This minimum income calculator scared the socks off me

[3inABIRDsnest]

So I'm at home, dh works in an ok job. I just did this:
minimum income calculator

We are below the minimum income. Make sure you adjust for the housing cost as it assumes you have cheap rent...

Just changed some of the details to suit us and now am 3 grand short

Apparently we're are about £8k short. Just graduated from uni and frantically looking for work. My JSA claim hasn't even been sorted yet and if it hasn't been sorted by the time my next lot of direct debits start to come out on the 1st then I will have to borrow money from my mum . Getting more and more anxious about the job situation by the day.

DH needs to earn £15k more

Their council tax is way off...£21 a week??? If only and £111 a week to feed four people? That's three times too much!!!

It's subjective though, isn't it? They've just surveyed a load of random people to see what they think "people should be able to afford".

I think they must have surveyed some very sheltered middle class people

I have done all again making adjustments the it says £137 a week, however was unable to change travel costs which were a lot lower than we pay as it costs DH £80 in diesel a week to get to work and £17 a week for me to go by train to work.

'...so that they can buy things that members of the public think that everyone in the UK should be able to afford.'...this is the catch, if it read '...so that they can buy things that the government think that everyone in the UK should be able to afford.' we'd all do the calculator and look like millionaires!

Some of the costs were huge on that! £117 a week on food, not even counting booze (we spend £40-50 for a family of 4). £35 a week on clothes (I doubt I spend that in a year), £116 on social and cultural activities (do they mean down the pub? Still spend nowhere near that)
£20 a week on gas & electricity (we spend £43 a month and have a huge surplus)
Am I just stingy or are these figures realistic?

What really pisses me off is that money has been spent compiling this vastly inaccurate pointless waste of time.

Our travel costs are huge and you can't change them, so it isn't at all accurate.

Our travel costs are small too (£60 a month on petrol as I walk everywhere )

You have enough for a minimum standard of living.
Your income exceeds your outgoings.

You have an extra: £9.06 per week

Wow! How shall I spend it?!

I wish I spent £45 pw on clothing and £120 pw on socialising! How do you find the timentomdo that with kids?

Cool. I have £486 a week spare. (assuming the landlord likes their figure of £83 a week rent rather than the £450 we pay)

We have an extra £143.17 a week, apparently.

No idea where it's hiding though, and what does extra mean? Extra to what?

This is fun. We have an extra £1272 per week according to the calculator. Yay!

We have no mortgage and a joint income of £224,000pa, but even so this is a very silly calculator.

Woah, scary. We are £100 short per week apparently after adjusting various things. Both of us working, my DH just nudging higher rate tax. No wonder we're struggling to make ends meet.

The really interesting thing is that thanks to tax etc, we are only £20 a week better off with me working than not.

Phew, I just realised that it factored in £150 in social and cultural activities a week, and over £50 in clothes, and £6 on alcohol. We might just be solvent again.

Practically everything else on that costs list is a necessity which explains why we're always just about teetering.

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19654

Why does it assume everybody has a car?

Our circumstances have changed dramatically over the last year. Sadly, DH is earning about 40% of what he was previously earning and, with an 8mo DS and 4yo DD, I am struggling to find extra work that fits in.

It reckons we're £75 per week too short and, sadly, because of the above and because the fucking twunts at HMRC would rather see us starve and pay us a lump sum at the time of renewal our tax credits have only been adjusted a small amount since DH was made redundant (believe me, we should now be entitled to WTC, HB and CTB, not just CTC) we are closer to £100 per week too short

well according to them I can afford to give up work and we'll still have a surplus of £20 a week or so £108 a week on socialising?????? £10 on a couple of bottles of cheap wine and a big bag of crisps more like...

The "rent" is exceptionally low. Our mortgage payment is nearly double that and we are not in an expensive housing town and don't live in a particularly "valuable" house.

omg lol There are loads of flaws in this; theres no option for a child between 1-2yrs, or 4-7yrs and even when you tell it you dont work, it still gives you a salary anyway,a childcare tax credit as well as housing benefit but no income support!? Whoever put this shoddy crap together should be immediately sacked, what a pointless inaccurate waste of money!!