To think you shouldn't be better off a single parent living with family than being in a working couple? **Title edited by MNHQ**

[CallingAllLovers]

In a nutshell, I'm working 17 hours a week and getting £700 take home salary, plus £82 something Child Benefit. I have one DC.

On top of this, I get about £800 it so in tax credits.

I'm now separated from my husband so living with family.

I'm far better off financially than I was when both myself and H worked and ran a home together.

I have a friend who's really struggling, her DH and her both work full time with one DC. Another friend in a similar situation with two DC.

I was incredibly panicked when leaving H, I often kept staying when things were really tough due to being petrified of how skint I would be.

But it's not the case.

I did wonder why the money I get was so high, then I was told tax credits don't care about your bills/outgoings, just your childcare.

AIBU to think I shouldn't be better off than someone working full time, or a hard working couple working full time?

I realise this thread sounds really goady, but I'm not trying to be.

It just seems like people are penalised for working more/having a partner.

You don’t run a household though if you’re staying with family. Think about how much further that money is going to have to go when you do move out. I’d save as much of it as you can now to prepare.

The jump between one and two children may only apply if they are teenagers who cannot share a room (girl and boy) so you may get a bit more to allocate for an extra bedroom.

Yes my third was born just after cap.

No, I’m sorry the couple I live next door to need no specialist equipment, they don’t have an adapted house, she doesn’t have a wheelchair, she has a crutch for her sore knee which she’s been told to exercise but refuses to do so.

No, not it’s not right that a family like that get £500 a week and we struggle to have any disposable income after bills and food.

I’m not saying for a second they should get less than they do, if she were ACTUALLY disabled and in need of a carer, I’m sure they’d need it,
But then it doesn’t not true that we don’t get a top up on our income. There needs to be more help for working families, not less for everyone else and the shitstorm that is PIP needs refining. If doctors provided the information needed for support, my chancer neighbours wouldn’t get away with what they do and people who needed it but weren’t capable of endlessly harassing for more money, would get it

Camel whether she exarcebated it herself or not, earlier you called it “irreversible damage to her leg” which is a bit more serious than “a sore knee”.

But it is a sore knee. A sore knee that can’t be fixed but a sore knee all the same.

It’s not so sore that she can’t

Walk 3 miles on it
Stand outside the school gates for 40 mins with it
Stand outside the house shouting abuse and being mental with it.

It’s sore, I get that. What it isn’t is reason for a person to never work again. Lots of jobs are sit down jobs

know two women who waxed lyrical about deciding to live of benefits, tax credits and child maintenance so they could focus on their children while they were growing up. Now their kids have left the home, they are both so poor it’s unreal, no money for heating or petrol, not even enough money to pay a deposit to rent a room in a shared house. They cannot even get proper jobs as they have not developed a career path that would allow them to have a good enough salary to survive on their own.

Benefits and tax credits are a safety net not a way of life! And that attitude of yours is making us, single mothers, look as lazy arses when in fact many of us work hard and long hours to provide for our families and still manage to raise well rounded successful kids.

Your post sounds to me like you're trying to imply I'm just like those two women.

I'm not. I'm not just 'living off benefits'. I have a good job that I've progressed and developed enough to be able to go part time. It isn't a hindrance to my career progression.

And those two women you know seem quite an extreme circumstance. There are plenty of people I know who've been on benefits until their children went to school or grew up a bit.

They all have jobs that are fine. Not necessarily high flying career prospects but not bad wages either. They're doing well for themselves.

And don't have DC to care for and consider childcare for, etc etc

Sure it's an undercover tory mp behind this thread

If only. Then I really would have money!

Why don’t you want to work more hours op? I don’t understand why you have decided to only work 17 hours a week.

And I was a single parent in exactly this position as DH didn’t live with me for a while and we are worse off than I was alone and he earns £36k a year.

Bullshit. I call bull shit.

Maybe the £36k poster has got higher outgoings now and is choosing not to take them into consideration?

I’m a single parent, on £25k, I work 40 hours and have approx £100 a week to live on.

If you feel so bad, work full time and you won’t be entitled to anything.
HTH

hmm So I can spend the time with my son? So I have a better work/life balance for now, during quite an eventful time in my life?

I'm better off financially working PT, I've done all the calculations

Are you waiting for your Nan to leave the house to you?

Penguin In all fairness, the house will be left for me and her other grandchildren. She wants it as a 'safe place' for us all and I can't see my sisters taking that away from me, ever.

If we ever needed this house, they'd want it to be there as a safety net

Sounds like you’ve got it sorted Op. not sure why you came on to complain about being given too much money.
Anyway, I’ll just crack on like RoderickRules. No safe spaces being left for me at the end of it all!

Well OP you're sortedso why come on here whining about what you think others get, I've been a single mother for years and have really struggled without a roof put over myhead from family or sodding £800 tax credits. When you've tried to manage on your own with no help then whinge about others but so far you haven't got a clue

Tax credits work on income and bring family incomes up to around the £28k mark regardless of what your outgoings are.

Which is exactly as it should be, because it means they then have to make choices about how to spend that income just like families without tax credits do.

camel, I really doubt your neighbour is on the sick for a sore knee. These days she’d be told that didn’t stop her sitting behind a desk and sent back to work.

People should be "penalised" for having a partner (i have one). A good relationship makes life 100 times easier practically financially and emotionally.

That is one of the daftest comments I have ever seen.

I’ve been away for a while so will summarise
@throwaway I do pay a mortgage which is £600 a month. I can’t complain as I am extremely grateful. As I line in a share of freehold I don’t have the option to hold on repairs etc. Since sep it’s cost me £10k in repairs so I obviously had to get a loan to pay for that. I’m honestly not complaining as I am so grateful to have bought my home.
@cocopuffs you are correct it is roughly 60k but he cannot change careers. He studied for a seriously long time to have this job.
@battleax not an option. Too complicated to explain.
@Caribbean you may not have aimed that at me but it is VERY possible.
Maybe we have all learnt a little from this thread. The fact that each persons situation is unique but the government treats it as black and white. I personally found my life a lot easier unemployed and on benefits. I’m clearly not saying it’s what I want to do, but that’s the way it is. This may not be the case for all but it was the case for me.

I am not entitled to housing benefit, reduced power, free nursery etc. That simply isn't true.

When I put my details into the benefit calculators it tells me I am entitled to housing benefit but it isn't correct.

I was married and we both worked full time in average wage jobs. We were above the threshold for any help except standard child benefit.

Now I am a single mother and I work part time and receive tax credits and child credits.

I was much better off when I was part of a couple even though we got no extra help.

I understand it's fun to have a group of people to be angry at because you work so hard and do all the right things but they get more free 'stuff' than you. But, honestly, give your head a wobble and think a little deeper.

The life of Riley crap is infuriating, I am sole emotional and practical support to two children. I do every single bit of their care.
No one else is coming to help, ever. Fine, I am their mother.

I'm not lazy or rolling in it, I am the one who stayed and spends every penny and every minute on my children.

If you want to have a problem with anyone, take it up with the absent parents and the lack of enforcement of their responsibilities.

cantankerous a very apt nn

Why are you so jelous of somebody who is far worse off than you?
Are you a medic who knows this woman would be capable of a sitting down job?
I don't understand the vitriol to disabled people, who have to jump through hoops, to be deemed entitled to financial support, not literally of course, because they can't.

Caribbean

I’m unsure why you would think I give a flying fuck if you beleive me or not. Funnily enough I have better things to do than make up stories on the internet!

gilly

‘Jealous’ is an odd term to use given how I’ve described this person. Pretty obviously my life’s ambition is not to spend my days doing fuck all but shouting threats at random people and starting rumours on the school run.

The fact is, the OP is right, there should be more help for working families, there has to be a considerable income in order for it to be financially worthwhile to live in a two parent family in this country.

I, fortunately, have a career that allows me to work around my husband and to take my baby to work when necessary.

Not everyone is so lucky. I think the fact many have made out like childcare is ‘not a factor’ shows how removed from reality a number of the people on this thread are.

Before DH moved in, I earned £150 a week and received £117 a week in tax credits.

I recieved housing benefit, council tax benefit and I was entitled to free childcare.

Now he brings in £2144 a month, I earn less (new baby) but we have to pay full rent and council tax plus additional money for food/electric/travel costs/bills

we are not entitled to help with childcare.

I agree with the top ups given to single parents, I do not agree with the lack of support given to working families.

Having watched a need to over dramatise physical disability completely eradicate any chance of independence and freedom from my neighbours life, seeing her become a shadow of a person with nothing to look forward to or work towards, I have severe reservations as to how DLA is administered in this country. Particularly having seen how difficult it is for friends who need support to recieve it.

If you can’t see a problem, you are either so far removed from these problems you don’t get them, or you’re deluded

I agree with the top ups given to single parents, I do not agree with the lack of support given to working families.

They are given the same support. You don’t get extra for being a lone parent. You only get extra for having a low income. So a lone parent earning £700pcm will get the same as a man and SAHM who earn £700pcm.

I’ve been saying this for years!

Leah

You’re wrong, you don’t get the same support at all. You don’t get the same council tax reduction, you don’t get all allowance for having another adult in the house, you don’t get free childcare hours for 2 year olds.

There are lots of top ups that single parent families rightly get to make life a bit easier.

Like I said, it take an enormous wage to match the top ups given to a SP on working tax credit.

Cantankerous

Working parents have help as it is. If you don't earn a decent wage it's topped up.
Are you suggesting that working families earning more than this need a top up?
Because that would be more than the average income.
if you need more than this, maybe look at your lifestyle and don't be so entitled.