to expect to have more disposable income than single mums claiming benefits

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i no longer know why me and dh bother, he works full time and i work part time so that i can juggle the child care.

i know of 3 single mums who stay near me who seem to have more money than i can dream of, out every weekend, always shopping and 2 of them manage to run cars.

i know the benefit system is needed by some people but it seems to be a complete joke these days, the wasters in this country are leading the life of reilly while the rest of us are left to slog our guts out to pay for there existence.

no doubt i will get flamed for this post but i have been out xmas shopping today trying to work to a budget then i stand next to these people at the school gates and hear about all the grants they are entitled to so they can buy xmas presents, one of them has even cut back the last 2 months and managed to save £800, it would take me bloody months to save that up.

ok rant over, deep down i am glad i am not one of these people and i do actually work for what i have but it still pisses me of.

i don't begrudge any single mums their lot at all!

my best friend brought up her daughter on her own and it was so hard, just not having a partner around to share things out. not just that, but other things, too.

YANBU - I remember getting really annoyed on another site when ladies expecting at the same time as me were discussing spending their £500 grant on a new bugaboo because they'd gone off the pram they'd had with their first child. Both DH and I work full-time and at the time DH also had a weekend job. I remember looking at my rather rattly bashed-up old pushchair that I was about to chuck #1 out of and feeling pretty miffed about everything!

I have absolutely no objections to people who really need benefits to help them out of difficult situations, but I reall object to people who see them as a lifestyle choice.

my post earlier about ny neighbour was about the fact she has a live in partner but tells the social she is a single mum whilst having his wage coming in. she gets her housing , her council tax all paid also she gets job seekers allowance although she told me she doesn't work as she can't afford to

thats why she can spend £300 on her dp's xmas

I'm only talking about her who is cheating the system, not most single mums or dads who are having a real struggle

I'm single mum, with a four year old and a baby who is 5 months old. I didn't expect my partner to leave, or to become so abusive that I had to leave.
I do feel extremely guilty and also very fortunate to be able to claim benefits. I find sometimes I have more than I need, other times not nearly enough (and I do recieve some money from my Mum and Dad to help out).
Most of the things I own - prams, video recorder, computer etc. are on borrowed money from the bank - I sometimes wonder if people think I'm well off, get jealous etc. but if they knew these things don't belong to me I suppose they wouldn't.
I tend to buy only sale items, things from ebay, broken or reduced things, food which has been marked down etc. My furniture is all second hand - mostly from a warehouse project that recycles old stuff and sells it cheaply. But it is fine.
I am just glad that we have a roof over our heads, enough to eat and so on.
I feel that we live well but as I say a fair bit of it is borrowed. We use Mum's car but I reckon people assume it is mine - no way. I do pay towards petrol.
I feel awful for people who have to work and still struggle. It doesn't seem fair when all I have to do is bring up my children.
Just my perspective.

And yes, I don't know how the hell we would manage if we had to pay for dental treatment, prescriptions etc. and it seems wrong that some people miss out on those things because their income from working is just above the limit. I think they should be free for everyone.

YANBU, we're all allowed the occasional rant!
Do agree that there should be a financial incentive to work but not big enougth that it discriminates against those that can't.

I agree that benefits should only be for people that really need them. Annoys me how many people are on benefits but could actually work. We struggle big time to make ends meet and I now have a little job to help with the extras.
This country really needs to tighten it's reigns. Instead it's people like us that have to pay high mortgages, council tax, tax, ni, bus fares, water rates, the list is endless......

Oh yes and dental fees, prescriptions

We have been offered council housing and turned it down, because we currently rent a 2 bed house in a nice street and were offered smaller, undecorated houses,on streets where there were a lot of 'problem' families, or flats with no gardens. We then got shoved to the back of the list again.
Fair enough, we are happy where we are - although it's falling to bits and we have had to buy a new carpet, have no flooring in the bathroom or kitchen (bare concrete, broken boards), and our landlord doesn't give a sh*t if there is broken glass all over the place and the roof doesn't keep out the rain, because he intends to sell it after we leave - or perhaps before we leave . There are no units in the kitchen - just cupboards we had to buy/find in skips, a sink unit also from a skip and repaired by me. I had to pay for a sink to be fitted in the loo, there wasn't even a gas supply when we moved in - we had to really push for heating. And we are woken almost every night by shouting, swearing students coming back from the union at 3 - 4am.
I still feel better off than many people in terms of housing - because we are. It could be (and has been) far, far worse.

What would get dh and I into work (for background see several previous posts if you are just joining this discussion) is

a) jobs that are extremely repetitive/menial/bad conditions (ie, fish gutting, factory work) not being ridiculous hours, so that whoever works them has no life, does not see their family, does not have time to help with childcare/housework etc

b) jobs having enough money extra to what you get on benefits to be able to afford travel, prescriptions, opticians, dentists, packed lunches, and the odd treat (because you should get rewarded for your hard graft)

c) instead of benefits being paid to another member of family to childmind for you if both parents go to work, how about one of said parents gets paid instead? If they want to, of course. Would we not all like the choice though?

and d) that you got support for the first month until you got paid your first wages, and also promptly when your contract ran out (on a reduced rate because you should have savings from that first month, theoretically.

BH, everyone pays water rates.

anyone notice the OP did not come back to this?

Colditz, speaking of water rates, get this...

We are on a water meter (was fitted before we moved in), and so have to watch every bit of water we use. We can't afford to bath or shower every day, we can't afford to change clothes every day...we were paying £21 a month on a budget payment scheme. After having dd3, the payments went up to £40 (partly due to a price rise), so we panicked like heck thinking how on earth will we afford this?

We looked at the booklet enclosed with the bill, which we usually have ignored , and found out that on benefits or low income, you are entitled to different rates, so we applied for a plan where we would be paying £30 but we could use whatever water we needed (baths ahoy - and clean clothes, hoorah!).

nope, we got told we don't use enough water to be allowed on this rate, but could go on a lower tariff, on which we would only have to pay £26 per month (although we might have to pay extra at the end of the year), but we would still have to use around the same amount. Bye bye baths, bye bye clean clothes, going to cry now.

Joining this conversation a bit late here, but would like to poin out that as a single parent currently relying on state benefits, I have next to no @disposable income', let alone enough to save £800 in two months.

If people want to talk figures, our weekly income (1 adult, 1 child) totals £120 - £59 in Income Support, £43 in Child Tax Credit, and £18 in Child Benefit.

From this comes...
*£15.55 in repayments for the loan I had to take out to cover moving expenses after xp left (deducted from benefit so no choice on amount)

£10 in repayments for the other* loan I had to take out to pay £600 deposit on our home(we rent privately as the local council were unable to house us)

*£7 gas

*£8 electricity

*£5 phone credit (essential if you have a young child and live alone)

£2.50 broadband (not essential* but one of my only 'luxuries')

*£4.50 TV licence (as above)

Leaving us with £68 to cover food, clothes, shoes, stuff for the house (paint, carpets etc, as our house in a bit of a state)entertainment, attempts at saving for Christmas/birthdays/holidays, and travel expenses.

So yeah, I live the life of sodding riley in my damp, cold, single glazed, uncarpetted house. I'm off out gallivanting all the time in my new designer clothes. Christmas in the Stripey house is a veritable orgy of presents (and of course none of them come from Oxfam).

Oh yes, I forgot the £7 weekly for water.

GB, I pay aboput £100 every 6 months for my water, so I think you are being ripped off a little bit!

How many people in your house, Colditz? We have 5...and no shower, only a bath.

stripymama, sorry if this sounds rude i really dont mean it to but does your childs dad not pay anything towards you, i am only asking out of intrest as the single mums that i am aware of who seem have a fair few £££££ are not living of the same ammount that you are.

is this maybe why some people seem to have more money than others because the dads are actually helping out???

Blimey there are some nasty people on here.

As others have said, anyone one on benefits who can afford to save £800 is not just on benefits, they arte getting extra money from someonwhere.

As for single mums not working, how the hell do you know that they don't want to work ? That they don't sit every day scouring the internet, papers etc for jobs, checking there emails to see that yet again no fucker wants to employ them because as a single mum they can't be completly flexible.

You don't know anything, you have no idea how it feels to know that you are trying your hardest to improve your life and that there is nothing else left that you can do as it's out of your hands.

I have a friend just like the OP, who seems to think that it is my fault that she chose to have a career and a house before she had kids, whereas I had my kids first and now unfortunatly am a single parent, and in her eyes I get everything for nothing, whislt she works and struggles, but it's crap.

She buys all of her meat from an organic farm, buys the best of this that and the other and is spending over £11000 getting married next summer, oh and she saves £500 a month.
I buy the cheapest cuts of meat I can find, shop in Primark and Wilkos for clothes and household stuff and if something breaks I have to borrow the money from family or have a loan from somewhere with a sky high interest rate just to replace it. Thing is though I don't care about that, I get by with what I have and I don't begrudge my friend one single penny of her money, she however seems to think that because I am on benefits I shouldn't be able to afford to drink ever, go out ever, buy new clothes, decorate my house or anything.

Basically according to most working people, being a single mum should = NO LIFE, as you aren't entitled to it.

these women are either exagerating or fiddling the benefit system. there is no way you could save £800 in two months. they would barely get that amount in the first place.

there are no grants for christmas things as far as i am aware.

i think you are either misunderstanding what has been said to you or these women just want to make themselves look better off than they are.

BTW i am currently a single mum on benefits. i drive a car.

my car was bought whilst i was working. i run it by paying petrol each week to cover the bare minimums i need to drive, i buy tax stamps each month and my insurance is paid monthly.
i budget because i have to and i get really tired of people assuming i must be rolling in it because i have all this "disposable income"

if i do i'd liek to know where it gets put because its not in my bank!

at £170 a week, you wouldn't get that amou8nt in the first place, never mind barely.

It just couldn't be done unless she's breaking the law somewhere or is not in fact on benefits.

I had to have an interview and provide evidence that my baby's father would put us at risk if they contacted him re contributing to our income.
So he pays nothing but we would get the same whatever - unless they hadn't believed me, in which case I'd have had a 20% cut in my benefit.

SweetFA, so...just for the purpose of clarification, if you are getting maintenance it's classed as earnings and taken off your benefits? So basically, taxpayers are not funding people who do receive maintenance entirely, just partly?

if you recieve maintanence whilst on benefits the ENTIRE maintenance amount ghets paid to the state, the mother only recieves a £10 bonus!

great huh, some incentive to piss of an already bitter and twisted ex