Can we all take a moment to pray for Thea, living life on the brink of poverty at £6k a month (£3.2k of which is UC).

[BananaramaDefence]

In a good month when UC gives full entitlement, Thea has a total of £6,142.00, from £2,800 in take-home pay and £3,342 in universal credit plus child benefit. Her monthly expenses such as childcare, rent, council tax, energy and food etc are usually around £6000. She says: "So it’s living very much on the edge."

And now the cap is removed she will get more!!

From this: Pregnant mum-of-four: 'Budget benefit change saved our Christmas' - The Mirror https://share.google/QGbNeuIKPAmg1qNG5

No wonder people get pissed of with welfare in this country. I work 40 hours plus a week, have children, have to pay a mortgage, childcare and I earn way less than this!!!

No child should live in poverty but at the same time no family should get this muxh in benefits.

Before people say, yes but it's to pay rent and collate, I also have to pay all that and my mortgage is half my wage!!

@notallwhowanderare go back. Read what I’ve actually posted. Give your head a shake.

Lol

So my mum
1)believed him to be a decent man because many men, even the shitty ones initially present as such 😳
2)they were married 2 years before they had me 🤷
3)due to above two factors I was a)a much wanted baby and b)had quite religious grandparents who weren't all that in favour of abortion and 3)I think my bio dad would have made her life even more hellish if she'd tried (though yes for many years I wished she had)

🤦🏼‍♀️🙄

Also in regard to single mothers did you know some become single mother because their husbands have the AUDACITY (!) to die and leave them widowed??!!! 😱🤯

To be fair though. What I said wasn’t pointless. If you’d bother to read it. If you think working to shape policy to help improve the country is (hang on let me check).. ‘yapping’ then. Brilliant.

I’m not the font of all wisdom. I’m a person of balanced mind who takes all views into context. I’ve shared both my lived experience and professional experience on this thread. Im not condescending anyone. If you feel condescended then that is a you issue. It’s nothing to do with what I’ve posted.

Thea has lived in the UK for 20 yrs according to an interview I watched on FB. I assume she has worked & paid tax in that time. She didn't just rock up with 3 kids last year. She is working full time now.

Having children is a privilege not a right.
Most people in the country have 2 children because that is all they can afford.
Having more children than you can afford means other people have to subsidise your lifestyle - that's not fair.

Me too

You said the same last night, hun. Your tone was so unpleasant I reported you and your posts got deleted for breaking talk guidelines. I’m going to do the same for this one. Everyone is entitled to share their views on here. Sorry if my opinions have perhaps triggered you.

And it's likely her family are in the US so she has alreacy moved far away from them! She has made a choice to live in the most expensive part of the UK but expects others to fund her having & raising children there.

She had a moan somewhere that UC won't let her spend all summer in the US for the family childcare. So you're spot on.

My heart bleeds for her not being able to afford flights to the US every year! Maybe she should move back there!

Your own tone is also arrogant, unpleasant and antagonistic.

Reporting someone for a fair argument isn’t how you win.

It’s how the left on MN operate. Can’t defend the indefensible. Shut down debate and goad.

100% - The poster she was arguing with was spot on. Quite pathetic if your only argument strategy is to run and hide behind censorship.

@Peoplearebloodyidiots I thought your discussion was insightful and you didn’t deserve to have your posts deleted.

I don’t think we should be angry she is getting benefits, I think we should be angry that her wages aren’t enough to cover her accommodation and the childcare she needs to work. The employer benefits from her labour, they should pay her enough that she can pay for the essentials herself (and that applies to the rest of us too).

Cheers.

I just feel fed up that this can simultaneously, and by the same government, be seen as "the bear minimum needed to live" and "untold wealth that should be taxed at 60%"

It cannot be both at the same time

And maybe the media can stop making out like £100k is a "fat cat" salary in the public sector when clearly it should be seen as the poverty threshold

I reported the post as the poster told me I was ‘yapping’ and then told me to ‘go away’ which I decided to report as it was getting beyond a joke and felt unpleasant.
My view that it’s okay to lift children out of poverty seems to have gone down like a proverbial sack of sh@t on here. Hmmm. I wonder why that might be.
You can all carry on tagging me quoting me calling me patronising, condescending all
you like if it makes you feel a little bit better about yourselves. But being told to ‘go away’ breaks the talk guidelines. So Mumsnet decided to delete those posts. They will delete posts that go to far. She went too far on me last night. Possibly because I touched a shameful nerve.

I said it up thread and I’ll say it again we’re all entitled to an opinion. And mine is based on my own personal experiences. Plus knowledge gained via my area of work of the proven life long consequences of child poverty on health, educational attainment, mental health. And more. Did you know that some children aren’t being taken to dental appointments because parents in poverty can’t afford the bus fare? So that means they end up with decay. Often Extractions under GA. All at extra cost to you wonderful upstanding, virtuous and righteous taxpayers. That’s just one example of the impact of child poverty on the wider system.

Anyway, you’re entitled to say what your views and I’m entitled to disagree. And vice versa. Getting all shirty about the fact someone disagrees with your viewpoint and telling them to ‘go away’ is just a bit childish. Anyway, was Mumsnet who deleted it not me. So if you have an issue take it up with them.

“Getting all shirty about the fact someone disagrees with your viewpoint and telling them to ‘go away’ is just a bit childish.”

Can’t you see this is literally what you have done?

I’m not carrying on your argument with that poster, I’m calling you out for calling the kettle black.

I don’t understand the point of your post. Given that most of your children are adults now, you must have had them when cost of living was much cheaper. You couldn’t foresee that you one of them would need extra support.

Our children are mid-late teens. We would have liked to have more children but made a conscious decision not to, because of the cost of raising and providing for them. We wanted to make sure we could afford a decent/high quality of life for them and we knew we couldn’t guarantee this if we had more.

The subject of this thread, Thea, has 4 young children and is pregnant with her fifth, during a time when costs for everyone is rocketing and have been for at least 3 years. Why would you carry on having a third, fourth and fifth child when you know you can’t afford to look after them from your own wage?

No. I disagreed. And shared my views and experiences and explained why I thought I disagreed. Go and have a look if you can be bothered.

Edited to clarify: She called it ‘yapping’ on more than one occasion and told me to ‘go away’. Which is why I reported it as it was a personal attack on me not on my opinion. This morning she came back to call me ‘a nasty little bully’ and again told me to ‘go away’. That was totally uncalled for. It was another personal and unprovoked attack on me and not on my viewpoint. So I reported that too.