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

You're right lissie it is not the job of parents to support their own children, silly me.

There is nothing wrong with your son who is 12 not 4, understanding the financial situation of your family. But draw a distribution curve and explain what an average is, and why some families neeed more money to live off.

When I was young I knew that my parents couldnt afford many of the 'extras' I wanted as a teen, so at 14 me and my brothers all had part time jobs. I paid for all my non school clothes and for outings with my friends from then on. I learnt to work hard and its a lesson that has helped me a lot. I am now a management consultant though I have also scrubbed loos as a hospital cleaner, but you know what? If it was a choice between this and looking after my 2 preschool DC, I would look after my kids and spend my time giving them the best pre school education I could.

The real problem that the government needs to tackle is the lack of affordable housing or childcare in the SE. You can rent a 4 bed house up here where we live for £700pm, but there arent many jobs going. So moving up here isnt going to help your prospects much

Elastamum - That's the thing it shouldn;t be a choice whether you prefer to work or not i.e scrubbing loos. It should be that you do work unless you are unable (disabled/carer etc) Many people when given the choice would prefer to stay at home with their preschoolers rather than scrub loos, that's why it shouldn't be a choice.

Do you not claim CB? Do your children attend a state or private school? Do you pay for all your families healthcare privately? Where exactly do you draw the line?

Actually, don't bother answering. These threads always bring out the caricatures who will stoop to any level to sneer, whether its at someones degree choice or choosing to have another child without huge savings behind them. Blinkered dinosaurs with an "I'm alright jack" attitude and without a basic grasp of sociology or economics.

There are no fucking jobs, not even scrubbing loos. When will people realise this?

And most cleaning jobs are p/t meaning under the new TC rules people will not be able to afford to take them, nor do most of them cover childcare.

It's all very well stating that people who are able to work should do, I doubt that most would disagree, but it's not that simple is it?

londonone - personal attacks and digs aren't really necessary, are they?

I get tired of hearing people complain about someone having a child after they lost their job or whatever. Perhaps they were already pregnant...perhaps their contraception failed... these things do happen, and that's life.

If the state could support itself without our help (taxes) ....

then we could support our children without theirs (child tax credit)

(Like it, fans !)

Perhaps you're not very aspirational londonone and you really do believe that people are better off with their hands down the toilet than looking after their children. Do you also believe they should lose money while they do it, because that's the reality of most low paid, part-time jobs? Obviously it's different if you have a permanent full-time position as a lavatory cleaner with an annual salary that allows you to pay the nursery the going rate for childcare... Haven't seen any job adverts for a post like that recently.

If people don't want their personal circumstances looked at, I suggest they don't post about them on public message boards.

No tax juggling? That sounds great

Sorry woolly but last time I checked the purpose of the welfare state was not to make people better off by not working. If people will be better off not working, then benefits are too high IMO

Dooin, you're wasting your time. some people refuse to believe that there are so few jobs. Despite the evidence. Unless of course they lose their jobs. But then they can blame immigration, or positive discrimination.

Or wages are too low, housing costs are too high, utility costs are too high, transport costs are too high, fuel costs are too high, childcare costs are too high etc. You might not like it, but if people are worse off in work it could be through any number of factors. This does not necessarily lead to a conclusion that benefits are too high.

I don't get paid particularly well but I never forget that making people on benefits worse off will not make me any better off.

Of course it is more difficult to get jobs at the moment but the ludicrous benefit levels actually came about during the good times when unemployment was relatively low.

LOL at 'ludicrous benefit levels'. You really have bought the old DM myths lock, stock and barrel, haven't you?

londonone - actually, no. Just because someone posts something about themselves, it does not give you the right to personally attack them or carry it over to another thread days, weeks, or months later. Try reading MN rules.

So you want higher wages, but to pay less for childcare? How is that going to work exactly. Wages go up = costs rising

triggles - try reading the thread

Benefit levels are currently such, that to not work is a lifestyle choice for some people. IMO that makes them much too high.

londonone - I did actually. Perhaps it's because there's so many similar threads lately with practically identical titles all saying basically the same thing, they're all starting to run together, and it's getting ridiculously stupid trying to keep track of what's on what thread. My apologies if you were being nasty regarding something on this thread and I mistakenly thought it was from another similar thread.

I really dont understand how lots of people in this country seem to think that people living on benefits have loads of money.

I dont like being personal on here but when exdp split up and I was left with no house and a 2 year old we moved into a shitty private rented flat and were lucky to get it - yes in a relatively expensive part of london but thats where his nursery was and our friends were - should we have been punished twice and made to move?

Anyway the aforementioned 1.5 bedroomed flat was 750 a month and I was chuffed with that, because I was working HB paid for 400 of it - but if I had had 2 dc then I would have needed a bigger place and that would have been 1000 so thats 12k taken out of the 26k before you've even started,

Dont ever make the mistake of thinking that things won't happen to you - they can happen to everyone and the safety net to climb back out needs to be there when it does.

But it is not a "lifestyle choice" for many that are on benefits. Many would certainly not choose it, but unfortunately are on benefits anyway. It's not realistic to tar everyone with the same brush.

whatispi you know, of course, there WILL be some self-righteous on here that will now immediately say that yes you SHOULD have moved. Just wait....

whatispi - In what way punished twice? Your relationship problems were not the fault of the state. When I needed to live somewhere cheaper I moved to a cheaper area, as do many people, why should you be different?

Triggles - That is why I said SOME people.

When I looked after (and sometimes taught) 30 children in a classroom the government overpaid me a few hundred quid a month so that they could claim it back in tax.

Now I look after (and sometimes teach) two children in my home the government underpays me by at least a few hundred quid a month, and reluctantly later gives me some of that in the form of a tax credit and slightly less reluctantly, child benefit.

I have the feeling I don't always see things in the same way as other people !
( Have not been completely brain-washed by the Daily Mail and it's readers )

Triggles - Why shouldn't she move, when someone funding their own rent would have to?