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

London wages are no different from wages elsewhere for the majority.
I don't know why people think London workers earn more.
We don't wall work in The City

30 years ago we had to live further out of London and commute in as people have done sinc the 1930s and earlier when railways were put in for all those commuters. This is nothing new.

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

I feel sorry for born and bred londoners being priced out of their city by international companies

It sounds like the OP has moved there for work. I agree that it is very difficult for people brought up there, but that doesn't change the fact that unless you are earning a lot the much higher costs are a very significant downside for most people who would have a better quality of life in other UK cities, even if they earnt less.

The op's rent is cheap for her area. She is earning below the average for London but because he rent is low and her partner also works full time, they are ok. The are dinkys without a huge income.

But everything is about to change when she has this baby. Have people missed the part where her subsidised nursery fees are £60/day? That's £1200 per month, more than her rent.

I think she will give up work and they will become a 3 person family living on £23,000.

It's the same for millions of families who have to pay for childcare - one partner cannot afford to work.

Because our housing costs are low our quality of life would be worse if we moved out of London.
Food, travel and utilities are not cheaper. Shops don't sell clothes cheaper etc.
Housing is the major issue here and its a scandal.
Its precisely the attitude that 'living in London is a luxury' that has gotten us to this point.
Why is it? MN is always banging on about how crap it is here. Its dirty and crowded and dangerous isn't it?
So why does everyone think its ok to charge ridiculous rents?

The OP's 1k wouldn't get her a two bedroom flat in my area and I am not in one of the posh/expensive bits.
Its 2.5k a month for a normal three bed round here.

People mean that it's a luxury in that it's expensive and often unnecessary - people are choosing to live in London because of some perceived advantage, which in many cases doesn't seem to exist in reality.

It's not that simple Barbara, here in the rural Midlands (nearest city Birmingham) office jobs are 15k, graduate type trainee roles are 18k, both will be fixed term rather than permanent and there's almost no variation on that theme. Rent and house prices are cheaper than the SE but still completely divorced from wages.

Someone will always pay the rent. It's like Center Parcs. Very expensive but is always full. I think in London there should be more help for key workers that don't earn a lot but are necessary. Probably priority for social housing would be the best way to achieve this.

A nurse, teacher, hospital cleaner, care worker, fire fighter or similar should be at the front of the social housing queue within say 30/45 minutes of their workplace, providing that their total household income isn't massive due to a high earning spouse.

And there should be a suitable home available for them almost as soon as they start a job. Now that could mean that if you stop working at the London hospital you would lose your right to that home, in order to make way for whoever fills that post.

The bankers and solicitors can work anywhere to be fair. They're not round each other's offices every five minutes are they?

Put them all on a big industrial estate somewhere in the midlands and build a load of houses for them to live in nearby.

It's not as simple as just moving out of London, as many posters suggest.

The OP and her DP have jobs and are settled, by the sounds of it, relatively near her family. I presume they also have friends.

It would be a massive upheaval for anyone to move away from everything they know, give up their home, jobs, move away from friends, just to find a slightly cheaper area to live in. An area that they may not even find a secure job in.

If the OP was pissing diamonds whilst wiping her arse with £20 notes then I would understand some of the anger directed towards her.

But she's just a normal person on 21k a year, worrying about finances when she has her first child.

She isn't entitled, deluded, responsible for other's poverty or taking benefits from them. She's done nothing but vent a bit on aibu, and I bet she wishes she hadn't bothered.

If you want to blame anyone, look at the government.

We hear constantly about how hard life is in London. This government has created more wealth at the top end in Lndon by its policies and has made life harder for the ordinary amongst us who don't earn 80,000+.

But FFS life in the North-East isn't easy for many people. The poverty I see here is worse than I ever remember in almost 40 years. DH and I are teachers and in the last 4 years we have seen increasing numbers of children unfed, whose parents can't afford school uniforms. Ihave come across parents who have 74 a week to feed and clothe themselves and 3 children and heat a house.
The better off amngst us up here have a lvely life as they do in Lndon but there is grinding poverty and pockets of ingrained deprivation and an awful sense of hopelessness. People up here feel ignored by the south- east centred policies. The 'Northern Powerhouse' doesn't reach Newcastle in any way and it is less of an investment in the whole of the north of England in 4 years from Manchester up to Scotland than the government put into London in a year. It doesn't focus anything on anywhere past Leeds. We might as well be in Patagonia up here as far as the government is concerned. Rented housing isn't cheap up here although you could buy something but most young families can't afford mortgages because of huge downpayments needed. Petrol, food, energy, clothing costs are the same. Travel isn't cheap.

So to hear someone grumbling about not getting benefits on 46,000 a year is hard to listen to for many.

Oh FFS all the typos! Sorry. That's what feeding a newborn and typing does for you.

I don't think the op meant any harm.

Thankfully I can work pt for some extra money as I have family there to help with childcare, otherwise I couldn't afford to as paying childcare wouldn't be worth me working.

What annoys me with the benefit system is that for some reason people I know where I live who will be similar income to what me and my husband get somehow get ctc but we can't? People who work in a job with double my hourly rate keep there hours to a certain amount a week so they can still receive all their benefits, get their new build house rent covered. Possibly fraud, who knows.

I never had my children for them to be paid by government just seems strange some get it and more and some don't.

Posters talking about teenagers being more expensive than young children are ignoring childcare costs. I have a teenager. He eats like a horse, has been in adult clothing and shoes for years and will soon be expecting help to pay for driving lessons. He still doesn't cost as much as fulltime nursery for a baby, or even a 4yo!

OP there are jobs outside London whatever your job is at present.
You could get jobs in cities like Cardiff or Manchester that may not pay as much as in London but your housing costs will be far lower as you can live outside these areas and commute very cheaply. Commuting into London is ridiculously expensive.
Maybe the time has come for you to completely rethink your future and see what jobs are available in other areas.

"Posters talking about teenagers being more expensive than young children are ignoring childcare costs."

Yes, I thought that was a particularly daft comment.

I have two teenagers with their endless trips to Nandos and the cinema and hobbies and growing out of clothes after 6 months. They cost nowhere near £1200 per month!

Imagine their joy if we upped their allowances to £300 a week!

Those costs are temporary and for a very short amount of time. Save before,have the family you can afford.

We've moved several times for work. Hoards of people do.You do what you need to do. Anybody expecting the state to fund people to stay in areas because they don't want to move is seriously deluded. If we all demanded help to stay in areas of our choosing the country would be even more on it's knees than it already is.

The government backs people being mibile but this takes away the family help for childcare

It also splits families who see the GC for limited weekends - so the sense of family community is diluted

It's a shame because it's making things worse not better

Back in the day. Yes op would have received a little extra.

It was 66k for under one as a poster stated.

Having a baby is only as expensive as you make it. You don't have to have the latest bloody bugaboo (or whatever it is?) push chair or even maternity clothes (leggings and shirts will do)
Breastfeed and live frugally. You'll just have to get by and managed and make sacrifice

Surely the act of having a child is by necessity as expensive as you make it because you've had a child. You could live on air and water but you'd still have to cough up £1200 a month for childcare.

Of course people make sacrifice and get by - you have to. But an expense of £12,000 per year before you've even spent a penny on clothes or food or a buggy, isn't exactly cheap.

Having a baby is only as expensive as you make it. You don't have to have the latest bloody bugaboo (or whatever it is?) push chair or even maternity clothes (leggings and shirts will do)
Breastfeed and live frugally. You'll just have to get by and managed and make sacrifice

what nonsense? buggy and food are only the tip of the iceberg. even the most frugally will have a lot less money because of loss of income (mat leave) and £££ in nursery fees. what a stupid comment