To ask if SAHM on benefits also have it hard

[Tryinghardereveryday]

I am not generalising, making assumptions or trying to offend.

This morning a was taking LO to nursery,
Which costs me a fortune. I am considered to have a good wage and I work FT. I own my own home.

A woman was walking her dog with her children. She lives in a council house, Her home is identical to mine.She’s single and doesn’t work. I am assuming she is in receipt of benefits.

I thought what’s the point of working so hard... I get limited time with DD whilst she gets to see her children full time. If I don’t work my home gets repossessed. I pay council tax, childcare fees and receive no financial help with anything.

Am I better off than those who have financial help? Does working FT provide me with a better lifestyle? This woman is not struggling. She also claims free childcare. A part from my annual holiday away (which I am grateful for) I don’t think I have anything more than she does and I don’t think that’s completely worth it.
The good thing about working is the contribution to my pension. But poorer older people also get additional assistance. Very few of us will get to pass inheritance to our children as our equity (anything above £23000) will possibly be used to pay for our care in old age.

I’m just feeling down and thinking what’s the point in working so hard. This is not an attack on this woman. It’s at the government, we live in a country where sometimes working does not pay for middle rate earners and we are constantly told it does.

God forbid someone might prefer to remain in a secure home

Ah but Moomin making assumptions about other's financial affairs is what the benefit bashers on MN call facts.

No one, not even my parents know a jot about our financial affairs, they'd just have to assume. And because we are relatively modest and have chosen to overpay and pay decent amounts in to his pension, have life insurance policies and funeral plans rather than buy shit we don't need or wear designer clothes, have a house too big for our needs, they'd assume we have a lot less disposable income than we do.

Really sad that society decides on someone's worth down to what their income is and how they acquire said income.

But here we are with the judgemental arseholes this thread is bringing out.

Didn’t the leader of the tube drivers union warning £200,000 a year live in a council house in London ?

@Crustytoenail I was privately renting for 6 years. And I had to move 5 times during those years for many reasons. But this is interesting that you would only pick up on the first part of my post (in relation to the council housing), and completely ignore the message behind it - people who abuse the system are the ones who annoy everyone. Are you abusing the system? No? So my post is not aimed at you then! I have even given an example of someone I know who is deliberately cheating the benefits system by having an agreement with his employer to be paid under the table, and avoiding shitloads of taxes - that is the problem, people like him!!! Who doesn't get caught for years!!! But for some reason no one picked up on what I wrote, so I assume people find it acceptable!

If you choose to work and need childcare though that is a choice, as is living off one wage and not having to pay childcare.
One isn't better than the other, kids need a roof over their head and they also need parents to raise them.
You make the decision based on what's best for your family.
We can't always have what we want, sometimes we have to have what fits.

The fact that people are buying into residulisation so heavily demonstrates a sinister undercurrent. I find it hard to believe that certain posters care about the homeless so much when they believe that SH tenants should risk homelessness by moving into precarious private rental. Its almost as if they are only bothered about homeless people when they want to use them as a stick to beat social housing tenants with. Insidious.

@SnuggyBuggy

"Graphista, that's grim, I thought at least the advantage of universal credit was it was meant to simplify things and work better with people's lives, obviously not." The THEORY of UC is great! More flexible, allow for people's circumstances changing on a monthly basis and work with those changes plus one payment per month rather than money coming in dribs and drabs.

Which compared to the "legacy" system is great. Supposedly, in theory. I've been on the legacy system in some form on and off (mostly on because earning a decent amount as a single parent with fuck all support from ex nor any support network is impossible) for almost 19 years. And before certain people start I am including in that periods where I was working full time and "only" getting tax credits - because I want to again make the point that tax credits ARE a benefit (if you're a benefits basher and you think you've not "been on benefits" because you've "only" claimed tax credits you're an idiot and a hypocrit!).

So at various points it's been a case of getting:

Child benefit - weekly (single parent option) Monday's

Child tax credit - weekly Tuesday's

Childcare tax credits - been a long time since I've had these but iirc was 4 weekly? Again the bills were calendar monthly

Working tax credits - as above but iirc 4 weekly, again the majority of my bills calendar monthly

Housing benefit - 4 weekly (anyone pay their rent 4 weekly? No I never have either - utterly bonkers system. Yes over the year you may get your full rent paid as 13 4 week months but in the real world this means you're actually a wee bit short each calendar month and having to juggle, why on EARTH it was never paid calendar monthly when that's when people's rent is usually needing to be paid I don't know! I believe at one point you could ask for it to be paid weekly, I've not paid rent weekly since I was a teenage lodger!)

Income support (when first a single parent unemployed and then as a full time student single parent in the 2 holidays between academic years) fortnightly (anyone got bills they pay fortnightly? No me neither!) Wednesday's

ESA after I became sick & disabled and after trying to "push through" for a few years against medical advice, because I didn't want to be a "benefits scrounging single mum" and I wanted dd to be proud of me and have a good work ethic/example demonstrated to her. - fortnightly Tuesdays

DLA - 4 weekly - again none of my bills are 4 weekly

again only claimed after I became too ill to work. Didn't know and nobody told me I could have claimed it while working. Dwp certainly had contact with me during this period and never said a thing! A little extra money at this point MAY have reduced the stress I was under and given me some breathing space to find a different job (what tipped me over the edge was horrific workplace bullying but the pay I was on there was better than nmw & standard office hours no bank holidays etc so finding a different job that didn't mean a drop in income I couldn't manage meant I ended up staying there longer than was healthy. If I'd known and been receiving DLA it MAY have meant I had a little leeway.

And none of them "coincided" with each other, so to give an overview of how bonkers it can be here's a non numerical summary of how it worked for our household at one point (and not hugely different at other times)

Week 1
Monday child benefit & housing benefit
Tuesday child tax credit

Week 2
Monday child benefit
Tuesday child tax credit & ESA

Week 3
Monday child benefit
Tuesday child tax credit & DLA

Week 4
Monday child benefit
Tuesday child tax credit & ESA

Bonkers! And as when you receive a benefit SEEMS from what I can tell to be based on either year or month of birth (no idea why they do it this way) I know family friends could easily be getting a different benefit on all 5 weekdays!

AND there's also the palava (as anyone reading who's been on benefits will know) of the farce that is "helpful" "early" payments whenever there's a bloody bank holiday! I know of loads of people. Especially those just starting to work their budget on benefits who've got in a real mess!!

How is someone who isn't SUPER organised with experience in bookkeeping/accountancy meant to cope with that?!

I AM super organised AND have accountancy experience and I found it a fucking nightmare! My aunt - a Fucking forensic accountant - helped me set up a 4 weekly rotating spreadsheet and advised me on which dates to set the direct debits I was able to choose dates for so that I wasn't caught out and going overdrawn and ending up with bank charges! And actually it still took some fine tuning (and a sympathetic bank) till it was running relatively smoothly!

So UC was SUPPOSED to end all that nonsense!

BUT the problems people have with UC INSTEAD are worse because they include: people mostly receiving less money overall, it can't cope with varying income dates and levels WHICH IT WAS SUPPOSED TO (a major problem with legacy benefits is even if running to correct deadlines [i know I can hear the uk wide scoff of all of us who know how rarely THAT happens] it took 6-8 weeks for changes to benefits due to changing income from other sources to 'work' so taking on either a temp job or a job with varying hours & pay was NOT realistic), it can't even cope with things like jobs where you don't get full pay for annual leave or sick pay! Or employers with "odd" pay schedules or who don't report pay in time leasing it to LOOK like an employee has been paid double one month and nothing another, then there's all the "administrative errors" including plain incompetence of the dwp people "managing" journals. Claimajts plain not receiving payments when they're supposed to - and remember this payment includes housing costs so rent arrears are a major issue. My own HA have ended up setting up a whole dept of their own JUST to deal with UC and sent the people working in it on a course to learn about UC and its rules and regs. That's INSANE this is even necessary! Claimants find it incredibly hard to speak to a real person to try and sort issues out - it's a complete farce!

I was discussing with a welfare advisor recently and you know what they said? The only people she's found are having the LEAST problems with UC are people who don't work at all, who have no income except benefits and who have VERY understanding landlords (basically in social housing with a good synpathetic landlord) - so UC is making it MORE risky & HARDER for people to move from benefits into work and NOT EASIER as it is supposed to.

@Waxonwaxoff0 I agree - I don't know ANYONE who goes around telling random folk their income and outgoings and why they work/don't work/work part time whatever

I certainly bloody don't! I discuss it here where it's anon and I discuss with welfare advisors in that kind of detail because it's necessary and I discuss to a nich lesser extent with my bank on occasion (but NEVER in public in the local branch - small town EVERYONE knows everyone and gossip/criticism is RIFE)

I discuss with the aunt who helped me budget who I trust implicitly and would never say a word to anyone.

But do I fuck ever discuss it with dds friends mum's or have I ever discussed at school gates or bus stops or whatever!

"This women is not struggling"
"I assume she's in receipt of benifits"

🧐

@Graphista

It's a disgrace. It's why I'd never judge anyone for being workshy if they decide it just isn't worth the stress of managing their in work benefits to get a low paid job.

I wonder how many people prosecuted for benefit fraud are just people who got genuinely confused with the system.

@Graphista exactly!! I'm baffled at how all these people have such detailed knowledge of other people's finances. I only say on here because it's anonymous, I don't want everyone IRL knowing my business.

"I wonder how many people prosecuted for benefit fraud are just people who got genuinely confused with the system."

A significant number I suspect.

Previously there were figures for how much was "genuine fraud" (I know that's something of an oxymoron) and how much was "administrative error" - which btw wasn't always a mistake on the claimants part!

When I first claimed tax credits as a single mum they messed massively by moving a decimal 2 places! And when I should have received £50 I got £5000! But BECAUSE I knew I wasn't eligible for that much and I'd have to pay it back I didn't dare use it! But it being in my account hell even just on my bank statement meant it messed up my claims for income support and housing and council tax benefits! It was indeed claimed back pretty much within a few weeks BUT it took MONTHS to properly sort out the mess this caused and I was left very short for quite some time!

I later found out the way it had been handled was wrong and I should have been given information and paperwork which I wasn't - but of course hmrc and dwp didn't bloody tell me did they?!

It's a very confusing system with too many ifs, buts and maybes.

BUT even IF people are getting what they're eligible for its very tight, as I say I'd bloody LOVE to see MPs manage on what they say is "enough to live on"

I've just increased my hours at work. I checked the 'entitled to' website before I changed to make sure it was worth doing. It reckoned I'd be £50 a week better off, so worth doing imo.

So now my children go to after school club 3 days a week which they've never done before, my childcare bill has virtually quadrupled, my housing benefit claim was suspended while they recalculate my claim due to a change in my earnings, my tax credits haven't yet adjusted to my new childcare costs...all this and I think I'm going to be in exactly the same position financially as I was before. I'm no worse off but certainly no better off and the worry has made me shed tears more than once this week.

... and guess what? You will be entitled to far less tax credits as a result of the last increase.

Because that is the thing, if you take a couple of temporary jobs, you will be worse of when it comes to tax credits in the year after.

There are people who refuse to try to understand this. I remember getting into a discussion with colleagues after we'd all watched one of those "benefit scrounger" programmes the night before and trying to explain that these young men would risk eviction if they took a temporary job as it would take too long for their benefit calculations to be recalibrated. They were so indoctrinated into the Arbeit Mach Frei myth that they were like "but they should take the job anyway as its 'the right thing to do'" and were pretty appalled at me when I said I wouldn't be prepared to risk homelessness for a months work.

It just seems for a lot of people work doesn't really help them or not help them enough to be worth the hassle. If it was a genuine route out of poverty then most would seek it. The lazy stereotype is surely much rarer than people think.