To wonder if this is even worth it anymore and I may as well give up and claim benefits

[Iopaaa]

I’m so fed up. I don’t know what to do. I don’t live a lavish lifestyle. I earn after tax 3,700 a month. My mortgage is 1,100, cheap for the area, nursery fees are 1,400, bills around 500 a month including council tax, but more when it’s winter and need heating. Running the car and buying food wipes out the rest. Not entitled to child benefit. Ex pays 575 a month which goes on wraparound care. What’s the point? For loads of stress at work? I know people think well that’s life and that’s what life costs but the hours I put in to my job and the stress and responsibility I have to bring in this amount only to run out of money every month just makes me want to give up, get a crappy job without stress. Has anyone actually done this? I honestly don’t see the point anymore.

@Kafkaland that doesn't sound realistic. Number one, you wouldn't live where you live now, you would have to live where the council say you should live. You would probably have been traumatised from being in shared emergency accommodation with drug addicts and people who have been in prison, those who have been evicted due to bad behaviour etc.
Your children would likely have to share a room until they were 10 if they were opposite genders, and forever if they were the same gender.
You would be forced to look for work and they would expect you to take anything.
They would give you an allowance for childcare and you wouldn't be able to pick something to suit your child (such as a nanny) as very few are ofsted registered so you wouldn't be able to use UC to pay for it.
You would be threatened with sanctions if you couldn't get to a meeting or didn't apply for jobs which you couldn't do anyway due to childcare.
You would be forced to struggle to make ends meet.

@Kafkaland plus if it's so nice and easy why don't you do that, no one is stopping you.

Exhausted, feeling skint, but ultimately going to own a significant asset and have control over your income - or exhausted, even more skint and completely dependent upon the efficiency and good temper of the staff handling a UC claim whilst living in shitty accommodation with no security?

I spent a long time on benefits. The freedom of knowing that on the 25th/26th/last working day of the month that £xk will drop into your account, compared to never knowing until it's too late that there's an issue with your considerably smaller payment and then being unable to access the UC record because your claim is closed, then having to go through reapplying, having another meeting, proving your identity, then waiting with no backpay but all the bills to pay in full to avoid eviction and council tax bailiffs and the need for food and electricity, government deciding that they are going to limit it/change the eligibility rules/have tougher sanctions...well, you have to be mad to put yourself in the hands of somebody else willingly, wouldn't you?

It’s not easy. Isn’t there more help coming next year for 1-2yr olds? That’s not that far off so hang in there OP. I get it I really do, I earn similar, few hundred less and for that I get a lot of stress. Thankfully my kids are older now and no childcare (Uni costs though!) but I can’t even afford to buy my own property where I live in the SE on my salary which is hugely depressing. Getting a minimum wage or lower paid job won’t necessary help you, you’d probably still be left with nothing but have a lot more stress enduring you’ve got enough to pay mortgage and bills.

You would be about 4- 500 worse off on benefits and would have to rent rather than own your house

If op is struggling to cope with £700 for food, petrol and toiletries, she would be very stressed with this amount to pay for everything.

Nope. Given their disabilities and mine I would easily meet the criteria for zero work requirements.

We wouldn't need any childcare because I would be around to care for them. And my health wouldn't be so bad because I wouldn't be trying to do everything. And we wouldn't have the same resistance we get from every service that is meant to meet their needs of them expecting me - as a lone parent - to fund it myself. Yet still quite happy to take my tax money.

They are traumatised already, thanks for your concern. And it doesn't help that their mother is available so little to be here with them because I'm working so much to pay for them AND others. Yet we're denied even a tiny fraction of our tax bill back in services when they are now needed, to make this situation sustainable so that I can continue paying for my own family and to support others. Maybe I'd get to sleep for more than 3-4 hours per day, too, because I could rest while they were at school.

So thanks for your facetious comments, but no. You have no idea. I've lived in poverty thank you, actual poverty and I know what that is like. Got no help then. But with the system as it is now, we would actually be substantially better off both financially and in terms of health if I had never dragged myself up from that situation and got qualified and worked my arse off to get a career established and bought a house, etc.

The system in this country is all kinds of wrong.

£700 disposable income isn't ideal, but it is enough to get by with some budgeting in place until the children are in full time school.

Unless your ex still pays the same amount when it’s not going toward child care. Then you will be about the same on benefits. But you won’t be able to claim UC only long term unless you are not well. But you claim it and work part time and it looks like you would not be worse off

Because it can't be done now. I've worked and bought a house, so am not eligible for the support. I guess I could sell it, blow the equity by going travelling with the kids or something for a couple of years. Then we'd get the help we'd have been given in an identical situation to ours but with a parent who'd never bothered to study or work or buy a house. Except then they'd probably say that was deliberate "deprivation of assets", wouldn't they? So still not give us the help anyway. So I can't "just do it then", can I?

My post was about comparing how a family with identical circumstances to ours is supported if the parent has never studied or worked or saved and the support they are given, compared to how I am milked for every penny they can screw out of me and given jo help whatsoever. Some reward and thanks for all that work and paying all that tax, to be left substantially worse off each month than someone who has contributed absolutely nothing. If you think that is a just system then your moral compass is extremely skewed.

Are you utilising tax free childcare? Could you reduce your hours slightly to bring you under the threshold for child benefit, and reduce your nursery hours?

@LadyGrinningSoul85
How on earth would you have more free time working full time?!
Working people have to run their homes, help with homework, do school events, etc etc whilst also working 5 days a week or more.
I have no doubt being on benefits is sound destroying but these are things the rest of us have to do whilst working (and in my case with a long term health condition that means very little sleep and lots of hospital appointments that are schedule around my mentally demanding job).

The only reason OP wouldn't get benefits is because of her savings and wages. You can claim UC and have a mortgage. It isn't only for renters. You just get a higher work allowance.

@Kafkaland I don't understand I'm afraid. The state would be there for you regardless of what you had done beforehand. You don't earn above a certain amount and then you're not allowed to claim forever. Does it help for you to put people in boxes? Because most people fall somewhere in between 'studied for years, worked, now on six figures' and life long benefit claimant.
I would probably say that I am worse off than you due to not being able to afford specialist childcare for my child's disability and therefore being limited to the jobs I can do. I got a degree, worked hard, bought a house and now I'm on MW working to try to survive. My child isn't likely to be able to tolerate school for much longer so that will be it for my career. But it's nice to know that you think I would be 'lucky' enough to claim benefits rather than work.
If you want that life so bad then give up work and sell your house. You've obviously worked hard, but what you fail to recognise is that your earnings have given you options. What I see through my job in social care is the lack of options for those on benefits. They have so little choice in where they live, who they live with, how long they can stay in their home, where their children go to school, what they eat, what they wear, the list goes on!
I don't see these people living it up on six figures generated solely by DLA and UC. I just don't. Show me the calculations and I might believe you.

How can you be jealous of those on benefits when you earn six figures? You must have a decent pension as well as a nice house.

You can but you wouldn't get the housing element so OP wouldn't be able to pay the mortgage.

No not on a £1k one but a smaller mortgage maybe like we have. You can earn more before it is deducted though than someone who rents. I just get the impression reading comments that some think no one owning a house gets UC. A bit of a myth.

People who haven't ever claimed UC don't seem to really know the reality of it to be honest. It's also a myth that you can just decide not to work and get benefits. I've been a claimant for years (working full time, single parent low wage) I've just been made redundant last week and they're already setting up appointments at the jobcentre for me to get me back to work. The days of sitting around claiming benefits are long gone.

Many of us on the thread have dealt with the cost and relentless of small children and FT work, so can sympathise.

However, someone in your position should not be permitted benefits I’m sorry to say. I don’t want to be in a similar relentless cycle to pay for you to stay home and for you to take payment away from others who genuinely can’t work.

@AlwaysFrazzled88 you won't get the housing element of UC if you own. Yes they ask you how much you pay in mortgage payments when you claim but they don't give you that as a payment in your UC as standard. With housing benefit you get more.

Hi OP I sympathise that you have a job and with your wage most of it goes on essential costs. Your biggest costs are childcare and mortgage. Maybe you could find cheaper childcare, like using a babysitter. I'm sure if you had someone like a family member to leave them with you would have? I don't (can't) work. I more than meet the criteria for LCWRA. I'm sure people have already told you this but if everyone claimed benefits there would be nothing left for people who genuinely can't work. I'm sorry to say but I wouldn't say that you are struggling. What you have left over is a similar amount to what people on benefits are expected to cover ALL of their costs with. Currently people who cant work don't get much at all to live on and really are really struggling to meet basic costs. I think you should count your blessings if you can afford to live in a nice area, pay childcare, pay for a car, etc.

No but you are compensated by being able to earn more before deductions than a renter.

@Beezknees tax credits still exist

They do but you can't make a new claim for them. There's less than a million people still getting tax credits now.

70k gross pay and you still can't manage your money. Come on now. We are all adults here. Live within your means like most of us do. The ones who refuse to get what they deserve. Some of us pay mortgages, run cars and live comfortably on much less.

So it's up to you if you want to improve your situation.