To be gutted we're not entitled to any financial help?

[DeanaPiana]

Myself and DH have a combined income of £46000.

I have done numerous calculators and apparently, I am not entitled to Child Tax Credits or Working Tax Credits when baby gets here.

A few sources have even said I shouldn't go for Child Benefit as it wouldn't be worth it in tax returns

We didn't budget for a baby thinking we would get extra help to finance them etc, but I thought we were entitled to at least a little something and I have to say, I feel gutted. We live in a high cost area, London, and rent here too. We want to move out into a more rural/outer area in the next 2 years max but that just doesn't seem possible now. No way we can afford to save that much. We don't even have a lot of outgoings. Our rent is over 1K a month and that is considerablly cheap here.

Just doesn't seem fair at all

Easlaps gave some figures from when even child tax credits were paid to those on £60k. If go back before that I had nothing except child benefit (no minimum wage either in the UK in those days). If you go before that my parents got a tax allowance against tax for a child (I never got that but I did have child benefit , not that child benefit has ever felt like a king's ransom). Also I got no 6 weeks at 90% pay for maternity rights either even. As a single mother of 5 I don't even get child benefit these days. I suppose my point was that over the ages things go up and down for different groups in society and of course the economy. A family living on £20k today in some areas of the country where rents are high will get some housing benefit, whereas a family with ah igher income in the same area will not so in comparing both families you have to compare their complete package - the family of 5 with non working wife in say outer London with husband on £25k may not be too much worse off than if the husband earns more once benefits are taken into account.

However single people (my postman son eg before he gave up that job) living at home with no bills to pay other than food on about £25k a year was not doing too badly).

It is certainly a complex system with all kinds of financial levels at which it is worth doing XTYZ - working, not working, living on one income of a spouse, both working so you both get these days the fairly large personal tax allowance of over £11k a year each tax free (although then we have national insurance cutting in when your pay per job is over about £7500). It is so complicated you almost with the state would tear it all up and bring in a reall simple system with no tax allowances or concessions or reliefs.

Every day of the year because I am the burdened self employed (which the Government seems to hate at present!) I have to put in amounts into my tax accounts for work (I am a self empoyed sole trader). The first thing I do every day is look at my bank account to see what has gone out. (The 3 boys are still asleep, it's Saturday). So today we have the news my bank account charge is giong up to £27 a month. What % of that relates to work (you don't need a separate bank account as long you account for expenses in yhour accounts)? What percentage of you subcription to the financial times relates to work? If I go locally to pay in a cheque to the bank (yes I get cheques still ) and park for 0.80 I put that through the accounts. If I buy an apple on that journey what % is attributable to work and not? The tax system is awful and unclear. HMRC don't tell you what to claim. They make very vague statements.

This thread is awful - op yes, you were a little naive to think that you'd get any help with decent salaries BUT this country is seriously fucked up. 46k is not a huge wage but it's OK... except when you have to take into account RIDICULOUS commute prices, inflated rent and childcare costs.

The unmanageable increases in the cost of these 3 things over the last few years negate the point of striving for decent jobs with what used to be perceived to be decent salaries.

Without the family tax credits and child benefit I wouldn't have been able to go back to work when I had dd1, childcare costs were just too high.

People are saying there's not enough to go round, so why has the threshold for inheritance tax been raised? Why has corporation tax been cut? How on earth have the government been able to give themselves an 11% pay rise when the majority of everyone else gets minimal if anything at all? And why are we fighting each other? op is not the problem, people of lower earnings/benefits are not the problem. And I know no ones mentioned it on her, but immigration is not the problem. The problem is we have a morally corrupt government who think it's ok that the rich are getting richer at everyone else's expense.

On one salary £46k would be in the higher tax bracket. They get two personal tax allowances and child benefit. Hardly a pittance. Their rent is less than many pay on lower.

Sorry but you can't click your fingers to get what you want. Op will have to save,maybe should have saved before. People seem to expect so much - phones,holidays,childcare,moving at will,eating out....

Kids cost a lot and cause years of austerity. You need to suck it up.I think schools should prepare youngsters more for it.

I don't think schools should prepare kids for it, I think their own bloody parents should!

I've never earned that much, nor has anyone I know, but CTC were brought in specifically to help people

What would've helped more is decent salaried jobs.

What CRC did was keep wages artificially low so people continued to be below the threshold for CTC

A penny over and you lost the lot - it screwed over a lot of people - even more now it's going

Rich Londoners cry poverty.

Again attacking the wrong people. Wake up!

In London you are not rich on 46k

I'm in the expensive south east, I rent which takes well over half my wages each month. I'm a single mum with 1 income of £26k. I get no tax credits no housing benefit no "help" apart from £20 a week child benefit. I manage like many other people. I get so pissed off reading about people who have twice as much money as me saying they can't manage! Seriously?? And teenagers eat more, clothes cost more etc. My salary was even less when she was a baby but I lived a lifestyle that matched my income not a lifestyle I wanted. Cars, holidays, expensive clothes, meals out, all luxuries and not necessities.

So move.

We can't afford to live near family in the SE. Living near London isn't a right. Op gets significantly more than most in other parts of the country to stay. Try lower salaries elsewhere instead of relying on the state to prop up over average family income because a few years of child raising austerity seems hard.

It is,it always has been.

Spadequeen - I agree with you that we have a morally corrupt government who set the example that everyone should be out there to grab as much money for themselves as possible and to hell with the rest of you. The 11% pay rise was a massive kick in the teeth to government employees, many of whom earn a fraction above the minimum wage and many of whom haven't had a pay rise for more than a decade. It is like they are laughing at us.

But, people earning 46k are doing really well compared to most people. Half the country earns less than 16k. The average wage is only high because some people earn a small fortune. Most people in most of the country working in a shop, office, call center, factory, nursery, teaching assistants, cleaners etc etc earn below 16k. These people need tax credits just to eat. I think some moral and social responsibility has to kick in when you are earning well above these people.

You should qualify for child benefit.

Can you get someone to help you plan your budget? Nothing is impossible, although it may seem it at the moment. Go through all your costs and see if you can cut them.

I recently saved us £350 a year changing gas and electricity suppliers from a big provider to a small one. I do good shopping online and meal plan. Nappies are bought in bulk from amazon, a baby group (usually with free tea and cake) is a couple of quid a week.

Why are people telling her to move? In the grim North she may not earn what she does in the Southeast and she's about to have a baby so it really a great idea to move away from your family support just because some random people Mumsnet tell her to?

Of course she shouldn't have to move.
Her rent is pretty cheap by London standards anyway.

I get that people think that she is getting a hard time here but '46k is nothing' comment are insane.
On what planet is 46k 'nothing'?
And how the hell do people who think that 46k is nothing think that families on half of that survive in London?

Is it the myth of the ££££££££££ handouts again? Because poor people are richer than non poor people?

Move?? Why the fuck should they? They're working, earning, contributing!

She doesn't have to move, but if she can't afford London she might have to. Living in London is a luxury, just like living in an expensive house or any expensive area. We all have to live where we can afford to live. I would like to live somewhere better, but I can't afford to.

The north isn't all grim. No wonder the southeast is overcrowded.

So suck it up then and stop expecting the state to prop her up.

We'd love to live near London but can't. End of.

I'd also love holidays every year,a car less than 20 years old,to be able to eat out........

We'll get those things when our DC have left. Until then austerity reigns.

The north is much nicer than the south east for the most part. Hardly grim

is this in the mail yet?

Would also like to replace our rotting windows,creaking central heating system,moth eaten carpets,broken oven,teeny fridge for 5,worn out kitchen,broken tap.....

And yy to teenagers costing more. Don't aspire to home ownership or more children if you don't think you can handle years of austerity.

I'd love a holiday in the Maldives, I'm not asking anyone to buy it for me.

If their household income is made up of two £23k salaries, or similar, that means they're both on below average wages, especially for London, it's not even at graduate trainee level. The OPs DM lives in Essex and she says she wouldn't mind living near there, so not even up in the grim north and not away from family either.

But surely there are office type jobs in just about every city in the country that pay around £20k at least? Every time we try to fill vacancies paying £20-30k in office or graduate trainee level we're far from over-run with even half decent candidates for full time permanent positions in the public sector in Yorkshire. With everything else, especially housing being cheaper, they will probably be better off.

But lets perpetuate the myth that if you can get a job anywhere more than 50 miles from London it's only ever going to be retail, cleaning, care or warehouse work for NMW.

Living in London is a luxury
What, for Londoners?
Are you mad?