I honestly cannot afford to live

[Inkdrinker]

I work 40 hour weeks, yet I was paid 6 days ago and I'm already completely out of money. My rent is more than half of my pay, council tax is a further 250 pounds, my energy bills are ridiculous despite trying to cut down on using so much.

I have 3 kids to look after. How are people going survive this? This is by no means a ploy to ask others for money, I do not want anyone's money. I just want to know I'm not alone in this situation

I'm in a different boat to a lot of repliers, no kids but single so having to cover everything alone. Earn an okay amount for where I live (self employed, work a 40 hour week min), used to be able to treat myself to an (inexpensive high street) item of clothing each month, have 1-2 cheap nights out, and put a few hundred quid back for emergencies (to give you an idea - definitely not rolling in it, no fancy holidays etc but not breadline struggling by any means), now I live in an ever increasing expensive overdraft and have maxed out a credit card I can't pay back simply to cover mortgage, bills and food each month (and I shop in Lidl and don't buy anything fancy). I have no 'luxuries' in life - no gym membership, no Sky TV, no car (old banger died on me in January and couldn't afford to fix or replace it). I'm already thinking I won't be putting heating on again this winter. I have only one thing to say - GET THE TORIES OUT.

@Margerine78 I don’t know what will happen if/when we get a new government. Whatever they do, its going to take time for workers like yourself to see any improvements.

I believe anyone working full time with no dependents should be able to have some savings, a few treats etc. i hope things improve for you.

Yeah, it's a start though, it'll only go further downhill with current Gov as they really do no care, never about the poor but now neither about working people they claim to support (sorry for rant, I hate them!). I hope things get better for you too (and all all of us) and thank-you! x

I'm pretty sure we are under a Labour government. No Tories in at present. They are promoting things like more dentists but I've yet to see them tackle the cost of living crisis. The Tories in our area are great for helping with children and adults with additional needs and getting extra support and activities but the Labour party think it's a waste of money. As soon as the vote swung to Labour any activities for sen children we wrote off so nothing on during the 6 weeks holidays for children like mine. The household support fund is over run and they have yet to acknowledge how bad the food banks are which are now only run by churches. The council refuse to offer any help there and point you to the church. The cost of living crisis has hit everyone very hard

I don't know what we are going to do. I've been diagnosed with a very rare and incurable disease. It leaves me bed bound 99% of the time. I had to give up work and DH had to give up work to be my full time carer. We have two kids, 18 and 16 both in full time education. We are in arrears with our mortgage and have threatened legal action within the next 15 days. I can't stop crying. Have tried to get help from numerous places and they keep passing us on to someone else. DH and I have one meal a day to cut down on costs so the kids can eat semi normally. We got a bit of help from the food bank but they only allow 4 deliveries in a 11 month period

Not if your second child is twins. Natural, not ivf . And you can't get any child support or any help in this situation you just pay double for everything.

Turn to us which is Elizabeth Finn trust can help in times of need.Please contact them they may be able to help.Do you have a food share near you.Food from supermarkets on the date to save landfill?So sorry.

Normally at Christmas i do a reverse advent calendar and donate the stuff to homeless/food bank.
I honestly don’t think i can even spare that this year.
I dread the winter. Where i will get the money to pay for any heating is do daunting.

A really great organisation which helps those struggling with the cost of living is CAP - Christians Against Poverty. You don't need to be a Christian or go to church to access CAP. You just need to ask them for help.

Have you looked into someone else caring for you and your dh going back to work to pay the mortgage? It may not be possible of course.

Yes, there's no NHS available and private is so expensive

@HelloIsItYouImLookingFor your situation sounds very difficult. Are you and your husband getting everything you’re entitled to? Can CAB help, or is there a charity or other organisation that supports people with your condition? Free school meals if your DC are still at school, change to interest only mortgage? I hope you can get some help.

The comments here are so sad 😞
I know it means F all but sending hugs to everyone hoping by some miracle will get better for us all.
I'm a single parent and after a few years of working from home on minimum wage for a private firm because it suited my household I'm leaving to go to a better paid and secure local council job. Dreading the having to go back to office but the commute is 10 mins with free parking and get 1 day a week WFH. With mortgage rate uncertainty and COL every increasing I felt I had to take the plunge into this job so will have to make it work.
Cut everything else to bare bones budget as best I can without compromising my child's health or happiness.
It's going to be a long winter 😪

Nobody is ever going to feel their burden is fair - and will always point fingers looking for others to contribute more (and them less).

Everyone is self-serving.

I say this as a single parent household- and I KNOW I/my children take far more out of the pot than my piddly council tax will EVER cover.

True, of course people want that. That's part of the reason we're in such a mess. Far too many people paying nothing/ next to nothing and the tax base becoming so narrow that it's unstable and massively harming productivity and therefore no growth and we all get poorer year on year. There need to be huge changes to the tax system before anything will improve significantly. What's frustrating is that all of the politicians know this: independent research has told them repeatedly, yet nothing is done about it.

The country is in a dire state and without significant changes that need to be made everyone will get continually poorer. There's no other way it plays out, given our situation and the geopolitical situation, if we don't have politicians who take the obvious measures to deal with the obvious issues. But they won't: neither the incumbents nor the opposition have any intention of doing anything but tinker around the edges with soundbites and slogans.

As another lone parent I know I pay in way more than we get back and when we really need the services now that those taxes are meant to pay for we get no help whatsoever. You can't win, whatever you do, if you are a single parent because the system is stacked against you. I am on the verge of giving up tbh.

So sorry for everybody who is the victim of this shit show. It's horrendous how much unnecessary suffering is being caused and very sad to see.

Some of the single parents on here are widows like myself.
This cost of living crisis is nothing new it's been going on for ten long years in my world, and for many others like me.

Yes, of course we do. When I got a couple of inheritances, I paid off the mortgages of my two kids, they were already on the property ladder, so I wasn't snatching a house from anyone.🙄

DD and SIL now have 3 kids at Uni - it costs them a fortune. They both work full time (as do DS and DIL), but not having to worry about housing costs is helping them, and I'm glad I did it. It's natural, for most parents, to try and help their children.

Nothing wrong with doing that.🙂

It was always difficult to support three children on one wage. I think people did live more frugally than they do now. Coffees takeaways nights out gadgets mobile phones. Much more to spend money on.

I’m in the same situation. I earn £1700 a month after tax and cannot afford to live. My partner is on universal credit so that is spent on the necessities for our 9 month old daughter. So I am in charge of paying for the rent, council tax, internet, gas and electric, water etc and I am left with £100-£200 for the month to spend on food shops and petrol so I can get back and forth to work. We are scraping the barrel every month I don’t know how much longer we can live like this. Our rent alone is £900 for a two bedroom house and that is cheap for the area we live in I don’t understand how they can charge that much.

What if you combine your wage and the UC and any other benefits - how does that compare to your family's total outgoings? UC is a household benefit intended to contribute to all the family outgoings, a small child shouldn't cost 100% of the UC.

It's not just your partner claiming UC though - it will be a joint claim and you will be getting a rent element to help towards your rent. If you can't manage then your partner needs to look at going back to work soon as you'll get 85% of childcare costs as an extra element of Uc, or she could look at a bit of work to fit around your work perhaps?

DefeatedDad

i dont understand why you are treating UC income as just your partners??

A child costs very little when young
if you give more detail somebody maybe able to help more

As a single person I can safely say it's no better. Working 40 hours a week, self-employed AND employed and I can barely afford rent and bills. I barely socialise. I honestly don't know how anyone even affords to have one kid.

We were managing ok, but then I was made redundant. I'm now on JSA but after 6 months, if I don't have a job by then we'll have to use savings (that we've worked bloody hard for and wanted to keep for what will be a very frugal retirement). But I appreciate we're lucky to have savings as many others are not.

Just wanted to add to this thread - I see energy bills are going to going up again (down for the actual usage but up the standing order.. currently 58p or something.. what's the betting that sooner or later it'll be £1 per day so £28 a month - the cost for some of us of our old electricity bills!). If we keep paying these prices, the energy companies will keep increasing them because we basically don't have any choice - we need electricity. We are at their mercy and it's simply disgusting. Council tax up about 5%, car insurance hikes, anything else??

How on earth are we supposed to keep finding the money to pay for everything?

Obviously I'll keep looking for another job. Previously I was working remotely and that was perfect - one could wear anything so no need for new clothes/shoes, hardly wore make-up etc. Now it's more than likely I'll have to go back out to work so I'll have to buy new clothes, oh and another car so that I can travel to work as public transport unreliable. Joy of joys.. the cost of purchasing and running a second car.

As for the next general election, I have never felt so depressed at the state of politics currently and no idea who to vote for this time around. Seems so futile but something has to, MUST, improve for the people.. surely?

Highest tax burden for 70 years and wages not gone up much for many in last 10 years, 20 years for some, probably in part because of the state subsidising those in work who have children allowing employers to keep wages down plus the big elephant in the room of 18m more people than when I was born and the record annual net immigration of 740,000 a year which is a lot of people going after the lower wage jobs and keeping wages right down. Both political parties in favour of high taxes and high immigration.