I do not know anyone who is having a 'party' living on benefits....post here if you do

[electra]

On MN, I keep reading on many different threads that Labour has been giving away loads of money in benefits to people who don't really need it which has caused the financial crisis.

All the people I know who rely on their tax credits and have children seem to have to watch every penny. I do not see evidence of them having any sort of 'party' life.

I had thought the banks were mostly responsible for the financial crisis by lending money that didn't exist.

Can anyone correct me on this? I'm open to different opinions.

CrazyCatLady - Thank you. I am only in receipt of WTC(which is DH name)CTC & CB. I am not on anything like income support, JSA or incap benefit, So i am not screwing the system as some people are making out. I am rightfully spending money that we are entitled to as a family. Like everyone else who has children on this board.

I love mn
yesterday I was ok to comment as dh was on jsa
today he started work so I know that it won't be my place any longer to comment on benefits.

Bronze - Congrats on your DH starting a job, i know its hard to get back out to work these days.

I understand what quiet is saying.

My best friend has an out of work partner, lives with her disabled and elderly mum and has a young child.

She works her bollocks off full time and commutes 3 hours per day - she gets no help.

Due to her working hours (and she had to go back to work at 5 months) she has missed out completely on her son growing up. All money goes. She'd never had been able to get any help and she's done a great job.

I really feel it when I see people who are on benefit and can stay home.

I also have to say that when I had ds - in hospital and in the post cs beds, there was a lady opposite who made out she couldn't speak english - she got all the attention and when it was going home time for visitors she reckoned she didn't understand so her whole family got to stay overnight everynight. Except the last day - blimey - 9.30 am she was on to the council in English saying she had a british kid and they had a duty of care to house her.

The rest of the people got no f'ing attention because of her 'lack' of english.

There IS fraud - there ARE people who could do better for themselves but there ARE poeple who genuinely need help. Our system finds it hard to sort out who really needs what.

I still don;t get the aruement about flat screen tvs. We have one, but that was bought with my redundancy money.

DH is on min wage, I get CA, and we get FTC and a whopping £12 a month WTC. We don't get anything else as with all of this we are £500 over the cut off. We have been told by a few people that we would be better of financially by about £200 a month if DH gave up his job, but he has more pride than that, he doesn't need to give up his job, so why should he just so we can be more comfortable? Would be lovely to have him hear to help look after the kids though.

Congratualtions to your DH Bronze

Has anyone mentioned pre-cut fruit yet?

I just got dh's reply email: 28'

I 've emailed him asking what size our tv is. I didn't know the size of MY OWN tv!

Please don't flame me but the banks didn't cause the financial crisis by themselves. The crisis was caused by people borrowing money they couldn't pay back. Yes, some banks should have been more scrupulous in who they lent to but I do think that the people who borrowed money they knew they couldn't pay back should also take some of the blame.
I'm not talking about people who lost their jobs and found themselves unable to meet mortgage payments. I'm talking about people who self-certified their mortgages by lying about how much they earned and then seemed surprised when they couldn't meet the payments.
I know someone who was offered a mortgage which was 8 times his salary! Yes, the bank shouldn't have offered it to him, but as an adult he shouldn't have been tempted to take it. He was relying on the fact that his house price would rise to compensate for this, but you can't assume that house prices will rise all the time. Certainly not at the rate they have been doing, it's not sustainable.
I am not saying that the house price/wage situation is fair. Far from it. I don't think we would have been able to get on the property ladder now.
I am not saying that the banks are completely blameless as I have already said. There was too much pressure on selling mortgages and lending money. However, I do think that adults who went into it with open eyes, should take some of the blame too.

I don't know anything about benefits so can't comment on that. I doubt you could 'party' on the amount that you receive, particularly if you have children.

What's the beef with pre-cut fruit? I love me some pre-cut mango (do I really have time to de-stone a mango?) Am I one of Satan's handmaidens?

Gasp cupcakes, not pre cut fruit....I remember that thread. Only the pre cut fruit bit, not why it was heinous!

I know a woman who works cleaning at £15 per hour cash in hand whilst being on benefits as a single mum. She works school hours and and then cuts down (but still works) in the school holidays.

It would cost me £4000 or our net income (taxed at 40% and NI) to be able to pay her for three hours a week, 48 weeks per year, which is approx £2200.

She, on the other hand, is taking home the equivalent of £20 per hour, taxed at 25% tax, (haven't even factored in NI, just a rough calculation). So supposing she worked school hours, 9-3, 3 days a week, for only 40 weeks of the year, (which I'm guessing from what she's said is about right) she'd be earning the equivalent of over £14,000 a year. Not bad for a part-time, low-skilled job with hours to fit around school. But of course, that's not including her benefits....so that's a 14k 'job' that doesn't need to cover rent, council tax, school meals, and whatever else a non-working single mother of school aged children is entitled to. As Reality said, she'd have to be on quite a hefty salary to maintain her current lifestyle by working legitimately, full-time, with no benefits.

Cupcakes, there was a thread a while ago saying that people on benefits shouldn't be buying pre-cut fruit becuase it was so much more exensive than buying it whole.

Pre-cut fruit rocks. If I chop up fruit and store it in little boxes in the fridge, it goes off before it gets chomped. If I but those clever little bags of pre-cut fruit, they keep for a week. No waste. Anyone who says any different is a nit-picky, halo-polisher with too much time on their hands.

That's bollocks, 5inthebed asda (cough) do three wee bags of pre-cute fruit for £1. Way cheaper than buying it all seperately and keeps for longer. As long as you're getting your 5 a day, who gives a fat one who chopped it?

Yes I know, I get my DS1 the pineapple "lollypops" for his packed lunch.

I think some people get loads of tax credits and benefits and the worse thing about it is they just expect it.

By the time you add up all the tax credits and benefits some people get you're talking about a lot of money. If someone was on the salary equivalent you would say they were doing well and shouldn't receive any handouts. The system is all wrong. Receiving more tax credits than what someone actually pays in tax is one big joke.

I'm totally fed up of my professional DH having to subsidise these benefits from his salary. The benefits system neede a huge overhaul.

Bronze comngrats to your DH

To me its simple- if you are farudulently claiming youa re a criminal, nobody would yell if people criticised criminals so why not call them what they are?

And tehre are people who need help.

Some of them will cope better than others: we have a little bit more (low income rather than jobless + a carer) becuase we had zero debt when Dh lost his job; that will always help. Of course, we made do / have a shite TV / saved to avoid debt 9and OK, we learend the ahrd way- perfection far from here but that was some time ago)

£50 will always go further if £15 doesn't go straight out in debt.

Sooner or alter we will eb compeltely self supporting but we will never take debt (maybe a small mortgage) again. We've been so lucky not to have any.

No one has time to de-stone a mango... I think why anyone would bother will remain a mysery right through to the very end.

Apples however, come on?!

"
I'm totally fed up of my professional DH having to subsidise these benefits from his salary."

Irony or what!!!!!!

Journey

TC's don't quite work like that any more, tehy used to but it changed

the Government closed down IS for chidlren and what used to be called family Credit, and pay that in TC's now, along with a disability bonus.

Taht's why peopel sometimes get mroe than the tax they pay; it's the same amount of benefits paid in one payment now IYSWIM.

Apples turn brown within hours, Foureleven. DS likes to eat sliced apples in his packed lunch but will not touch them if the flesh is not pearly white, much less if it is brown Those little bags of sliced apple are great. Don't care if anyone else thinks I'm ridiculous. DS eats plenty of fruit. Couldn't give a rat's ass about how he prefers it so long as he eats it.

Riven, it's not about being jealous about what others have, it's about feeling OUTRAGE at the injustice of it all. You MUST feel more outrage, woman.

Cupcakes

lemon juice stops them oxidising

But presumably Journey isn't claiming benefits, so if her DH chooses to 'keep' his wife, who is presumably at home doing the unpaid work of a cleaner and a chilminder of his child, then it's his choice, and hers, and she's not costing the state anything. No irony there.