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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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AIBU to think you can't survive as a single parent without benefits?

131 replies

womanadulthumanfemale · 19/05/2019 11:36

Unless you're on maybe £60 k p/a plus?

Maybe when they are school age but before that it isn't doable is it ... Or is it?

OP posts:
GertrudeCB · 19/05/2019 12:16

WorraLiberty Grin

JacquesHammer · 19/05/2019 12:16

Just to add, I get the £80 a month child benefit before I’m accused of not declaring Grin I get no other assistance.

RuffleCrow · 19/05/2019 12:16

Is this the room for an argument?!

Wadrin · 19/05/2019 12:17

You cut your cloth to suit your means

Yep that’s why I’m sat here with no heating or hot water for the foreseeable!

Yura · 19/05/2019 12:17

@womanadulthumanfemale you are incredibly rude. its not others people fault that you didn’t get a job that you can earn enough for your circumstances. being rude to others isn’t the solution, but might be part of the problem
(saying that as somebody who had to support 2 kids and my at the time to ill to work husband for 7 years on my own with no family support - he was too ill to look r the kids full time either)

Wadrin · 19/05/2019 12:17

And I work 36 hours a week!

MrsPussinBoots · 19/05/2019 12:17

Of course it's doable but it completely depends on circumstances. I'm on £24kpa, 5yo in school so no childcare costs and get £5 per week in benefits which make absolutely no difference to my bills so go straight into a junior isa.
I'm dreaming of £30k, £60k would be like winning the lottery.

PottyPotterer · 19/05/2019 12:18

I don't think you can make a blanket statement like that though

Single parents like everyone else all have individual circumstances that will dictate their standard of living.

Wages/housing costs
Number of children
NRP's contribution - This imo is what makes the biggest difference, along with childcare costs

I earn around £28k and get by just fine but I only have one child and have always had free childcare in the form of family plus I get maintenance, not a huge amount but it makes a difference.

Ultimately if NRP's were meeting 50% of the costs of raising their kids the majority of single parents would manage just fine, unfortunately the number of NRP's who do contribute a fair amount is probably about 0.00001%.

L1nkedOut · 19/05/2019 12:18

ps, AND even though I am doing it NOW< it's because my DC are teens and they don't need to be minded every second that I'm not there. Although obviously I should be there more than I am.

As @unicornBrexit says ''There is something very wrong with society when doing a hard days graft doesn't give you enough to live on.''

This is very true. The old economic unit of the family held up as the ideal means that the state doesn't have to incur the cost of the next generation, it is women who are bearing that cost. Even if they're in a relationship often their job is paid less and deemed less valuable to the family income so they're the one who has to ring in sick and damage their status at work when the baby is sick.

In my opinion the RIGHT thing to do would be to have state provided childcare so that women aren't penalised for motherhood MORE than men are penalised for fatherhood. Over and over and over again, across races, cultures, income bands, it is mothers who pay the price for parenthood, while fathers' price for parenthood is much less impactful on their life/wealth/career.

And yes, to quote and agree with @unicornbrexit again, this is why women often stay in shitty relationships. I can understand it. If you'd only be swapping one kind of abject misery and disconnection for poverty and anxiety, then I do understand why women stay in crappy relationships.

NameChangeMcgee · 19/05/2019 12:18
Biscuit
HundredMileStare · 19/05/2019 12:19

I honestly think this country has gone mad.

I earn what I consider good money for my age- £37k which at 27 in the north is much higher than most of my high school year.

I am so lucky that I only have to pay childcare for 1 child for 3 days of the week thanks to having such a big family.

I am also so lucky that I bought my first house really young, and then 'flipped' houses in my early twenties so that now my mortgage is minimal.

If I was paying full childcare and full rent I couldn't survive on my own with two children. I was paying £800pm childcare at one point and the woman who lived across the stair from me was paying £850pm in rent, versus my £340 mortgage. In the biggest shitehole area in the city. That would leave £500 for all bills, a car, petrol, school meals, food, clothes, and everything else.

It's impossible. Or at the very least extremely fucking miserable.

If thats how I feel about a "good salary" then I have no idea how people do it minimum wage. I don't think you can.

L1nkedOut · 19/05/2019 12:21

Having been in OP's shoes though, as a working person back in the workplace 28k doesn't sound a fortune but often you cannot just walk straight back in to the workplace earning 28k. My first job back in the workplace after the CE scheme that is, was 21k.

I earn more now luckily, but if your'e stepping back in, from the position of having been out of the work place for a while, employers will exploit that and pay you peanuts to begin with. I'm lucky now I've been back a few years so it doesn't feel as relevant anymore but for a long time, the narrative was ''you can't ask for anything more than a spit in the eye'' (because you've been out of the workplace for a while.

TotheletterofthelawTHELETTER · 19/05/2019 12:21

My DD is in school and my parents do my after school care. I earn £20k and get roughly £4k in tax credits and child benefit. I manage on that, I get no maintenance from exh.
If I had to pay for childcare and didn’t get tax credits I wouldn’t be able to afford to work.

Tawdrylocalbrouhaha · 19/05/2019 12:21

You certainly can - I do, unless you count child benefit (which most people get) and the 30 hours funded childcare, which anyone can get if they are working.

No need to get arsey - many of us do fine without benefits, but if you need them there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone's circumstances are different.

itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted · 19/05/2019 12:22

Wow OP you're very rude! Where is the father in all this? Presumably he's not in the picture?
It's not just single people who struggle - even with two incomes a lot of families struggle

Wadrin · 19/05/2019 12:22

My rent on a shitty 3 bed is much much much higher than all my friends mortgages.

Council tax has just gone up another £23 a month

Childcare is £640 a month

Our local housing allowance is a fucking joke and hasn’t risen for years, certainly not in line with actual rental costs

£11 odd quid a week for child benefit doesn’t even cover school dinners

Wages frozen for years (NHS), went they went up last year it was actually a real time pay drop because they put up our parking charges by £££

Fucked which ever way you go!

MonstranceClock · 19/05/2019 12:23

£800 a month childcare is incredibly cheap!
Before my daughter started school I was paying nearly 2 grand a month in childcare, it's insane.

SnuggyBuggy · 19/05/2019 12:24

I think I get what you mean. To be honest I sometimes wonder what I'd be prepared to put up with from DH because the thought of trying to look after DD on shit wages with no grandparents nearby scares me.

Wadrin · 19/05/2019 12:24

30 hours free childcare....very few of the nurseries around here offer it.

HundredMileStare · 19/05/2019 12:25

@MonstranceClock oh I totally agree! This was a subsidised nursery and only available to those with a household income of below £30k, which at the time I was just entitled to.

Also I'm in the north so I'm guessing varies quite a lot between here and the south. And that was 4 days per week, family thankfully always looked after my youngest on fridays.

It's mental though.

Wadrin · 19/05/2019 12:26

My bills (actual proper bills not sky, internet etc) come to 2k a month.

That’s just

Rent
Council tax
Oil
Electric
Water
House/contents insurance
Car insurance/tax
Life insurance

2k! Before you even get to anything else

happyhillock · 19/05/2019 12:27

It's not just single parent's who struggle, you can have 2 parent's working on low wages, there known as the working poor and have been know to have to use foodbanks to feed there children, where's the father does he pay child support.

EleanorLavish · 19/05/2019 12:28

I know a single mum who earns £100,000. She has no support of any kind including friends as she moved to the area.
She works 70 hrs a week. Sometimes has to travel so her child (young teen) has to be at a private school where they board occasionally.
She has to watch the pennies.
She says the worst bit is having no one to chat to and share the load.
Single parenting isn’t easy.

Temporaryanonymity · 19/05/2019 12:28

I am a lone parent. The kids are older now so childcare isn't an issue. I don't get any benefits but I did move to a cheaper part of the country. We live very well.

Bwekfusth · 19/05/2019 12:29

You asked a question and some people replied with how they manage, then you flew off the handle completely. Good job 👍