To be seriously worried the new govt are looking at cutting child benefit...

[cherrymama]

to 'middle class' families?What does that mean?We both work but have four kids and losing that income will seriously affect us...so please tell me IABU and that it won't happen!

mamatomany thanks for answering, my ds has learning difficulties (very hyper, lack of concentration, social difficulties) they won't accept him in the school club, they don't have a helper for him.
For me this is the most stressful part of working, the childcare and the school holidays. With no family to help. If only I won the lottery.....

Well we were on more than £14k (we were both working FT) and we got WFTC. My friend, whose DH is a senior lecturer at the local uni so is on a good wage, also got WFTC (in fact she explained to me how to apply for them!)

No, I'm definitely thinking of WFTC. I remember the new system of WTC and CTC came in when DS1 was around 6 months old.

WFTC wasn't paid into your bank account, it came as a tax rebate in your pay packet.

If I remember rightly you could claim it as long as you didn't earn over £30,000. Both parents could earn up to £30,000 each though, so if you weren't working and it was only your partner's income which made up the £35k then you wouldn't have been entitled to it.

'The mobiles, Sky, running two cars, holidays, etc. may have to go'

We have mobiles that cost about a tenner that we use for child-related contact, one old banger, YH holidays and no sky packages at all.
very low-tech house, the computer is 8 next month. No cake has been ordered.
And although this is a comment about another thread, I leave the house worth around £200, including the wedding ring.
Yes. we're both professionals with higher degrees and two children.
What one person considers a vital necessity, another thinks of as an optional extra, and that's not likely to change.

'Surely we should be able to expct a reasonable standard of living.'

In the UK?

This is a place where a not insignificant number of people didn't have indoor bathrooms till the 80s.

Where there are still plenty of flats to rent that come with no shower - our included. We had to pay £500 to buy one and get it plumbed in.

Where two bathrooms for a 3+ bed flat isn't the norm.

After 9 years, tbh, I don't expect much outta this place other than possibly getting royally ripped off.

Sad, but true.

You could expect a reasonable standard on that amount of money just about anywhere else in the world. But here?

Seriously?

I wouldn't hold my breath.

'Expat, I think the US got everything before Europe did.'

I don't know, but everything there was in the US, plumbing-wise and other, was in mainland Europe when I moved there in 1986.

The whole separate tank for water thing.

I went to the UK and then went back to France and then to visit in Spain.

Was describing it, and they were amazingly confused and unbelieving.

i stayed in council flats in tower blocks on the outskirts of Paris with showers in the mid-80s. no bathtub, but a shower stall.

mixer taps in the bathrooms, too.

and no tank.

the water just all came off the mains.

hence, the confusion of many.

and trying to explain it all in french and Castillian was way fun.

environmentally, too, it makes sense and is more efficient.

Cutting of the universal child benefit will impact more on women, mothers generally receive the weekly benefit.

This new govt is going to be awful for women, working women especially.

I love showers! In and out in a max of 5 minutes if you have to wash hair.

We set timers to keep power usage low.

I draw a bath for our 3 every other day.

DH once stood near the meter and watched it blinking red quicker than you can say quick as I ran the hot water for it.

I like the Japanese way, too.

Took me years before my Japanese sister finally taught me.

We were staying with one of my friends in London and he had only a big tub with one of those shower attachment thingies.

I brought it up to Rieko over coffee and she set me straight.

btw of course I am not suggesting that people that get pg on benefits should abort and of course I realise life does not always take the course you plan. And of course in this situation the state shoud help out. My concern is those people that think they have a right to have as many kids as they want and the state will pay and those that produce more kids to get more money.

I am a lefty I have no problem with tax or social redistribution but just think there are some parts of our welfare state that need reviewing. Working should be rewarded.

"Working should be rewarded." I completely agree. And when work is inadequately rewarded, due to punitive taxation rates, people stop working.

Where I live, in France, taxation rates for second earners in married couples where the first earner alone would put that family (families are taxed as a whole) in the highest rate tax band are really punitive and a true disincentive to working.

'I am a lefty I have no problem with tax or social redistribution but just think there are some parts of our welfare state that need reviewing. Working should be rewarded.'

I agree and consider myself a lefty, too.

Oh come on! I lived in London and we always had a bath and a shower--from the sixties onwards. We were in a lower-middle class area, not posh.

well ihave lived in loads of houses and only two of them have had showers, all had baths, but in a few i had to use those crappy things that you attach onto the bath taps to shower with!

Going back to the childcare issue, my DH has 2 weeks shutdown last week of July and first week of August.
As a FE teacher I have 4 weeks off in the summer.
So to pay as little childcare as poss we have to organise our holidays so that we share the childcare. So when he has shutdown i am at work and then when he goes back to work i take my hols.

Someone at work gave me such a look of sympathy the other day when i was asked if we were going on holiday and i said no. I do try and arrange a few days when Dh and i spend time with the dds together but organising the childcare like this has to be done as we couldn't afford to pay for it.

maybe we should realise the country is £142billion in debt or something and if we can all lose £20 a week each to help, we should - Cameron said "it isnt about what we are owed, but what we can do for our country" wheres that wartime spirit!!! The country needs to save money thanks to Labour spending it all the tories HAVE to save money Im not well off at all but im happy to cut back a bit if it means our country will be a little bit better off in the future.