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.

That's absolutely true @Sparklesocks.

JUSt to make you aware OP, in case you don’t already know- the extra 15 hours that working parents can claim once their child is three- needs to be applied for online and a term before you want it. I realised this just this week, naively thought it was a case of signing a form like the free 15 hrs once their three, nope. I’ve Taken on new job so will be paying for a hell of a lot of childcare till January as I didn’t realise you have to apply the term before!

I have been at one end of this spectrum to the other - not rich, but earning enough to only qualify for a very small amount, and this is mainly as I live in an area of costly housing, where I was born and where I work and DC go to school

I once owned a house and had a partner we both worked
I then became a single parent with 90% responsibility for the DC on a very low wage, very part time with small kids

I felt worried and anxious every day about money, would it be taken away? Would I have done something incorrect? Would I get a sudden bill I couldn’t cope with? Multiple times I received overpayment letters which then took months to sort out, months of hardship and going without, months of traipsing all my bank statements to the council or ages on the phone trying to sort tax credits out. Most of that time I just fretted about what I didn’t have and what the future would be like

Very slowly I got more hours and better jobs. Like 10 years slowly. I now have the best job I’ve ever had on the most money. I’m not rich - but the difference in how I feel about myself is astonishing. I can buy things. I don’t have to worry about some authority writing me a letter saying they over paid me and going to take it all back. I don’t have the humiliation of going into authority offices with all my bank statements for someone to look at. I don’t have to apply for demoralising low paid jobs. I have a pension. I am setting my DC a good example.

Money doesn’t really buy you a better piece of mind

@Onacleardayyoucansee - what a vile comment.

It's a foul system.

I drop my DC off at school in a crazy rush, and I see the Mums on benefits heading off to walk their dogs in the local woodland in gorgeous sunshine. The sunshine that I will completely miss because I am working til 6. Our weekend treat - a bloody dog walk - is just their normal day. It's not so much the money I resent - it's the time. I'm constantly exhausted, failing at every area of my life. These women are sunny and calm and, yes, they have lovely lives. I know this because they talk to me about their days, and it all sounds gorgeous. They have time to read, and exercise, and cook, and socialize, and even in one case ride her bloody horse! And, no, my house / car / phone is no better than theirs. Their children are better fed, and get more time for homework and after school activities. I spend my days in a grey box and the kids in after school care that costs a fortune.

But someone will be up to call.me a liar, and bleat about Goats, because MN.

Justgorgeous I think that was sarcasm!

Also remember that if she gets a boyfriend she could be accused of fraud/ lose money if he moves in, or even if he doesn't move in but sometimes visits.

I reckon that many people at dc's school would think I don't work - I do all pick ups and drop offs, sometimes go on school trips and go to class assemblies. I actually work over 40 hours a week but some of those hours are at 6am and others at 9pm, but they don't see those hours they just see me in the playground twice a day.

1 bed hostel for 6 months along with drug addicts, alcoholics. 4th floor no lift with a 2yo & newborn - (emergency accommodation.) Now in a 2 bed horrible flat in a block, landlord refuses to update/replace anything. Questionable neighbours. (Temp accommodation.) £600pm to live off. For all bills, food, nappies etc. Also, & in some ways worse - been treated like shit since the day I went to the council for help. No empathy at all. I didn’t choose this life, DP fucked off & left me no choice. Living the high life OP, can’t decide on the Bahamas or Hawaii next.

Quit your job OP, sell your house and give all your money to the poor. Then you too can join us in the lap of luxury that is living on benefits. Once you’ve been scrounging for two years you’ll get all the government funded discounts for big TVs, designer clothes and fancy holidays. Oh, and don’t forget the fags and booze, lots of money for fags and booze, and all day long to sit around smoking and getting pissed while the state looks after the kids. If your’e really lucky, and I mean really really lucky, you might get a scrotty flat in a tower block full of drug dealers, domestic abusers and delinquent youths.

Oh come on.

Of course they sound like they have a lovely life.

I am not on benefits, but I am a SAHM. Of course I tell people the good bits. I put the pretty pictures on instagram for my mum and I update facebook to say I've just had a gorgeous time with my daughter. Partly because I want my daughter to look back and know that I loved her and wasn't regretting being at home with her, and partly because it is normal social behaviour to respond to 'and how are you' with something reasonably upbeat.

What I don't mention is that, actually, spending 9 or 10 hours a day in the company of a non-verbal baby, five days a week, gets mind-numbingly tedious, and I bloody miss my job. And even now she's talking, it is not enormously fun to spend days trying to cobble together a job application (as I bet many of these mums on benefits are doing) while a two year old interrupts you and you know you can't afford to go anywhere except for yet another walk around a village that has one street and no play park.

I am dead lucky and much better off than someone on benefits, but I still think you are being ridiculous to assume that someone's polite and cheerful version of how nice their life is, is to be taken as gospel.

I WFH 2 days a week so I assume people may think I don’t work full time either but OP knows this women doesn’t as she had told her

Can I be honest would you really enjoy doing absolutely not much of anything useful except cook and walk your dog all day? I am usually bored of the inside of my house by Sunday night and really like the feeling of missing it and want to come home. I also feel like I have more to talk to my DC about when I have been working/out of the house. I don’t see the appeal of having no purpose to your life when your DC are at school all day except cook clean and exercise

gamerchick. I speak to her often. She gets 30 hours free for her toddler

This isn't possible unless she works.

Oh, it's literally hours since we last had a frothy benefits thread.

@Dragonite

I don't believe a word of your post, as it shows you know nothing about the benefits system. You HAVE to look for work when your children are school age and are made to attend training courses, interviews, etc. You can't just stay on benefits and do nothing!

I think part of the problem is the low income single mothers with 2 kids can’t afford to work! If she’s on minimum wage then that’s £66 a day and paying for childcare isn’t going to be worth that because she’ll have F all leftover at the end of the week. Maybe she will only be able to consider working once her children are in full time education? I wouldn’t want to be stuck in that position. I like the choices work offers.

If you earn less than £40k p.a. you are not a net contributor so you take out more than you put in so have no need to take the moral high ground.

think part of the problem is the low income single mothers with 2 kids can’t afford to work! If she’s on minimum wage then that’s £66 a day and paying for childcare isn’t going to be worth that because she’ll have F all leftover at the end of the week. Maybe she will only be able to consider working once her children are in full time education? I wouldn’t want to be stuck in that position. I like the choices work offers

This is not the case. Single parents on low incomes with two pre-school age children in childcare get a huge amount of financial help with childcare costs on the whole (there are exceptions)

Once you’ve been scrounging for two years you’ll get all the government funded discounts for big TVs, designer clothes and fancy holidays. Oh, and don’t forget the fags and booze, lots of money for fags and booze, and all day long to sit around smoking and getting pissed while the state looks after the kids

I don’t believe any of the above and this is a vile thing to say. Only you have associated this to those on benefits in this post.

I do believe that we should live in a society where working pays. There should be no ‘better off calculations’. Everyone should always be better off working. The fact that I and many other women could be better off unemployed/ PT hours/ or living in social housing does not seem fair or right.

I would also like to see more flexible working hours/ term time only jobs and employers who contribute directly to childcare or large organisations providing a subsidised nursery.

I have a dream....

Oh, bollocks. Like heck you didn't pick up that that post was sarcasm.

And ugh at the MLK bit. Reported.

To address the PP who talked about a self-employed friend earning around £30 a week.

That is not a job or viable business and one of the few things I think is good about UC is stopping all these silly SE schemes where (mostly) women are wasting their time on ventures with zero financial promise.

I see them everywhere - MLM and Cambridge Diet are particularly bad. It’s ridiculous and you can’t earn anything significant.

Regarding being a SAHM on benefits in a council property. I’m sure some maintain a reasonable standard of living but there is no progress: no career to build on, no significant asset to eventually own; no accumulation of pension; nothing to leave to children.

Whether it’s harder to stay home vs go to work - for me there’s no contest - work is much easier.

Term time only does not work for the vast majority of employers and flexible working requests for mothers are usually only wanting to work 9.30 to 2.30 which also doesn’t work for many employers

Unfortunately there are not many jobs you can work 9.30-2.30 term time only for over £40k per year where you need no childcare and have a stress free life

To me, flexible working means that I may work some longer days and some shorter, but they cover the hours of business overall. Not rock up in the middle or the morning and leave after lunch!

In reality your DC will have to go into some form of childcare whilst you work, build a pension and a career for the rest of your life when they have grown up

Why the fck does she need it if she doesn't work?*

She doesn’t need it, her children do. Plenty of research shows getting children living in poverty into an nursery/ educational setting as young as 3 can improve their outcomes.

Up to 80% of childcare is paid, depending on salary of course. When I was working part-time 3 days a week with my first child they paid 80% because myself and my ex were on about 23k combined. I brought home 770, spent about 150 on travel and childcare.

If you are a low earning single parent then obviously you are highly likely to get the 80% paid.

I'm always on the fence with this. And I can only go by my experience.
When I was a single mum with ds. For 2 yrs after me and his dad split I didn't work as I was in a bad place mentally. .. I had a very comfortable life financially on benefits ( through no choice of my own).

When ds started school and I was in a better place, I got a 16hr job, sometimes I had to pay before and after school clubs but always had to pay holiday club..
I was Worse off than not working.

I met now dh.. When he moved in all my TC stopped.. His wage barely covered that plus he had his own bills and CMS which is absolutely fine
It took ages to get stable. I'm. Now a sahm because of childcare costs for our toddler .. And despite many calculations this is better for us.. However monthly disposable income is no where near what I had as a single mum on benefits..

HOWVER I KNOW THIS ISN'T THE CASE FOR EVERYONE BUT IT WAS PERSONALLY FOR ME A FEW YRS AGO

Actually, it might be 70% now, this was a while ago.