To think I can go on benefits instead of returning to work?

[UniversalCreditOrNo]

NC for this.

Let me start off by saying this....up until
February last year, I have never not been in work. I got my first job at 13, was working full time and living alone at age 21 (before which I worked 25 hours a week alongside my studies) and it was only last year when I decided to go travelling that I ever found myself without employment. I got pregnant at the end of my travels, and here is where I find myself.

My daughter is now 6 months old. In 3 months time, I’m supposed to go back to work. How do people afford to do it? Childcare is £56 a day where I am. On my current minimum wage job that’s a take home of around £30 a week....before tax and NI.

My partner is on around £20k and I can rely on family for 1 day a week childcare. So here’s my AIBU. Can I go on benefits, instead of going back to work? Is that a thing people can do?!

I don’t know how it works. My area is universal credit....is there even such a category for this? It’s not jobseekers as I wouldn’t be looking for work, and it’s not like I’m signed off with illness or disability.

My partner is convinced we can because he doesn’t earn a lot and ‘this is precisely what the benefits system is for’. However....his mum is a serial benefits user....everything from being a stay at home single mum until her youngest was 15, until now where she’s signed off for an injury from 3 years ago she still claims is affecting her work ability All I can think of is the stigma behind choosing to go on benefits, but right now I can’t see another option.

Baffles me, once again someone has asked if they are being unreasonable, everyone says yes and now OP up in arms.

I don't think it would be the end of the world for a few years. Study to better yourself at the same time.

If this is for real you need to get a grip.
Speaking as an oldie, I (and most of my mum friends) returned to work when our babies were 3 months old. Childcare was equally expensive then in proportion to wages. Once we had more than one child childcare cost about the same as my take home pay. Oh and yes my child minder was a stranger until I made the time to visit, get to know her and build a relationship.

It would never have occurred to me to assume that the state would fund a life style choice for me to not work, but then tax credits didn’t exist back then so we just got on with it.

I can tell you now though OP, that my three children have grown up into lovely well adjusted adults who have done well at university and are embarking on good careers as well as having a strong bond with dh and me. Plus of course I have the advantage of having had a successful career and pension.

But I doubt you want to hear that because it doesn’t fit your narrative of whining about not wanting to leave your child with strangers and not wanting to pay for childcare and basically not wanting to work!

I can’t read the full thread. I got a few pages in and it made bad enough reading anyway. I reached peak disgust when some idiot complained that they were paying 40% of their salary “so that people like the OP could sit on their arse.”

Can’t remember who write that now but they need to give their head a wobble. If you are in the 40% tax bracket then you are extremely fortunate, do you not see that?. What you have left after all deductions (and let’s not forget that pension payments are for your benefit not anyone else’s) and childcare costs have been taken off is still FAR higher than OP’s income would be to even start with. It’s MINIMUM WAGE. Do you know what that even means? To that person, I bet my life that if you had to work FT, put your baby in FT childcare (and have to pick them up on public transport) and have £30 a week disposable income left at the end of it then YOU would be wondering how to manage, exactly the same as the OP.

Jesus, I have been lucky enough never to have been precisely in OP’s position but I can imagine how it must feel to weigh up whether someone else should care for your child for most of their waking hours each day, In exchange for 30 quid a week and having a minimum wage non-career job on your CV.

ALL of us do this weighing up when we have children. ALL of us. For some couples, having both parents keep their FT job while they pay for their children to attend nursery has the pay off of being able to afford to run a car, go on holiday or the odd night out, pay the mortgage easily, enable both of them to advance their career. For others, what is left if they both work while they pay for their children to attend nursery covers food, rent/mortgage (at a push) and basic household bills only. If he parent on the lower salary DOESNT stay in work then what is left covers food, rent/mortgage and basic household bills only. Absolutely no difference.

I don’t see why it’s so hard to understand that many people these days come under the second bracket.

Your anger is misplaced. Educate yourselves.

Sounds like your partner is being tight if you think all the responsibility for payment of childcare falls to you.

If you’re capable (sounds like you are) it’s best to get back into work soon, as the longer you leave it the harder it’ll be.

I think what I’d consider doing (if your partner works mon-fri 9-5 type hours), is work one weekend day plus the day your family can have your child, and maybe two evenings?

It will be interesting to see if your partner is willing to step up and do the parenting while you’re at work.

Good luck!

Acciocats, and what job was it you were doing that covered the cost of 2 kids in childcare, may I ask? Minimum wage wouldn’t do that now.

I think Yabu. I work the twilight shift 9pm-3am after a full day of looking after 3 kids. I’m awake for 21 hours a day on my working days, I do thins to avoid childcare and pay the bills.

Not so you can sit at home doing fuck all on mine and everyone else’s dime . .

I'm surprised this is real. I don't think that there's an option to just not work.

I also think it’s sad that people seem to be suggesting that families on minimum wage are too poor to procreate. They seem to forget that many of the people doing minimum wage jobs are those looking after your children in nursery or your elderly parents with dementia in a nursing home. You think they don’t deserve to have children? Should only wealthier people be able to have them?

It sometimes feels like society is going backwards. With the “servant” classes at the bottom working their arses off for a pittance, and their wealthy “employers” happy to take advantage of paying them their low wages just as long as it means they have a nicer life themselves.

Some people on Mumsnet are truly vile. Like so many posts on here, this makes for really uncomfortable reading. The OP is in a very common situation - a problem that so many people face in the UK today. This website is meant to be for parents to offer support and advice, not viciously bully. I’m actually sickened to read some of these attacks on the OP, and the thing that saddens me most is that a fair share of the bullies on this thread are probably parents too. Really disgusted. I’m sorry you’re being attacked like this OP - can only assume the posters have had a bad day and have nothing better going on then to attack people on the internet.

I also find it pathetic that rather than agree with the OP that the system is broken, and offer advice, people are competing for who has the shittest deal. ‘Oh I work for x amount of hours and only earn x amount of money ... I’m suffering so you should too!’ What kind of outlook is that?!

YABU, no one is going to pay you to be a SAHM.
Job seekers allowance of for people looking for work.
You need to think about child care as a shared cost and think about your options
My parents watched for years as neighbours on our estate got more money in benefits than they earned but as they kept working and juggling childcare with work, and took lower paid flexible jobs the jobs and pay got better, we got older and needed less looking after and they saved and got off the estate and had more opportunities. It’s harder to move on stuck in benefits, not to mention bloody boring...

'Sadly, a majority of these partner relationships ends, even more so than marriages.'

What the fuck? Where are the figures for that claim?!

We were in this situation for a while. Youvd get about £25 a week on universal credit, depending on if you rent and for how much.

I work evenings and weekends, it's bloody tiring but I manage to squeeze in about 32 hours and only need about 3 hours of childcare, which thankfully mil provides.

OP is this thread actually serious? You want to stay at home because you cant bear to send your daughter to nursery, whilst the rest of us work to fund your lifestyle? I assume you'd also want to continue to use the NHS too?

You enrage me.

Threads like this infuriate me.

I'm in a similar situation to OP (partner earns over 20k, we're in an area where wages like this are commonplace, though). I'm going back to work pt on a 30h contract and we're simply going to tag-team looking after our daughter and then my mum will look after her from 9am-2pm a day while I do a short shift. We want to save as much money as we can so we're doing what we can without needing a childminder. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

We chose to have our daughter. We knew what sacrifices we'd need to make her life comfortable and good.

But as plenty have pointed out, you don't qualify for benefits anyway. Get a P/T job and work around your partners hours. Plenty of people do it.

@PepePig not everyone has a parent who will look after their children every day. You're incredibly lucky.

I feel sorry for op, a lot of aggressive keyboard warriors on here. Hope you're okay op.

@satanstoenailsandwich

She's looking after her for 5h one day a week. If she couldn't I'd simply do what I did for the rest of my shifts and tag team with my partner. Not the whole week. Read my post before commenting.

Op I kind of understand where you are coming from in that I’d not want to put my baby in f/t childcare for £30 a week (which will probably be spent on bus fares). I agree with the op that suggest the best thing would be some p/t evening or weekend work. What sort of job do you currently do? Even a few hours a couple of times a week would earn you more than £30.

Hi OP, if you're still reading, you mentioned that you have family to provide childcare one day a week.

When my DD1 turned one, I went back to work for one day a week. My DM kindly took care of my DD for the day. My husband was on about £26k at the time, and I was earning around £400 a month. We were entitled to working tax credits of around £40 per month. Could you do something like this? I imagine you would be entitled to a bit more, with your partners wage being lower. Hope this helps. Ignore the arseholes.

I think the reason that people get cross is because of the number of threads whereby an individual has made the decision to have a child, the single most important decision that you can make, without actually thinking through the practical implications of having a child. Eg how will childcare be funded, is the partner actually going to be a decent parent, the emotional and practical changes that they will need to make to their lives.

Whereas most people agonise over whether to have, and how many children to have. They make changes to their lives in advance of having the child. They wait until in secure jobs. They move to cheaper houses. They plan and plan because it’s the most important decision you can make.

And understandably most people get frustrated when others take this singularly most decision lightly

I do it, no way I could do the school runs if I had to work, I want to be there for my kids before and after school, and I have animals that take up a lot of my time in the day, I don't just sit on my arse. I get the same in TC as I would working. People slagging you off ate just jealous OP.

The way I see it OP (as someone who will go on mat leave in a couple of weeks and then return to work in nine months) whatever we do for the next couple of years will leave us poorer. If I go to work I pay loads in childcare, if I work part time around DH I lose family time, if I stay at home we still lose money as his earnings will cancel out most benefits - but after a couple of years of that the free child care will kick in, then DD will go to school - and if I keep working at my current role through that time I will be significantly better off when that happens than if I go part time in an evening role or stop working.

Accept that the next few years will be crap and plan for your future - I want to eventually get back to my pre baby lifestyle with spare cash for fun and treats and the only way I'm likely to do that is soldier on through the lean times and keep building up my experience and focusing on doing a good job at work.

If you follow your plan where will you be in two years? Still in a minimum wage role with 2 years out of the job market in one of the most difficult and uncertain economic times we have faced in a long time. It's not a sound financial plan.

And there are those that wonder why people vote Tory...