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!

Some of us rent. Not everyone has a mortgage, or can afford one.

If you do rent, however, especially in a block of flats or converted house with a number of flats, getting cavity wall insulation and changing your heating system to a more efficient one probably isn't going to be an option in most cases.

lol no frogbollock, he works for a charity as part of social services in a childrens home, unfortunately the home he works in, is the one where ss, send the kids that they cant cope with, the most violent etc. it has actually got slightly better recently, purely because one of the children has been moved to a secure unit it is a physically and emotionally very taxing job.

and whoever commented on london prices, yes they suck, i am in norwich and some of our house prices are not much better, my mil also lives in commuter belt as does my sil. so i know how hard that can be, but not everyone earning 50k or more lives in london

for many who live outside London, too, wages are much much lower, so their cost of living can be equivalent.

particularly in a city like Edinburgh, with third highest house prices in the UK (after London and Bristol) and an average wage of £18,000/annum.

expat i know its not an option for everyone, but you have made the generalisation that many people cant be arsed or dont try to help themselves, i am just showing that some, myself included DO try and make savings, and live within our means etc and dont expect handouts etc

and it is one way in saving money, tis all

I think the comment that some people will have a large number of children regardless is a good point and Labour did tackle it by improving benefits to those with children.

But its not these people that seem to be having more children than ever but the improvished middle class that all seem to have 3 children instead of the 2 that was more of the norm when I was a child. Thats an extra child taking a precious state school place.

Labour effectively bought the votes of many of these families it wasn't entirely altruistic to stop child poverty.

yes what expat said, wages in norfolk are fairly crap, unfortunately house prices and rental prices do not seem to factor this in, i think many people commute to london and there are obviously SOME jobs that pay well, i have no idea what tho!

expat we cannot actually afford to rent, our mortgage is LESS than it would be to rent a house or flat!

yes what expat said, wages in norfolk are fairly crap, unfortunately house prices and rental prices do not seem to factor this in, i think many people commute to london and there are obviously SOME jobs that pay well, i have no idea what tho!

expat we cannot actually afford to rent, our mortgage is LESS than it would be to rent a house or flat!

ISNT Here is a rough breakdown of gov spending.

It doesn't include local govenment spending and some other things.

Ministry of deffence is £44.6 billion. CB is £11.21 billion. Pensions, schools, NHS and 'financil stanility' dwarf everthing else.

'expat i know its not an option for everyone, but you have made the generalisation that many people cant be arsed or dont try to help themselves, '

I did no such thing. I qualified every pronoun in that post, even stated that I wasn't even basing it on my own real life experience.

The facts are that we are stuck with a Tory/LibDem government. They're going to make cuts, big and deep ones, and they will not care if you can't find a school times/holiday job.

They really won't.

So many are going to have to make some serious choices and changes in the future, ourselves included.

And it's just going to be too bad till the next election.

I don't get paid child benefit as a foster carer

I think what that suggests is that the local authority think that their payments for children in care are adequate (I agree)

I wonder if we can use this formula to say that the first £6k of earnings per child is free of tax? And then have the personal allowance on top of that.

I think that may make income tax a lot simpler and will take a ton of people out of the benefits/tax credits system.

Just a thought.

Do I win the most spelling mistakes in a single post competition?

'expat we cannot actually afford to rent, our mortgage is LESS than it would be to rent a house or flat!'

4mad, you are very very lucky. many cannot afford to save for deposit/fees that go with purchasing a home and/or will never have the salary that will ever qualify them for a mortgage.

yes, often times people's mortgages are cheaper than market rents in a lot of areas but any sort of mortgage is out of reach for an increasing number of people as banks have tightened lending regulations.

so they have no choice but to rent, no matter how affordable it is.

and it will get worse as more young people also leave university with significant debt levels as well.

my problem isnt finding a school times, holiday job, just one that would be flexible enough to fit in with dps job and it just isnt possible, and i have looked, believe me!

hopefull this gov will NOT be in for 5yrs, i for one am hoping they fuck it up or the coalition falls apart in the next year or two and we have another election and i agree that labour will benefit from this.

i know many lib dem supporters who are now NOT supporters because of this coalition, it WILL mean they lose votes and so hopefully the labour party will get back in ANd of course they too will make cuts but hopefully tthey will tax those who can afford it more and not throw many families into poverty like the tories probably will.

It is SO unhelpful for them to use language like 'middle calss' in these discussion - if indeed it is the gvt using these terms. Middle Income or middle earners would be more accurate. And would CB be based on earned income? Or , for example, trust fund, interest -on-enormous-wealth income too?

I guess we are a 'middle income' household - at the 'scrape-through end, nowhere near a six-figure household income, 2 DC. We would feel it if we lost CB, but in all truth, on current levels of taxation, we could manage without and I'm not sure it can be justified in the face of greater need. I would rather give it up, in my personal circs, than see cuts in health or education, or to low-income families. I am a labour voter, looking at this objectively as it impacts on my own life. But then we have no sensible pension - that's my worry! Have never been on work which offers a pension, cost of a house has sucked up spare money, etc.

MintHumbug, I do agree London is damned expensive, but doesn't have to be as expensive as that, even in places not too far flung!
4 bed under £425k

4 bed under £450k

Season ticket from these houses to Zones 1&2 £1208!

we have struggled for years to pay off debts from university and we would not have been able to buy a house if it were not for a death in a family, its not something i take for granted! if we had had to rent we would have probably been made homeless by now tbh. like i said we were 'lucky' that a family member died and we could then put down a deposit on ahouse and it has been a stretch we have to be very careful with money as dp earns 18k a year, that is not a high wage.

and we were lucky to get our mortgage 5 years ago, i am not so sure we would be able to get on the market now. LUCK plays a huge part in peoples lives, tho the tories seem to forget this

Who knows, maybe the coalition will fall apart.

But at present, we have to assume it's going to be around, and it's going to be painful for the vast majority of people.

As for the LibDems, well, they are power hungry sell outs, but that's a whole other thread!

I think there are lots families who have only been 'saved' by inheriting money. As you say, not something one would particularly like to have to rely on.

3 bed house for £147k in London (Thamesmead)

i think mr clegg signed a death warrant for his party when he signed that deal with the Cons, particularly for the party in Scotland.

but he got what he wanted, which was power.

now, we will all pay for it.

Laurie I really think something like that would be a good idea. The cost of running HMRC, and then all the additional cost of Tax Credit overpayment/wastage in the system is massive and anything which can reduce the cost of that should be given serious consideration.

'I think there are lots families who have only been 'saved' by inheriting money.'

The only two FTB I know personally have been able to purchase their homes because of an inheritance from the death of a grandparent.

And both are childfree, dual-income couples.

exactly abr1de, my dp is of course so pleased that his father died and didnt get to see his grandkids, that he suffered for months with misdiagnosed cancer before dying a slow and painful death, but hey we got some money to help us buy a house so thats ok!

and the only reason we got that was because my fil worked dam hard all his life, worked full time and put himself through university before working his way up in a job at lloyds in london, the shipping registry, he worked bloody hard to do that and as he was still working when he died his wife was entitled to a pay out.

but would dp rather his father was alive and the boys had got to meet their grandfather? of course he would!