Are other full-time working families finding there is nothing left?

[fatface001]

Alarm went off at 5:30 this morning, then an hour stood on a packed train into London for the commute. We are a normal family: one child and two full-time jobs. I’ve always enjoyed working and have always worked hard, and I don’t mind that at all — but I do expect that full-time work should still mean there’s something left at the end of the month for a normal life.

But that really doesn’t feel like the case anymore.

There’s nothing left at the end of the month. Everything has been stripped back, all non-essentials have gone, and even basic things around the house are being put off or done ourselves because there isn’t spare money for trades. It’s just constant cutting back.

What’s hard is that we’re both working really long hours and doing everything we’re “supposed” to do, but it still feels like we’re going backwards rather than getting ahead.

When I hear talk about “those with the broadest shoulders” contributing more, I honestly don’t recognise it anymore in real life. It doesn’t feel like anyone in our position has anything left to give — it feels like the pressure is entirely on ordinary working households just to stand still.

I’m not looking for luxuries — just the sense that working still gives you a bit of breathing room. Right now it doesn’t feel like that at all.

Is anyone else feeling the same?

This is us but we have a smaller house and old car. We spend a lot on holidays as that’s a passion of ours. We also save a lot.

We live in a working class town. Our house cost under £90k in 2016 and it’s almost paid off. We could have lived closer to my family down south or in a richer part of the north west city that my partner comes from near his parents but we would have been skint. The same house in their town cost £100k more. Down south where I’m from they wanted £125,000 for a 1 bed flat above a shop in 2016.

Since 2016, our salaries have both doubled or more and we’ve stayed in our house.

Our nursery fees were also cheaper due to our area being quite a low income area.

@Americasfavouritefightingfrenchman I think it’s so hated because so many “need” it to get their own housing security. Subsequent policies have inflated house prices and so much of our wealth is tied up in housing. It’s not productive

Yes I’m up on that single mam if she has no savings. But if she has savings stretching into the thousands then she is up on me. I’m not complaining about people being on benefits I’m complaining about the ones that have thousands in the bank up to an eye watering £15,999.99 who collect benefits!! I mean I know they don’t write the rules so I’m not complaining about them directly, it’s the government and their unfair policies. The threshold needs lowering then the government can help the nhs, or raise tax thresholds or have some spare cash to help working people with COL which was ultimately what this initial post was all about. It isn’t about those not on benefits complaining about those that are, it’s about fairness in the system to help everyone with COL.

As I said if a single mum with two kids is entitled to £1200 UC (which is a lot more than I see up north, its average £800) if she has £15k in the bank the deduction would be £652, so shes only getting £547 UC on top of a meagre wage. Is she still up on you?

People would just spend their money on things very quickly to get it under the 16K threshold or perhaps gift it to a family member temporarily. I also think you may not have factored in many people on UC were working full time for years. So they may have built up savings through that. Rather than wiping out all their savings within a few months it makes sense to claim benefits and then supplement their benefits with savings. Otherwise you remove an incentive for people to save when their employed.

Also someone could’ve been saving for a house. You wipe out their deposit and when they do find a job they’re back to square one.

There’s other ways to get more money for example. We should be making more men pay up for maintenance and consider factoring that into what benefits the custodial parent receives.

We can also be more importantly getting rid of all the corruption that goes on with government contracts.

Council money is being wasted by companies who for example take weeks to fill up a small pothole when it’s a one day job. There are people laughing all the way to the bank and have been since 2010. I know because I’ve met some of them. Also making sure this cash in hand and not declaring it all to HMRC stops. Also putting a greater emphasis on taxing wealth not just income.

Stop selling of all the social housing stock which puts people into private rent which is so unregulated and the rent are a big reason why welfare is so high.

Someone with 10K in the bank and receiving UC isn’t the enemy here.

@Summerhut2025

While I agree with you about helping working people, in particular the tax thresholds, as I dont earn much but pay tax and I think its totally unfair, I dont look at the people I am helping and think geeezus take the money off them the robbing bast*rds....i look upwards!

Plus people on UC are working people most of the time too...they are also paying tax

£200 may be a typical hair price for women if you want a fancy salon with regular blow dries or expensive highlights.

I get mine done in a very local salon. I get it washed, cut and coloured every 8 weeks. It comes to just over 50 quid. I choose not to get it blow dried because it's naturally curly and I tend to let it air dry, but I fail to see how a blow dry could cost £150 (the difference in price up to what you are saying it costs).

The salon isn't fancy but do you know what, when I was in my 20s and going to fancy salons, the prices were going up and up and the cut was taking less and less time, and I eventually realised it just wasn't worth the cost. I think people are cottoning on, the Toni and Guy by mine (city suburb on high street) just closed down. I don't know how the fancier salons are doing in the city centre, they are even more expensive.

They are privatised. Thats why they're so expensive.

No, I disagree with this. If a responsible person has been working full time their whole life and has saved hard for emergencies like white goods breakdowns, emergency roof repairs, car repairs, I wouldn't begrudge anyone a few thousand of their OWN money being kept for such eventuality while they look for a new job. They still need day to day costs met during that period, and that's what the benefits would be for.

The odds are that they'd have to dip into it anyway to cover things temporarily for things like wraparound care if their children are already in that (you'd usually be required to pay during any notice period), any loans which they had which still need paying for like car finance - to enable them to get them to job interviews, and most importantly their mortgage.

With any luck that person would manage to find a new job within a few months, but I fail to see why they should be punished by not being entitled to any benefits for day to day costs during that period, simply for being responsible and saving to cover those costs. While someone else in the same position of having lost their job gets benefits from day 1 just because they splurged all their earnings every month and hadn't bothered to save a penny.

The long and short of it is that we shouldn't be punishing people who act responsibly, when they need a bit of a support for a few months. It could happen to anyone of us in a job. Be careful what you wish for.

You thought adding a further tax to something that’s already taxed would be a good answer and would be popular?

Just saw your thread and popped in to say that I feel the same way.

Got paid today- bills paid-nothing left wtf 😩

It absolutely will continue for as long as people accept it. Look up Laffer Curve which is pretty much being hinted at across this thread. Labour should start reading up on it.

Why not link benefits to how much you have paid in like many other European countries?

Because then 98% of claimants would have absolutely nothing.

I was born in 64, supposedly a baby boomer getting everything thrown at me , but believe me, it was my parents generation who did , not me

Im the same as most people here, retiring @67 instead of 60, only I guess I was lucky being told in my 30's so at least with another 2 years working I will get full pension

Yes we are feeling the pinch now at the moment because of fuel prices , we need our cars - no public transport . Luckily DH has an electric car, but whilst you guys in GB get over night rates at 8p a unit, ours here in NI is 18p. We over here are also on lot lower salaries - all government jobs/public sector roles pay more in GB then here

Because most of us are rural we rely on oil for heating, - unregulated - we are dependent on market price

So even though we have some of the coldest days this year this month - heating is off and we are heating one room

We , 2 adults, manage pretty well on a joint income of less then 30k without any benefits at all and no generational inheritance etc. We earn, we spend if we have it, pull the purse strings when we dont.,

We have been through the helping the kids and helping raise the grandkids

I think for us though, because neither of us were given a hand up or had lavished childhoods, we had lower ideas. Sure if the kids needed new shoes, school uniforms, an outfit for the weekend - they got it, but at what we were prepared to spend, we have never felt the need to be putting the kids/grandkids in designer ware

Back in the 90's we were big earners, and we spent it, New cars every two years, 5 holidays abroad at least, weekends away, eating out , takeaways, spending Sundays out shopping, finding stuff to spend money on

But we started off in one room, then got a HA 1 bedroom flat, then bought our first house - 2 up .2 down, mid terrace, that we lived in whilst it was being gutted and modernised - ourselves . We started with 2nd hand and 3rd hand furniture , lived on baked beans

So now we are finding the fuel prices are hitting us hard, we dont feel so hard done by. We have a house, a garden, cars, hobbies, friends and we eat well every day - cheaply I agree, but very well

I do shop in charity shops , I grew up wearing handmade/pass me downs and jumble sale so it never bothers me the slightest

I won't go into debt though. We own everything we have . If we cant afford it we dont have it

As for the theatre and days out, even back in the day as Londoners , earning great money, we went to the theatre on the cheap February Tickets , back then I wouldn't dream of dropping a ton for a ticket , now we make do with the cinema viewings or if we can get tickets for Belfast, a matinee performance so we can use our travel passes

What is terrifying about all this is that anyone of us who share a house with a partner could find themselves in deep shit if anything happens to either of them. Job loss of one with them being unable to find work where they're living. Ill health or death. Relationship breakup. Child with severe illness or disability.

It's scary how little choice most of us would be left with these days about where we could afford to live. I don't want to have to see people in their 40s moving back in with their parents if they end up single. I want people to be able to afford at least a 1 bed flat on their own without having to share like a student.

At least years ago when eg a single teacher or a nurse could afford a little 2 bed terrace or a flat with a mortgage, people had options if it all went tits up with the family home or relationship. Even if someone had been a SAHM or only worked part time in a shop they could retrain, get qualified in something that would enable you to get a proper career and support themselves as a single person.

But who the hell can afford to do that now?

It's terrifying because it means people in desperately unhappy relationships will end up having to live in the same house because there is little alternative. And it means that women being abused are less likely to leave their partner.

We have little choice now in such matters. Especially now that people often have to move away from the town they grew up in to look for work, so they are away from their parental home and don't even have that option unless they uproot themselves, give up their job and move back home like a child. And who's to say that some parents of adults would even WANT them back?

Be careful with any card administration charges, expiry date etc.

Those one4all cards are a rip off if you don't spend them fairly quickly.

Yeah you’re probably right they will just move the money, but the principal is still wholly wrong, it isn’t what the safety net of the benefits system is supposed to be.

Apparently CMS payments aren’t taken into account when claiming benefits so it encourages the parent to apply for child support. However someone could be receiving enough to not need any benefits if their ex is a high earner, it shouldn’t be one rule fits all. They could save loads on benefits here. But I think that’s probs a debate for another thread 😬 politicians shy away from dealing with CMS issues anyway as it’s too much of a hot potato for them.

I can only imagine the corruption that must go on, shocking really.

I totally agree. Fiscal drag is a huge problem. I think it causes a lot of the resentment amongst tax payers. If it felt fairer perhaps it would stop putting off big earners from living here.

A few thousand pounds buffer is one thing, someone with more than 15k in the bank can afford to pay for their own life pitfalls.

It is only a few thousand pounds. They can’t keep £16,000 in an account without penalty.
They can keep £6000, which is effectively two months wages which everybody should have in theory.

I agree about being angry with the landlords, especially those who are the ultimate recipients of insane amounts of housing benefit. To me, they’re the real parasites.

Yes, she has 15k in the bank 😆 plus all the other benefits that come with being on UC that another poster listed earlier on.

If I worked full time I could earn a lot more than that. I don’t really understand how someone on a six-figure salary has nothing left at the end of the month unless they have an absolutely ginormous mortgage or have chosen private education

Someone on 100k is unlikely to be able to afford a mortgage and private education.

If she has 15k in the bank her benefits are reduced significantly by £652.
Any working person on UC needs to earn over £980 to get any kind of top up.

To qualify for free dentists, prescriptions and free school meals your HOUSEHOLD income needs to be £935 a month or under. Meaning any working person cannot get this anymore.