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.

colditz: Did I say my life would be better as a single Mum?

Totally agree MALO. I cannot for the life of me understand these parents, single or otherwise, who believe they need to be at home all day while their kids are in school! But look at it this way MALO, by being bored mindless doing the housework and watching daytime telly they're not exactly going to be riveting company for their kids when they get home from school anyway are they?

Malo actually by doing 16 hours a week as a single parent on the minimum wage, you will net £218 a week after rent and council tax at £70 per week and £20 per week respectively - assuming you are the same single mother I was referring to earlier.

So in fact, you would be nearly £50 a week better off, and still entitled to things like free prescriptions.

It's funny how people love to make assumptions that suit them without checking the actual figures.

Malo, my dh has prescriptions. He is 45 and looks quite fir and well.

In actual fact he has terminal cancer.

You can't 'tell' what illnesses people might have that leave them entitled to free medication.

TBH, I'd far rather that dh was well, and that we had to pay

hmm did think whether to post on this or not this subject gets out of hand.
I have always worked and so has dh. We struggled for a long time nd often have very little left after bills. I do find it difficult to understand the benifits system. However, since having dd2 7 weeks ago i have been given an extra lifeline. Until now all i got was £10 a week in ctc for dd1. However, since having dd2 it has gone up and i am so grateful for this.
I will have to go back to work once mat leave is finished as there is no way we could live on dh wages alone
Its hard, I do believe that some never have any intentions of working, while those that do want to struggle to find work that pays well enough.

that should have read free prescriptions

The min wages are so much better that before. My mum and dad both worked when we were little, dad was a postie and mum was a cleaner, we had very little as there was 4 of us children.
Living on low income is possible, but everyone always wants the lastest things, and its too easy to get into debt.

inthegutter are you saying anyone that stays at home all day while their dc are at school is:

'bored mindless doing the housework and watching daytime telly they're not exactly going to be riveting company for their kids when they get home from school anyway are they?'

im sure a lot of SAHM would strongly disagree with that!

Or are you saying just SAHM on benefits are like this?

I was a single mum on benefits for three years, not by choice I would like to add, husband left me with a toddler and a newborn baby and got a job in another country with his new girlfriend so he didnt have to pay maintance. I was bf and didnt see why I should change the plan that we had for me to be a sahm for at least the first few years just because he had buggered off with all our savings. On benefits I seriously had no money and many weeks my mum had to pay for the food shopping. I dont know how anyone can live on what you get. I now work two days a week and Im slightly better off. Also for the last four years I have lived in a house that has very very bad damp and mould and has a plaster beetle infestation caused by the damp, my son also has severe asthma which is made worse by the damp and he has been in hospital a few times for it. The landlord doesnt give a crap, I cant afford to live anywhere else and even if I stopped working housing benefit wont pay for a higher rent than what Im already in, and the council wont rehouse me as we are not homeless. So the system does not work for everyone. Its possible this girls are benefit frauds, or someone is helping also if either they are on incapacity benefit rather than Income support or one of thier children is classed as disabled you get alot more. Btw x is now back in country earning a fortunate but self employed so csa cant touch him for some stupid reason, and taking me to court to see dc that he has not seen for years and he cant be bothered paying for. The system really doesnt work for single mums.
Sorry rant over. (feel a bit better now)

Annnnd that's where I step out, ladies, because this has gone beyond the search for facts, which nobody seems remotely interested in anyway.

Nevertheless, it's interesting to watch these debates deteriorate into rabid self-justificationary orgies, with plenty of wild casting-around for someone to blame for their own misery.

May I suggest that it is infact people's expectation of happiness that affects their perception of their own personal circumstances? When ex was here, and we were both working, I was furious all the time, because I was knackered, and we couldn't have everything, or even most of the things we wanted.

Now I am single, and unemployed, and I don't expect to get anything nice, so it's lovely when I do! I'm not angry any more, I have nothing to be angry about. When I start my job (if they ever send me a friggin start date) I will be better off still.

I have been the subject of an attitude adjustment. I have stopped seeing luxeries as my right - so I have stopped being unhappy that my 'rights' are being denied me ... they aren't. They never were.

Excellent post, colditz.

stripeymama - young people need to be taught that the minimum wage will not give them a decent standard of living to encourage them to have greater aspirations than minimum wage type jobs.

Two minimum wages will only ever support a family (two adults, two children) in a modest way. It's best to know this, and to realise that bringing up a family on the minimum wage(s) will mean a modest life.

Colditz, that is excellent.

My other child's father was self employed and blatantly made up his income so that he would only pay £11 a week - he said he earnt 100, when all the time I knew him he had made that per day...so it does happen.

I have no idea at all where he is or what he does now, as he never makes contact or responds to my messages.

However I do still get the letter every year which tells me how much the CSA is asking him for - like I want a reminder!!

It was argued that the introduction of a minimum wage at all would cause huge job losses, and it didn't. QUite frankly, a company that can only stay in business by paying slave wages to staff deserves to fold. (with the exception of tiny start up businesses where everyone is there in the hope of better money in the future, etc, and family businesses). But this argument that wages can;t be raised any more without job losses is often used by large, very profitable companies and it's only ever the wages of the low paid that are discussed like this.

Mind you, those arguing for a family wage: that's very dodgy ground indeed. the 'family' wage used to be the excuse for paying men far more than women for the same work (absolutely no notice taken at all of who had a family, who was planning one, and whose children were now old enough to work andbring in an income). Are you suggesting that parents should be paid more than non-parents for the same work?

Frankly the problem is very simple: children need an adult to care for them, and every adult needs an income. It would make far more sense for there to be a basic payment in cash to parents that would provide for either one parent to stay at home, or to hire someone to look after the children. But there is still this cultural assumption that women exist to service men and children for no money.

This country makes life too easy for those who CHOOSE NOT TO WORK....and I don't mean those that cannot work due to having kids at home, or are ill or disabled etc etc.

I'm talking about the lazy individuals who choose to live off everyone else and watch everyone else go off to earn an honest living and parting with a good percentage of that hard earnt money to fund those WHO CHOOSE NOT TO WORK.

Simple eh?

madamez - I don't disagree with the idea that parents should receive a cash payment that could go either towards compensating a parent for loss of income to stay at home and care for children, or towards paying for non-parental childcare. I think that in a two-income per family economy (and all Western economies are headed strongly in that direction) there is a strong case for supporting parents this way.

I don't, however, think adults should universally be paid just for being alive, as one poster suggested.

madamez - on your other point I am afraid you are not right . Lots of people will always earn the minimum wage.

FYI, when my partner's company had an exceptionally profitable year in 2006, he, with the agreement of his shareholders (of course), paid every single employee an exceptional bonus of one month's pay. That extra month was a really large amount of money, in proportion to overall profits. It's not easy to find that extra cash and still make market returns to shareholders.

martianbishop: Of course I do not know the circumstances of those who do not pay for prescriptions but I was merely commenting on the fact that out of 6 customers dh was the only one who had to pay.

And for all you know, the people in front could be in as much dire need as DH. Who has worked his whole adult life, and served his country as a pilot in the RAF. But now has free prescriptions because he is dying.

Best not to judge, given that you don't know the background.

I'm so glad not to care about stuff like who pays for prescriptions and who doesn't, how do you know these people don't have pre-payment cards? I get one most years, you pay about £98 up front and that covers all your prescriptions - if you're on several medications, have a long term condition or whatever it saves lots of money. Perhaps they were picking up prescriptions for other people, elderly relatives, pregnant friends - but more to the point, why were you being so nosy? Don't you have other stuff to think about while you're waiting?

I'll have other stuff to think about next time I pick up a prescription won't I? I'll be wondering how many of the other customers are whispering about single mums on benefits when I don't even claim child/working tax credits.

So who's next? Immigrants? Asylum seekers? They are eating our swans you know!

And our mortgages

The level of the minimum wage is one subject that really pisses me off!

The minimum wage is set at a level that is not a living wage, and at a level where an individual has to claim tax credits in order to make their wages up to a level where they can (arguably) exist.

Now why in anyone's idea of a fair world should ordinary tax payers be subsidising the like of Tescos? A company that has annual turnover of almost £50 billion pounds and profits available to shareholders of some £2.5 billion.

If companies cannot pay people a living wage - why should taxpayers be subsidising them. Why should making a return to shareholders be more important than paying their employees a fair wage. If they cannot afford to do so, then they do not have a viable business model. Governments should not be cross-subsidising companies that choose not to pay their employees a living wage.

Incidentally, I don't suppose people would be terribly surprised to find that those industries that pay the minimum wage are those that rely heavily on female labour. The stereotype of women working for pin money still looms large over these industries. No wonder getting back into work is such a struggle for women and why making work pay is a dim and distant dream for many. I would raise the minimum wage by a further £3 an hour and scrap the tax credit system - which alone would save a small fortune on administrative fees.

Soapbox - spot on

i cannot believe how spiteful some people can be.

i am one of the handful of single mums on here who has had to claim benefits.

let me dispel a few stereotypical myths:

im not a single mum because im a slag, im a single mum because my partner was mentally abusive, i did the right thing for my son and i, and instigated our split. now..had i known what mumsnet was at the time i would probably have posted here...as a "normal" working mother with a young son, mortgage etc. many of you would have advised me to leave him no matter what the consequences, for the sake of our childs happiness. i often wonder if the same people who post this glorious and well thought out advice are the same people who then go on to slag off single mothers on benefit.

i ended up in a council house, there's no way i could have bought another house, just not possible. it was unfortunate that i hooked up with a complete twat of a man who left me pregnant some years later. he wasnt on drugs, didn't drink, had a job, had been brought up by respectable parents...there really wasnt much to alert me to the fact he would do that to me. but he did.

then whilst on maternity leave i was made redundant.

it was incredibly hard to find another job and shortly after i did i was made redundant again, another stretch on benefit until my previous employers called me to offer me my job back. i was lucky.

let me tell you this, being on benefit practically crushed any confidence i ever had. it was a miserable life. yet my kids had lots of christmas presents etc and much what other kids have. why? because i couldn't stand the thought of someone picking on them, or pitying them. i never bought anything for myself, bought the cheapest food possible, sold my own clothes on ebay just to scrape together the money to make sure they had what they wanted. i bought gifts from catalogue shops, sales, ebay, from friends etc.

as for running a car, well i cant drive and it has been a nightmare. i couldn't afford to learn to drive, and if you cant drive, as a single mum it limits the jobs you can apply for. after dropping to kids off at the childcare and taking buses to work...there's no job that will accommodate the hours you would need to come off benefit. you would, in fact, be worse off something you cant afford already. so if a single mum on benefit has a car then fine, she will need it. it might look good on the outside, possibly is an old banger. you dont know.

im off work sick at the moment, largely due to the stress of trying to work full time and being a single mum. im an absolute mess right now. but i would rather poke my eyes out than have to go back on benefit and endure some of the downright nasty and judgmental comments from people who clearly have no understanding at all.

i urge anyone who thinks its a great life to try it for a while.

people on benefit are not a different breed. we are not too stupid to have feelings and my kids are well brought up, well cared for thanks very much. do some of you even realise how much it hurts to read this kind of thing all the time?