we earn less tha the 26k benefits cap and ds knows this - now he's asking us are we living in poverty, eg "I didnt know we were so poor mum"....

[ssd]

what do I tell him, yes we are poor?

I don't usually feel poor, I get minimum wage, dh gets 7£ an hour, we both work and pay all our bills

we dont have holidays and nights out, but there are loads of people living like that now

I've explained to ds about the welfare reforms and to someone of 12 it sounds simple, eg. why dont they work or do the sort of jobs you do mum (cleaner, babysitter, dishwasher, all crap minimum wage jobs), or why do they stay somewhere where their rent is so high, we couldnt aford to live there so why does someone who doesnt work live there?

....and so on

sigh...I dont know what to tell him, I just always say stick in at school so you might be able to get a batter job than me and your dad and you might have more choice than us

and I believe in sharing fanancial stuff with my kids, at 12 he should be learning about money

Yes op you are poor. But it's ok because you are the deserving poor. God bless us every one.

But seriously, you don't get any top ups? Working tax credit, child benefit etc?

why on earth does your 12 year old know the details of you finances?

I feel this is just a sly attempt to put yet another boot into those on benefits, trying to use the words of a 12 year old is rather low.

to someone of 12 it sounds simple

Considering some of the posts i have read on here recently it would seem that not only 12 year olds are too simple to understand

We are on a lot less than £26k, despite both of us working and receiving TC. I don't think it's unfair or wonder why I work. It is fair. We get what need to support ourselves. We don't get any HB because we are fortunate enough to be able to buy. I don't envy those who get higher benefits than us because they get HB, not at all, why would I? We are buying a fucking house fgs. It's ours to do with what we please and it is investment for our retirement or our children's future. People receiving benefits do not have this luxury.

We live quite comfortably despite being on a low income because we were lucky enough to inherit some of our house, which was dilapidated at the tmie. We are now lucky enough to have equity should we need it along with a small, affordable mortgage.

I wouldn't swap that for for 26k in benefits, living in a poorly maintained private rental in London.

"I have 2 (pre-existing) preschoolers and a work ethic. I am not going to put them in nursery so I can scrub fucking loos just to make 'the righteous taxpayer' feel I am beneath them?
I mean, what the actual FUCK would you want that for? I am not saying it's beneath me (it isn't) but I think having fuck all to get a hair cut or buy myself shoes/clothes is bad enough- don't you?"

Very very telling...
I have scrubbed "fucking" loos when I needed to (for two years).

What's wrong with saying you're poor? If official statistics classify you as "poor" so what. My Mum seemed almost proud when she told us we were "officially poor". I think she liked being able to manage well with little income - my Dad would actually have been better off not working.
We are around the £26000 mark, but eat well, have a nice house and will go on holiday this year. Mind you, we have chosen to live in an area that is cheap, but has good schools and will be sticking at 3 children once the new one arrives.

I doubt very much that she would come out in profit if she scrubbed toilets while paying for a nursery place.

We're very similar DMC (except I'm not working ATM, but was til recently)

• And I'm completely with you on your reasonable and generous hearted post.

Some people seem so intolerant of others. Better to be a bit thankful for what we have I feel. And not just in financial terms either - perhaps we've been fortunate enough to have a happy upbringing and a good education which has enabled us to have better opportunities than those for whom life has always been more of a struggle. I'm very thankful too, as I mentioned up thread, for the support of our wider family. Not everyone has that either.

Good degree here and have scrubbed loos for a living, so no sympathy for that, TSC. But the point about childcare being more expensive than one would earn is one of the nubs of the matter.

And this is precisely the point about relocating away from family who would be able to provide childcare. Relocating can actively diminish your chances of working.

"I have 2 (pre-existing) preschoolers and a work ethic. I am not going to put them in nursery so I can scrub fucking loos just to make 'the righteous taxpayer' feel I am beneath them?
I mean, what the actual FUCK would you want that for? I am not saying it's beneath me (it isn't) but I think having fuck all to get a hair cut or buy myself shoes/clothes is bad enough- don't you?"

Quite right. People like you are obviously far too important to scrub toilets. Let other people take those demeaning jobs - and their taxes can pay for your shoes and haircuts.

"Quite right. People like you are obviously far too important to scrub toilets. Let other people take those demeaning jobs - and their taxes can pay for your shoes and haircuts."

And that, incidentally, is called "work ethic".

ssd - good on your son for being interested. You are poorer than some, but much less so than families out of work.

For a start, tell him that (I'm assuming you are a one or two child family) if you were unlucky enough to be out of work, you would be receiving a lot less than 26K to live on in benefits. You are currently nowhere near as poor as you would be if you weren't working.

If you were getting 26K, it would be because you were in a family with four or more children, and you wouldn't be receiving all of that to live on, much of it would paid to your landlord to keep a roof over your head. You would still be much poorer than you are now. (Whether the state should pay unlimited amounts to house big families is a separate issue - it would make economic sense to build affordable council housing, and encourage people to aspire to be more than baby-factories).

I just always say stick in at school so you might be able to get a better job than me and your dad and you might have more choice than us
This is what I tell mine - I work at min. wage jobs but I've also been out of work in the past so I tell her the facts that it's no easy life on benefits, and she should avoid it if she can.
I know for a fact that even on a min. wage job I am a hell of a lot better off than I was when I was out of work, and I make sure she knows that.

It's so obvious where this thread is going... Aren't there anough of them already? Well done, OP.

FWIW I'm poorer than you AND I work AND I'm a single parent so nah nah nah nah nah (etc...)

However, I also wouldn't put my child into a nursery to go and scrub loos if the costs of working outweighed any income. You'd have to be pretty stupid to do that, wouldn't you?

Yeh I agree woolyideas - not so wooly on this one !

I always think most people make the choices that will be best for their families and themselves.

Isn't that the principle really behind "market forces", hey DC !

Don't see how the Tories can have it both ways !

FWIW when I first became a single parent Gingerbread worked out that on my salary of £16K (in 2001) I would be £9/week better off than I was on benefits. They took account of travel costs, childcare costs etc. Nine pounds a week! I decided to do it anyway because I knew my DD would not need to be in expensive nursery care forever and hoped that my earnings would increase the longer I worked.

If I'd been offered a 'scrubbing toilets-type job' on minimum wage instead and Gingerbread had worked out that I'd be MINUS £9/week better off... well you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that we would soon slip into debt, worse poverty etc.

The people upthread who are implying that people are simply too grand to scrub toilets, or have no work ethic, are missing the point quite spectactularly. They need to get a grip IMO!

If the point is that while scrubbing toilets is a perfectly respectable way to earn a wage it's not exactly anyone's dream job and that with two in nursery you'd be paying out to do it and missing out on time with your DC...I agree completely.

In all seriousness who pays money to clean someone else's toilets? (though if that exists can I have their number? lol)

If it was just - why should I have to do a rubbish job, that's different.

im on benefit and dont class myself as poor and the cap would not effect me personally

BUT

if i was in pivate rening as would need a three bedoom (£800-900 monthly) i WOULD probably be over the cap and then i would be poor

so i think peoples housing predicement call make all the difference

"I've explained to ds about the welfare reforms and to someone of 12 it sounds simple, eg. why dont they work or do the sort of jobs you do mum (cleaner, babysitter, dishwasher, all crap minimum wage jobs), or why do they stay somewhere where their rent is so high, we couldnt aford to live there so why does someone who doesnt work live there?"

I don't believe that a 12 year old said this. If they did, then I dont believe that said 12 year old's mum wasn't able to say "Because it is not their fault they live there son, and they cannot afford to move. Many of them have young children and when childcare costs £52.00 per chid per day but they can only earn less than £50 per day they cannot afford to work either - Aren't we lucky that you don't need childcare any more darling"

That's how it sounds to me, Second Coming.

I agree, it doesn't sound that genuine to me, and if it is, it sounds a bit sad

I try to be more reassuring with my DCs, and help them deveop some tolerance for others, alongside some simple understanding of finances, and a bit of thankfulness.

Yes, very sneering and very ignorant of the facts.

I mean feck me, NONE of this affects me - I'm very bloody lucky in that and very bloody grateful (although EVERYONE is only one redundancy or one disability away - something some posters should recognise) but I take an interest, make a point of reading/discussing/googling etc the issues. Knee jerk reactions of "Well I get less than £26K so everyone else should be able to cope" are ridiculous. All situations are not equal.

The Frothers stuff makes facinating if harrowing reading. Posts by people like HuntyCat and OM bring home the reality. Sneering at them is awful.