To think work no longer ‘pays’

[Cuppasoupmonster]

This is a controversial topic so I’m expecting a few biscuits to be thrown at me so I’ve got my hard hat on. Inspired by the ‘benefits overhaul’ thread.

I often see on here that working and owning your own home is always better than claiming benefits and living in social housing. But it seems like the perks are long gone if I’m honest.

It feels like every day I’m dragging myself up at 6am to take my daughter to nursery (when I would much rather have her at home with me), just to pay our enormous mortgage and bills, before breaking even at the end. We haven’t had a holiday in 5 years. A few months ago I went into my overdraft for the first time in about 6-7 years despite the fact my spending is no different. What are the upsides again? Is it just that we get to choose the care home we die in (perhaps)? Because right now I’m feeling pretty pissed off with the whole thing and wondering if anyone else feels the same.

We are mortgage free thanks to my DH. He saw years ago that things wouldn’t last being so good. So we worked our arses off to pay the mortgage off. Had no holidays, no new cars, limited spending on anything. It was pretty rubbish for 5yrs but now our earnings have gone up, yes so have bills but no mortgage helps. We are planning 2-3 holidays this year with our kids. I work part time and will be reducing my hours further once eldest is in secondary school so I’m around even more.

Yes we could live on benefits in a shit part of town, but even private rentals are hard to
come by especially in nice areas.

I much prefer our cottage with 2 acres of land with our kids ponies.

Would you like to wake up every day with no reason to get dressed? No reason to leave the house and interact with the rest of the world? Would you like your child to see you this way and think this is what life is?

This isn't entirely fair — I'm not that old, and most of the mums of my class didn't work. They certainly got up and dressed! They did the school runs and looked after the children, ran the house, and did things like running Brownie packs and were on the committees for community events or involved with charities. Maybe helped to look after elderly relatives, played a sport. They always seemed to have plenty to do!

They'd usually worked for ten years or so before having children too.

Nowadays you start working later, and need two salaries for a house. I'd be quite happy with that sort of 'mum' life — the community stuff isn't miles away from the parts of my job I enjoy the most, and as a child I loved my mum being around. It's unlikely to be possible though.

I hear you OP. When I was a young mum, I stayed at home with my children bar some unsocial/ low paid work, and my DHs wage was really enough to support us all. The downside of that, is that I built no private pension and have had no career as such.
I got divorced a few years ago, and am now stuck on a low wage, juggling 3 jobs to try to make ends meet. Paying the mortgage on the family home on my own, after buying my ex out.
The advantage to ME is knowing that my children have a roof over their heads. that they could finish their education in the school that I chose for them, rather than having to take whatever I could get.
Yes, I could have walked away from the house, I could have rented and had the rent paid for me, but I’d have had little choice as to where that was, and would have been at the mercy of a private landlord, who could sell from under me at any time (happened to me years ago, and I ended up in temporary accommodation). There isn’t enough social housing to go around, although, if you’re lucky enough to get it, it’s great. The downside is, that it’s often found in pockets surrounding below standard schools, and with a lot of anti social behaviour problems.
Your home IS an investment, and looking to the long term future, will rise in value. When your DCs decide to move out, you can cash that investment in, and downsize, giving yourself a lump sum to do whatever you choose. Travel. Buy a new car. Buy a second smaller property to rent out yourself, giving you a further income. Or whatever you choose to do with it.
I sometimes wonder whether it’s worth working myself, at the end of an 8 hr shift, I go home around £12 better off than if I hadn’t bothered, and when the trade off for that is not seeing your children, especially when they are young, it’s natural to wonder whether it’s “worth it”.
I’m not sure what the future holds for me tbh. I am debating whether to sell the house in a few years, and split the equity between the kids so they have a deposit for their own homes, and I would then rent. The upside, that they have the security that I want them to have, and I wouldn’t have an asset to be sold to pay for a care home, later in life - which, as you say, wipes out any legacy you would have left them.
In your circumstances, where you say that you need to move, I’d try to find somewhere a bit cheaper, and cut back on my hours a bit - so you can enjoy spending time with your children a bit more than you do now. I had the benefit of the time with my own, and I don’t regret it at all, but I’d encourage my own daughters to keep working and build their own career, rather than assuming that their DPs wage and pension will be enough ti support the family - because if it goes tits up - you’re screwed.
It will be worth the effort and sacrifices in the end, but don’t make your life all about work. A cheaper/ smaller house, really isn’t the end of the world.

And as someone once said if my granny had wheels she’d be a bike…. You haven’t the foggiest idea what it’s like for most people to survive - and that’s what it is - on benefits. You are actually on here crying when you own a house, have a partner and a child and you are working. No one here knows if you decided to mortgage yourself up to the hilt or have two cars on finance. Take a serious look at yourself and try and be a bit grateful for what you have.

Totally, of course it's better than private renting!
But that asset that is of no value to me unless I sell it. And I can't do that because I have to live in it. If the "reward" of being mortgage free keeps being pushed further and further away it becomes less of an advantage.

Average mortgage term for first time buyers is 30 years now. When you combine that with the ever increased age of first time buyers, the whole "you'll own your house at the end" thing looks less and less of appealing

It's a damned sight more appealing than having to pay ever increasing rent on a state pension in your 70s and 80s.

Oh stfu most people 'on benefits' work, you ignorant nob.

@Cuppasoupmonster Is this post really about you having to sell up and move because your mortgage has skyrocketed?

Do you have another solution here? If your mortgage is ginormous, I suspect you could free up a bedroom, maybe partition the largest bedroom to share with DD for a couple of years. Then you would be able to house a student/working person for some extra income.

💐 I’ve also been on both sides too and the grass is not greener at all. Those who’ve never lost everything take what they do have for granted.

I’ve been on benefits and now work. Definitely better of financially working. Also not at the mercy of some jobsworth at the job centre who look to sanction you any way they can. And treat you like a lowlife at every appointment.

You could if your only income was a state pension. You wouldn’t if you had savings or an occupational pension. Be happy to live on that a week would you? That’s the only money you would have in the world by the way, no savings, no safety net. Weren’t you also on the social housing thread saying old people should be slung out of their homes in to one bed flats. Now you are on here seriously saying that you would consider abandoning your cushy life to be tossed about like flotsam on the whim of the government of the day? Get a grip.

No, you couldn’t. As I explained to you, and you ignored, in response to your post on another thread due to the UC taper you wouldn’t receive more money working part time.

It's not a competition. Of course it's still better than private renting! I just said it's less appealing than a 25 year mortgage back when ftb were younger.

We live in social housing and are both up at 6:30 for work and getting DS to nursery and DD2 to school.
Most of our money goes on nursery, it's our biggest bill, but not forever.
I would be happy to have a mortgage which you wouldn't get on benefits (have been there too) but if you want to do that go ahead . I can practically guarantee you will be worse off and also have people look down on you.

I think you may have misread me.

I'm making the point that working is better, that benefits change all the time according to political whim and that you cannot count on what's available now, being available in the future.

Of course preparing for the future is wise - that's why working, if you can, is wise!

Read all me posts for better context rather than highlighting just a bit!

From what I have seen they end up sitting in a grim unloved communal room most of the day staring at a wall with overworked, harassed staff trying to look after too many people and receiving the most basic level of care you can comprehend. If you had any experience of the real world you would know the extremes offered in terms of care homes is worlds apart. But you are too busy charting imaginary grievances to consider the reality of the situation.

And what use is that asset that costs you money to maintain, when you could have the government and a landlord pay it for you. An asset isn't cold hard cash

Not true. You can do an equity release as a pensioner to top up your retirement income. It’s like a reverse mortgage. You don’t have to sell the house to be able to use some of its value as an asset.

@Eyerollcentral

There are extremes with care homes but it’s not always as simple as that. My own mum was a nurse and ran many care homes. It was her job to turn around failing homes that had desperate CQC reports. Some of the home owners were extremely wealthy people (think the homes that look ultra fancy with brochures etc). It still was not a guarantee that care standards would be high. Some homes are most certainly just glossy on the surface. You can’t really judge a home for looking unloved. Sometimes it’s better for a home to be run by the council and not someone who’s just lining their own pockets. Additionally all care homes, all of them struggle with staffing. It’s a grim job really, it doesn’t matter if you’re doing it in nice grounds or not.

You can’t claim UC once you reach state pension age unless you are in a couple and your partner is under state pension age. You can however claim pension credit if eligible.

@Eyerollcentral having had to place my clever but demented MIL in a care home because she was 300 miles away, and watched her personality waste away with it... it is tragic. DMIL was in a lovely place, but there is no compensation for outliving all your friends, and her last six months when we could visit her three or four times a week, at last were spent saying, I don't want to make friends with anyone now.

No, you are expected to work (or work related activities (job searches, making your CV) once your child is of funded nursery age.

Well yes I suppose this is true. But I was just saying that the "reward" of homeownership is ever diminishing, which I still think is true.

But an asset can be turned into cold hard cash in a number of ways. From home equity loans, to cash out remortgages, to selling, to (as a pensioner) a monthly equity release.

Landlords usually avoid paying for repairs….until someone dies.

I did say from what I have seen, that is in a professional capacity and personally when I have visited people in them. I didn’t say it was simple. But if you’ve no money you have to more or less take what you are given in terms of care home provision, wouldn’t you agree? And I think it’s obviously much nicer for people to be in pleasant surroundings with a good standard of care than in grim surroundings without stimulation with a good standard of care.