Single parenet benefits proposed to end when youngest child is 11 rahter than 16

[uwila]

Oh this will be popular round here.

here

I'm confused, anniemac, b/c in MANY areas of the UK, any home is not affordable to increasing numbers of people.

For example, the median cost of a 'home' here in Edinburgh is £200,000 - 70+% of the housing stock here is in the form of flats.

The median wage, however, is £18,000/pa.

So, yes, buying isn't an option for many.

As far as that goes, I can't say I really care about owning and as a foreigner, I fail to understand the British obsession with property - it seems quite odd to me, tbh.

But I can't understand why people who do own then moan about it, when there are so many who struggle to get an assured tenancy so they won't have to worry about being turfed out and made homeless every six months.

As usual you are right expat. I am having a ranty day, but I know that as soon as I stick my head above the parapet, someone will look at what I've got and say "You were lucky". And I am lucky - as well as being a totally ungrateful sod.

We are all just somewhere in there, fighting it out for survival. I agree that renting is worse.

I am obviously just suffering from a totally unjustified envy of my friend who seems to have been handed out something for nothing. She has got her own problems. Shame on me.

There are some REAL horror stories on here from members who have been made homeless by their buy to let landlord.

We're very grateful to have an assured tenancy.

MANY people in this city do not and it has a very serious problem with homelessness as a result.

So bad that hte council is paying private landlords £550/month to the lease of their flats to house homeless families as temporary accommodation, b/c the Executive has made it illegal for them to put families in B&Bs.

It is shocking how tenants are treated in this country, especially compared with other EU nations.

Then again, many in Western Europe are lifelong renters and there is no stigma attached to renting, as there is here for some reason.

As someone pointed out earlier, too, there will ALWAYS be folks who abuse the system.

If your friend is cheating, then report her for benefit fraud.

Indeed - perhaps the reason there is a stigma is because of the very tenuous nature of 'tenant rights'.

I think the tide is changing a bit. I know people choosing to rent because it is cheaper - and in some ways it is becoming 'cool' as in "F the system" or something.

It's a bit easier if you've not got a family, but a lot of people live with baited breath, waiting to see if their landlord will decide to sell up once their six months are up.

Then what do you do if you are working poor and cannot afford the costs of moving - deposits, shifting your gear, etc.?

You see I am pretty convinced that she is not cheating the system. Making the best of it, maybe, but not cheating it.

In reality if I reflect on it, it isn't that she is getting too much out of the system, it's just that for young families, working is a bit of a road to nowhere.

I think you are right anniemac. I certainly shouldn't begrudge anyone who has technically got even less than us, no matter how they ended up in that situation.

However, when someone asks "Are you ever tempted to give up?" I would answer honestly yes.

But that is the point about not being able to judge someone's situation unless you have walked in their shoes. You just can't know if someone is better off or worse off. They may have an aged family member bailing them out which I know has happened in the case of many people I know.

People are being allowed to borrow WAY more than they can afford, annie.

I think this is why you are seeing more people buying homes.

But they are speculating. Their purchase is an investment decision which, like all investments, may go up or down.

My tunnel of doom ends herewith.

Exactly, annie!

As long as people understand that it's an investment risk, more power to 'em.

But a lot of folks cry foul when things go pear-shaped and they can't pay up. Then it becomes how they were victimised by unscrupulous lenders who loaned them too much.

There's an article in today's Scotsman about the rising number of repossessions .

Cloudhopper - I always enjoy your posts and what you have to say. You often take the words out of my mouth and compose them more eloquently. So, I am sorry to see you feeling down about your current living situation.

It's very difficuly to get out of the envy trap. Can you look at some of the things you have and have to look forward to that your friend doesn't? Does your line of work provide bonuses? Social opportunities? Self-worth? Do you enjoy your work? Do you get to go away on courses to meetings?

Remember, since you're not reliant on LA housing, you have more opportunities to move house, emigrate, move around the country.

OTOH it would annoy me if the reason your friend is having a 3rd child is to get a bigger house when so many people can't have the extra child they want because they cannot afford a bigger house.

I hope you are feeling better and find someway to feel happier about your situation. Still, I agree with some of the points you were making.

Thanks Aderyn . What a nice place mumsnet is sometimes. I'm sure I don't deserve any sympathy - what a whinger. Wonder where my 3 yr old dd gets it from?

I just try to imagine if the very things I have were taken away and that makes me feel churlishly grateful for anything really.

I know that often when you can't see the way forward, life takes you by surprise and something turns up. Then you look back and think how silly it was to spoil a single day of life reflecting on something that is no longer important.

I'm not in the position of working full time and ending up in no better a position than if I were on benefits because of eaerlier choices such as to work full time at less than what the childcare was, job I chose, hard work etc... One big difference if you are in work is a kind of hope option - many people get promoted, child care costs go down over time, house prices go up. You lose all those opportunities if you live on benefit. You also risk legal changes depending on the state of the economy or flick of the dice on election day. Every country in Europe is trying to tackle massive and very fraudulent incapacity benefit claimants and I am sure the time will come when that will be much harder to claim so it's a risky choice.

ann, asked what is the level above which you get no help. I have not got tax credit. I thought the income level was something like £60k roughly above which you don't get that although I get child benefit. I have never had any help with childcare costs or relatives around to do it free in 22 years.

As for "Xenia, so are you prey to some sort of relgious delusions, or just looking for some handy class of "them" to blame for whatever's bothering you. While there are a small minority of skivers and crooks in the world (many of whom are busy fiddling their taxes and working out new ways to pay their staff less money for longer hours) there's no guarantee that a child born into an impoverished family won't work hard, study hard and become a brain surgeon. Any more than there's any guarantee that that a child born into a nice middle-class family won't become a wanky city waster who gets the boot for embezzling..."

I don't agree. The underclass breed the underclass everywhere on the planet with lovely and notable exceptions from time to time but not in genreal thus we need the middle classes to brred and the encouragement to be things that help them like tax allowances and not things that encourage those whose children are likely to grow up as petty criminals or worse.

Xenia: so what about all those trust-fund kiddies doing shedloads of drugs and not a stroke of work? Who's paying for the ambulances that have to come and get them each time they OD or jump out of a window? Whose taxes are funding the care for the people they run over while driving, ripped to the tits on cocaine? What about the ones who inherit the white-collar-fraudster genes from their parents and f*ck up their staff's pension funds?

I am not, by any means, prejudiced against people who were born into wealthy families, but there are crooks, losers, wasters and peole who think the world owes them a living in every social class. It won't do, to scapegoat entire groups of people who are not like you. Because you could end up on benefits as easily as anyone else.

"The underclass breed the underclass everywhere on the planet with lovely and notable exceptions from time to time but not in genreal thus we need the middle classes to brred and the encouragement to be things that help them like tax allowances and not things that encourage those whose children are likely to grow up as petty criminals or worse. "

Is that what you really think about single mothers who receive benefit? I am gobsmacked, I really am. "The underclass breed the underclass" "children likely to grow up as petty criminals or worse". Honestly, I am so bloody insulted. I'm starting to feel that there is no place for me here on mn, who the hell wants to hear the opinion of the underclass? What the fuck could I possibly know about anything? Having no bloody money, does not mean you have no morals and are as thick as shite.

hunky I used to get upset by xenias post's but I think a lot of what she writes is to get a reaction, so please don't take it personally, she is very alone with veiws like that.

I actually like reading xenias posts now because there is always an underlying tone of fear in them which I find quite amusing...

The fact is xenia, something you will never be able to change with your, headline grabbing, very often insulting, posts, are that in all classes (btw wtf is an underclass) in all classes there will always be a group of mothres and fathers who will choose to raise their own chldren, as is their right. for some if this means benefits for whatever reason, this will be their path.

so carry on with your mission, it just aint ever gonna work!