Aibu to not know why you wouldn't be able to feed your DC's breakfast?

[Bearlover16]

Daughters school has recently extended the 'paid' breakfast club to 'free' breakfast club due to an increase in the number of children going to school not having had any breakfast.

Are people really that much on the bread line that they cannot buy a loaf of bread or some cheap porridge oats for less than a quid?

I'm not well off by any means and I do donate to food banks when I can. I also ensure my dcs have had breakfast before leaving the house as I was always led to believe it's the most important meal of the day.

If you work 20 hours a week, are a FT Student and claim WTC and CTC you will get £48,500 a year and 70% help with childcare. I worked this out on the calculator for you

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAAAAA!

It's the way you tell 'em!

What do you mean, the way I tell them?

"Yellow I'm sorry but what/who made you the judge of parenting?"

This - without the apology!

SO narrow minded I'm guessing you've never genuinely struggled financially. Yes you get benefits but have you ever GENUINELY not known where your next meal coming from?

Also yes to circumstances changing after having children-

When I became pregnant with dd I was in a well paid full time job, married to someone in a full time well paid secure job (army).

Since then I've had a traumatic birth THAT COULDN'T BE PREDICTED, my child has a disability, my ex pretty much insisted I be a sahm, then cheated and I left, seeing afterward that after I had my dd he had become controlling in many was inc financially. My home was afq so that went, I was lucky enough to get a university place, at the end of which 2 days after my last exam I was involved in a serious car accident that left me disabled and mentally ill.

How was I supposed to predict/prepare for all that?

I have no support network of any worth, it's basically been me and dd against the world since she was 2.

Dd doesn't trust anyone but me and has anxiety as a result of that.

I'm in the process of returning to work and am working with someone from a charity, who is an experienced recruitment worker (pre the charity job) of over 20 years and even she admits there are bugger all jobs out there and what there is, is rarely offered to the long term sick because employers would much rather employ someone with recent experience and training that isn't likely to take time off sick regularly - but the govt and Certain posters on here aren't interested in hearing that because oh it's EASY to get a full time well paid job easy to get to and with suitable hours for EVERYONE'S personal circumstances.

I'm old enough to remember the laws coming in regarding companies of certain size HAVING to employ x% of disabled employees. I believe that's no longer closely monitored and should be extended to they must employ X amount of applicants that have been unemployed for over 5 years.

If you work 20 hours a week, are a FT Student and claim WTC and CTC you will get £48,500 a year and 70% help with childcare. I worked this out on the calculator for you

I'm ringing tax credits up first thing tomorrow morning to tell them they owe me three years worth of CTC for the time I was at Uni. Should give them a good laugh in the office 😂

The jibes at people who choose not to work more than 16/20 hours pw betray a lack of understanding of how the benefit system works. If the extra hours worked takes them over the NI threshold of £155, they will lose 12% of their gross pay in NI; if they are above the tax threshold they will lose 20% in tax, too.

Tax credits are based on gross pay and I believe the taper rate is now 44%*, so a further 44% will be lost in tax credits. Small increases in hours will not be adjusted in the current year, so are likely to lead to an overpayment in the subsequent year, meaning that they will be a lot worse off then.

If the claimant is getting housing benefit as well, they will lose 65% of their net pay in housing benefit, although this will be offset by any fall in tax credits.

The amount that someone gets to keep out of extra income is paltry, which is why there's no incentive to do it.

• not sure if the proposed increase from 41% to 44% was actually implemented in the end, so this may be wrong.

Lakielady you understand the figures better than me but I and many others on benefits do know that working/working more hours can leave us MUCH worse off and that's NOT because benefits are 'generous' it's because wages are shit!!

In addition 'if you can work you should' doesn't necessarily translate into being able to work full time. I'm currently looking for 12 hours or less as permitted work as my health carers don't think I could cope with more NOR the uncertainty of the mess it will cause my finances if I take a job over 12 hours, get out on UC, have not enough money for AT LEAST 6 weeks and end up evicted because I can't pay my rent!

Food is a basic necessity so part of benefits system for those with children should be in the form of vouchers or credits to buy food & household items. No one should be going to school or bed hungry. Like it or not some people just do not to prioritise feeding their kids over other things so having specific funds allocated for this means there are no excuses.

And if you don't receive the vouchers for 8 months?

Or as happens where similar systems operate only certain shops will accept them and people don't live near the same shops. In addition - what a GREAT way to stigmatise those on benefits MORE by announcing to all their neighbours they're on benefits

wannabe 😃

JonSnowsWife

That would only apply as the only breadwinner/ single parent family
With 2 children

May apply to you if so kerching I guess

They already do have milk/fruit and veg vouchers

The calculation was based on minimum wage though 😊

Only if your DC are under 5, DaisyRaine.

daisy did you get £48k from the mail? In which case you should at least also see what they've wrote about the benefits cap, which is half that. Or you could even educate yourself properly on the subject.

I don't believe it is people refusing extra hours. Unless they are permanent, contracted hours they really aren't an option. Top up benefits don't catch up quick enough to allow for anyone to significantly vary their hours.

I also would recommend, not condemn, anyone refusing zero hours as a sole income. Top ups don't catch up, and childcare still needs paying for on the week/ month you get no hours. The guaranteed breadline poverty of full benefits is better than the greater poverty and likely destitution of no income.

I also hope that all those quick to stereotype and condemn are net contributors, and haven't ever relied on the tax payer to fund their healthcare or education.

I find they are usually hypocrites though. Quite happy to dip into the public purse for a fortune in normal healthcare, let alone thousands a year for every dc they have at state schools. But find yourself with health problems, or in any way dumped in a bad situation not of your making, and naturally you are a drain on society.

Making moral judgements about benefit claimants and your taxes is about as logical, and emotionally intelligent as popping into childbirth and telling everyone that had a complex pregnancy, or c-section, or who needed special care etc that they are scrounging from the public purse and if they had planned better they wouldn't have cost the taxpayer as much. Or telling them they shouldn't have had a baby if they couldn't afford private maternity care.

In my mind they are no different, and that is exactly what the public purse is for, helping those that need it.

As I have said before on other threads I really think they need to sort out child maintenance once and for all. If I actually received the minimum I was told I should expect rather than a big fat zero.... and then the arrears spread over a year.... I wouldn’t have to worry. And I am not in the shit state some are as I am not capped due to disability. I am owed around £25k at the moment. That would make a huge difference to me! It shouldn’t be optional....

Ditto wannabe. I don't like to tot up exactly what dd is owed in maintanence. Close to £100k even if I assume it's the same income as over a decade ago.

I've never had a penny and I've given up hoping. The best that can happen now is he eventually gets caught out and the arrears will benefit dd as an adult.

I have a
‘I only earn 67p a week as an engineer ya honour’ ds1’s Dad. He has been to every court going and appealed every judgment. Oh and faked a dna (and got caught) and his own death (nope again)
Still nothing.
Ds2’s Dad is a Liar who lies his marriage was on the rocks (so I excepted less money) and he was in hell. He then offered me 5grans to piss off and it turns out my son’s grandmother had LEFT it to him. He wasn’t going to tell him and pass it off as ‘toward what he owes’ just got busted for that.
Ds3’s Dad is an insult to a Dicks arse and although he has a good job (customs officer) is late paying and short paying. I have to beg every month and he pays it at 11.55pm.
You might think I was a drinker or party girl.... I haven’t been out for five years and am currently having chemo.
I should have picked much better.!
Or written a book....

Yes - interesting the lack of pursuit of those who should pay child support (mainly men) vs the INSTANT recovery of tax credit overpayments (mainly received by women)

Agreed @Graphista or in fact any other bloody bill. They stopped my aa I am on sick pay and my wages have gone down. I am financially in the shit as missing £500 from cms.
So I can’t pay the rent on the disabled house they gave me.
People say to me ‘you should do your bucket list - do some fun stuff with the boys’
I can’t pay the fucking rent.
I will be lucky if I get buried in the bucket. (Sorry am feeling sorry for myself today) xx

That should say tax credits... I can’t see well today :/

If you honestly don't know why this exists may I suggest go and work in a food bank for a few weeks, then you might understand why.

Poverty, ridiculous benefit cuts, chaotic lifestyles, drugs, alcohol all kinds of other reasons mean that some children will not get fed.

Bingo on the fake dna and the own death. We also had fake disability for a while when the criteria wasn't hard for an intelligent person to navigate. Also had the surprised act when he claimed it was the first he knew he had a child. Despite there being police records about stuff that happened when I was pregnant, and stuff he attempted when she was a newborn. He's fucking clever too. It's amazing the lifestyle that 3p a week provided him with. Or at least he's clever with his accounts, because it's not clever to avoid the best thing about himself which is his inherited genes, my dd. Still, if no maintanence is the flip side of no contact then at least he has to keep his fuck ups to finance rather than her emotions.

But that's nothing compared to what's on your plate wanna. I wish I had words of comfort or practical advice and an imaginary emoticon for your money to hurry the fuck up

The amount of children who come to school hungry is scary, and not because they chose not to eat that morning. Some children's houses will lack food. Some children won't have had any parental involvement at all that morning. Some children won't have a snack or water bottle. And some children's only chance to have a hot meal or even meal that day is their school lunch.

These are innocent children, who don't know any different.
Benefits are there to be used for support, and rightly so.
Was there not a study which suggested 1 in 3 families are 1 paycheck away from being homeless - I'm sure you'd skip a few meals before you lost your home.

^That would only apply as the only breadwinner/ single parent family
With 2 children^

Single Parent ✔
2 children ✔
FT student ✔
PT worker ✔

Main Breadwinner ✔

Still wasn't entitled to it any help.

I did some research on Breakfast Clubs about 15 years ago when they were one of the initiatives supported by the Single Regeneration Budget. I spoke to a head teacher in a very deprived area in Birmingham, and he told me that, for many of the children, if they didn't eat breakfast there, then they didn't eat breakfast, and if they didn't get free school meals then they wouldn't get lunch either. It broke his heart to see some of them so painfully thin after school holidays. There are multiple reasons; extreme poverty, just having no idea how to care for themselves or for their children, domestic violence, drug and alcohol issues, mental health problems, chaotic lifestyles...the list is endless. Breakfast club meant that parents who were working could get to work on time, and it meant that these kids were at school on time and could go to class better able to concentrate. They didn't get luxury breakfasts - value white bread toasted, cheap cereal, maybe apples, but it made a real difference to the kids and their ability to engage in class.