How are people surviving

[Truthseeker456]

I don't get it. One income and I am on a what was a good wage 53,000. My mortgage is likely to double next year I have nursery fees and 3000 take home and always in my overdraft. How are people surviving, we don't hear anything in the media. Rents are also though the roof

Lots of single parents earning less than £50k have mortgages. There is no help.

Again no, they don't get help with housing costs if they have a mortgage.

Try paying a mortgage and all bills out of less than £800.

Currently they don’t, but I think that will change. And rightly so.

We spend £95 a week. Two adults, two children, 3 & 5.

Takes a lot of planning and we're luckily in a position that if we go over that we have funds to draw on.

But we try to stick as closely as we can to our small budget for food

Anyone know what the average food bill is for 1 adult , two older children please ? ( not teens)

2 adults and 2 kids 5 & 2.5. DH works full time in work part-time as otherwise nursery costs would cripple us. Joint income of about 46k. We are struggling and absolutely dreading having to sort the mortgage when our fixed rate ends next year. We don't go out much, no holidays and no clubs etc for the kids. We don't get any help other than the government tax free childcare account. 5 year old in school but need wrap around care 3 days a week when we're both working. So with that and nursery we spend about £900 a month on childcare and our mortgage is £760, utilities are £270. Hoping I go back to full time when the youngest gets their 30 free hours in January

What is ESA

That’s one hell of a lot oF food ! Wow

Ours is about £150 for two of us including 1 weekly take away. I bought brwad, peanut butter, milk apples and frabreze yesterday that was about £45

But a single parent under £50k should and will get help. With childcare. With rent. With child benefit. I’m not bashing them

there is no such thing as a benefit for single parents. A single parent household is means tested in the same way a two parent household is means tested. Single parents are just more likely to come under the threshold than a house with two working adults.

I’ll be taking my pension at 55 because I have actually worked hard and saved

thousands of people work incredibly hard every single and struggle to save or make pension contributions. I do wish people would start to recognise that ‘hard work’ and ‘well paid’ do not necessarily follow on one after the other.

This

I actually do appreciate that, when I say worked hard, I mean, I work hard at the beginning. I certainly didn’t work hard at the end in the salary was disproportionate. However, it is a decision to save.

I was doing a fabulous job of keeping all the plates spinning at the same tome- working extremely long hours, going to every appointment, parents evening, keep the house and kids clean, saving for next year’s tax whilst paying this year’s, despite my benefits cut to almost nothing. Until…someone didn’t send me something they should have sent me and it all came crashing down. I also went through several toxic situations at once, didn’t spot a potentially dangerous illness in my child. Close family members have kindly suggested Have I checked for Alzheimers which was really helpful. I forgot one thing because it wasn’t my responsibility to deal with it. Anyway, it sucks. Working every day, constantly worrying about how to afford things, trying to keep everyone happy, dreading getting ill because we will fall behind, never relaxing. I ate a full meal yesterday and felt uncomfortably full and unwell because I haven’t eaten a full meal in ages. I only ate it because some food fell and the kids wouldn’t touch it.

I do blame the companies profiteering. Lots of us are living half lives where we don’t come up for air ever while others bask in the profits from our misery.

Unless you bought huge quantities, there's no way that cost £45.

You’re right, I spent nine quid on three tubs of peanut butter.

It's not a decision to save if you have literally nothing left after bills.

It’s a decision to not pay into your pension before paying those bills. Especially as its pre tax income so youll be paying it one way or the other. Its better in your pot.

Obviously, they will always be the exceptional person who doesn’t have a bean left after just paying the bare minimum basics. But I saved £200 of months when I was on benefits so …..

However, it is a decision to save

jesus wept. For some, absolutely. For others, not so much. Saving is not something everyone is able to manage.

It’s a decision to not pay into your pension before paying those bills

no love, for some people, it isn’t. For some it is the difference between eating and not eating. Paying childcare or not working. Bills have to be paid. Pensions can be left till later. Unfortunately p, there are those for whom later never arrives.

This is where we are now as a country. If people are poor it's because they haven't worked hard enough or saved enough, when we know that most people in lower paid, often essential jobs work harder and for longer than most of us.
If we can blame people who are poor, it means we don't have to care enough to do anything about it.
Has everyone seen that video about privalege and how your upbringing can affect you? It's very powerful.

Some people literally cannot afford to pay into a pension at the moment because they need every spare penny for bills.

When were you on benefits? Was it recently? Because housing and food costs have shot up so much over the past 2 years. Energy bills have more than doubled.

I appreciate that most people haven’t had the necessary financial education to understand this. But if you pay into your pension, it comes off pretax income and it’s also deducted from any income that would be counted towards universal credits, student loans etc. I’d strongly recommend you look into it there’s lots of information on the Internet you can do the maths and work out. If actually you would lose any money at all by paying into your pension I suspect a lot of people wouldn’t. And then on top of that, you’ll receive 25% from the government, so it’s a double win.

I do pay into a pension. I have a work colleague who doesn't because he can't afford to. He isn't entitled to UC.

Its probably not for him then is it? 🤦‍♀️