hell of a lot of injustice in this world - and those people, who are even worse off, are not getting their fair share of the cake?!?
And that this massive injustice does not justify poverty and injustice where we are, but that those, likewise, need to be addressed and remedied?

This conception of the human being as the master of his/her destiny and a lone wolf fighting and competing for resources (may the best one win) seems so massively counterproductive to me, it's almost evil.

Many cleaners only make £5000 a year as they work part time and don't do school holidays, so that can't really replace a f/t benefit arrangement. Half the problem is with stop/start issues. If this could be done more efficiently we would probably see food banks disappear and a lot more people earning a crust.

OP wants to work - that is obvious

I don't think it is. The SE would have more job vacancies than a lot of areas. Plus she would have already had employment and her own salary to fall back on after the fathers left but that's not the case. It would appear the sudden urge to work is to get around the cap, nothing more.

Another thing, a lot of people's children share bedrooms - is this not possible for the OP?

See, becker needs a better situation and there is no reason that as a wealthy country we should not be providing better for those who are caring for others, or who cannot work. Hope it improves for you.

Loving how one poster is telling ppl in this situation to cut down on luxuries ..............................and then another poster the OP to start her own business selling stuff

oh good god no not possible for her kids to share BoffinMum (my brother and I shared for a good few years until I was 7 or 8).

All this really staggers me - my DB had chronic asthma and almost died twice as a young child. did we have a phone in the house? NO. he was in and out of hospital and we had cheap oil heaters. it was YEARS before my mum could afford central heating. My mum chose to retrain and work.