Save the Children launches appeal for children in the UK

[Vagaceratops]

BBC link

And it will get worse :(

Do you really think people on benefits get 41k a year, and as for childcare think yourself lucky that it's actually worth paying for at your pay level, as i said before i stopped working to look after my son as it's simply cheaper, daily childcare in London is £5+ more a day then what i got paid a day, it was obvious that working would leave me at least 25 pound less well off then doing nothing and that's not counting travel costs.

This one made me chuckle -lucky me im at that pay level.

I got into det went to university to help me achieve that pay level.

I went back to work fulltime after 1st was born until company merger and we decided we wanted a 2nd child.

we always wanted 3, we planned 3 and can afford everything the 3need.including extra currcucular stuff and nursery yes it skints us out I admit but I like them to have hobbies so any disposble income we have is spent on our kids. All teh cb I get was is spent on the kids.

I currently have 2 under 3s and childcare would be £80 a day private day nursery.

eldest in school brekie club and afterschool £10 a day.

so sadly unless could find job paying over £90 a day as would have to pay to commute or part time job to fit in around irregular shifts and even crappy part time jobs says must be flully flexible its an employers market right now, competition is fierce.

Like xenia says we about 30k after tax

£9000 of thats rent., say £1000 petrol then theres car tax ,mot insurance thats probably least another grand if not more.
council tax £1500 a year

plus all our other outgoings we lucky we break even if nothing breaks and not so many treats rarly have a takeaway or go hairdressers.
I dye my hair and go in for trim,.

But important point you missing is people go out to work to hopefully not just pay the bills and exist they hope to have some kind of life, home comforts and treats.

Certain posters seem to be living in a different universe to the rest of us...

I continue to be intrigued as to where some poster's insight into the experience of living on benefits or in the poverty trap come from.

'Also if immigrants can manage it surely Liverpudlians can? Youcan sleep in a tent until you get sorted out. There are plenty of ways to manage things. You sleep on a floor or a friend's sofa until you save enough for your deposit or you find jobs with housing like live in nanny. There are loads of ways to do things but too many women think only of problems not solutions.'

How do immigrants do it? They leave behind their children, often enough, and live in someone's garden shed. A friend's sofa? So everyone knows someone in London willing to put them up? A tent? Where in London can you pitch a tent legally? Live-in nanny? What if you have kids? How many people want a live-in nanny with her own kids?

Get real!

Wouldn't it make more sense, too, to promote real job creation in places like Liverpool and Hull than have everyone throng into London as happened in the past and wind up with slums again?

Gosh, I can't imagine a world where you wouldn't have an acquaintance in London, good grief, my father managed it 40 years ago coming from a tiny village north of Aberdeen.

If perchance you didn't there are couch-surfing websites. Where there's a will there's a way out of nearly all of these situations if you want it. It probably won't be easy, it may well take time and effort - so I suppose for many, excuses are easier.

You always surprise me expat - coming from such a resourceful "people" you've spotted right in to the "the council must do something about it" glaswegian culture.

Excuses? What do you do with your children when you're couch surfing in London if there's no one to take them?

'coming from such a resourceful "people" you've spotted right in to the "the council must do something about it" glaswegian culture. '

How funny. We don't live in Glasgow and never have. And if believing that having to abandon your children to who knows what to couch surf in London because otherwise you're starving is unacceptable in a wealthy society is indicative of 'the council must do something about it glaswegian culture', I'm happy to be labelled as such.

The system in America is, IMO, wrong and fails tens of millions of people, many of them children.

Gosh, I can't imagine a world where you wouldn't have an acquaintance in London, good grief, my father managed it 40 years ago coming from a tiny village north of Aberdeen.

Gosh! Really? Can't you? And let me ask you this Dolomite, would you be happy to have someone sleeping on your sofa for an indefinite period of time while they looked for work? Would you continue to put them up for a month until they received their first pay cheque, without expecting anything in return? If so, PM me your address as I have a friend who is currently looking for work. Perhaps you could put him up.

Incidentally, have you any idea about claiming benefits from no fixed abode? I was homeless at one stage and it was the only time in my life - after decades of working and paying tax - that I had to claim. I sofa surfed all over the south east, but guess what? I had to return to the benefits office in the area where I first claimed every week, or risk losing the only income I had. One memorable week, it cost me £28 to get to the benefits office, to collect £75 for myself and my two year-old daughter, who was sofa surfing with me. I am not so stupid, however, to think that just because I did it, everyone else has the capacity to do the same. I was lucky. I had a huge number of friends who were sympathetic to my situation, but still I made sure I moved on every few weeks before I outstayed my welcome. Let me assure you, travelling from Clacton to West London to 'sign on' with a two year old in tow is pretty damn hard and I really struggled with depression during that time.

I can assure you that I am a very driven person and now have my own (mortgaged) house, a regular job, etc., albeit on a not-brilliant salary. People who post on these threads with absolutely no experience of what they're preaching about really make me see red.

XeniaSun 09-Sep-12 09:07:16

I certanily agree with thebone. Now it might be said I do a lot of things for nothing (and am pretty silent about it) because I'm fairly well off because I've worked hard etc but we do in a lot of the volunteer stuff I am involved with see people incredulous we'd do something for nothing. We need to change attitidues so people don't think the state owes me more but to think wow I'm so lucky as a single person on benefits - all my rent in a room in a house is paid and I get £53 a week and free prescription charges or whatever it is that that single person would get, rather than oh woe is me, this is too little to eat. And then people think I am prepared to take this hand out for a year but after that I will get a job and if there isn't one here in Hull I will go to London or Australia to look for work. The attitude of some older people in the UK that they will not claim benefits even those to which they are entitled has not much filtered down to younger people.

Xenia this post is a joke surely. You dont want people to claim the benefits that they are actually entitled to. Older people have paid in. Would you not claim on your car insurance if you needed to because you have paid in on that. And i take it you never claimed Child Benefit if you feel so strongly.
That whole post of yours is a bloody joke. And an extremely sick one at that.

Istn't it interesting that older people many over 70 and 80 regard it as shaming and wrong that they need to turn to the state for help and indeed choose not to and younger people think they have a god given moral right to claim every last penny? Your family and children are your own responsibilty and people should do their very hardest to avoid claiming from the state if they can.

The fact what was a standard british attitude is now regaarded as a joke show how far we have moved to a taking culture from one of responsiblity for self.

twoGoldfingerstoGideonSun 09-Sep-12 12:32:33

Xenia And then people think I am prepared to take this hand out for a year but after that I will get a job and if there isn't one here in Hull I will go to London or Australia to look for work.

In October 2010 i attended a wedding in York. A friend/ex work colleague of mine married her long term Australian fiance.
They have been living apart ever since (her in the UK and him in Oz.
She in finally going to move to Australia to live with him next month, in October 2012!
Its taken TWO YEARS to sort that visa out Xenia. TWO YEARS. And shes married to an Australian FFS.

That's an interesting point Xenia. When I chose to have my children, I did so on the understanding that they were my responsibility - for life! So if I'd had a daughter whose cad of a husband ditched her, then I'd have taken her in.

expat - it's not all about you - there's a love.

Istn't it interesting that older people many over 70 and 80 regard it as shaming and wrong that they need to turn to the state for help and indeed choose not to

BULLSHIT. What about the Winter Fuel Allowance that is paid to expats living in warmer contries. And the winter fuel allowance paid to well off pensioners here.
That winter fuel alowance was brought in to help poor pensioners pay their fuel bills. And they are who should be recieving it.

Older people worked all there lives my arse, the majority of oaps in this country are woman, did they work ill their lives?, no they left the jobs market to get married have kids and look after the home, having both parents working is a very recent thing.

Mam what the hell are you on about? You start out confirming my point that childcare is too expensive and pushes the poorly paid out of work, then go off saying people need to find work?.

The attitude of some older people in the UK that they will not claim benefits even those to which they are entitled has not much filtered down to younger people

Did it filter down to you Xenia.
I take it that it did filter down to you. I take it that you didnt claim the Child Benefit that you are entitled to. So did you practice what you preach and not claim?!

i think the difference is that the older generation have probably paid into the system. also the women who stayed home to look after children in the 70's got their pension messed up as they hadn't paid enough contributions.

what irritates me is the people who have never worked and made any contribution but get everything paid for and keep on having children who they couldn't provide for if the state wasn't giving them welfare.

i bet if the never work they will still get a decent pension.

alemici, that has been a problem too Labour guaranteed all pensioners £200 a week. So those who pissed every penny of wages up a wall and saved nothing get the £200 from the state. Those who scrimped and saved so they have a very low basic personal pension paying £5200 a year do not get the £200 a week those others get. This is the real problem with a welfare state. If you want to ensure no one starves you inevitably reward the feckless, useless, lazy and those who work very hard feel resentful of that. I have had mumsnetters who do not work and are always on benefits seem to think it is impossbile for a woman to work until she goes into labour and be back at full time work in 2 weeks. I did it, 4 times. Yes you can do it. You need stoicism. you need internal steel. You need determination. you need ability to stick things out.

If the state ensures you do better if you don't bother putting up with hard thigns then you don't even try hard things - it's human nature and yet we all want a welfare state of some kind rather than your family must provide for you. There are no easy answers.

'expat - it's not all about you - there's a love.'

No, love, it's all about poverty in the UK. But carry on being personal, here's some more rope.

Plenty of OAPs never worked outside the home, Xenia. They were housewives.

Winter Fuel Allowance is paid in one's 60s. Oh, free bus travel, too.

alemci i made my point because Xenia claimed in a post that many people over 70 and 80 dont claim what they are entitled to.
Incidentally can you provide a link that contains this information in more detail Xenia.

Yeah work hard all your life earning minimum wage and have to be topped up by benefits, what does that teach us other then the fact the minimum wage is for too low?.

If you can't pay for rent but work full time who is the one doing things wrong?, I'll give you a clue it's not the worker.

Some of you live in fairy land, you think hard work is rewarded?, bollocks it is, less and less mobility, less and less chances for promotion, more and more contracts written up that benefit employers rather then workers, exploitation is becoming rampant entry level jobs replaced by workfare and interns.

A lot of people on minimum wage cant afford to save Xenia. You dont sound like a very nice person to be honest
Some of your posts contradict each other too. You were at uni in 79 you have just posted that you had 4 children and elsewhere you post that you live in a small flat.
I assumed that you would still be in the same house you brought those children up in. Of course i may be completely wrong and absolutely nothing went wrong to cause this bitterness towards people lower down the socio economic scale than yourself.
You obviously feel the need to have a group in society who you can feel superior to and look down on.
And you still havent answered my question.
Did you practice what you preached upthread about the older generation "not claiming what they are entitled to" and did you follow this mythical example by not claiming your Child Benefit?

Totally agree with SunWukong

Darkesteyes you'll be waiting til Hell freezes over to get your answer.