26K CUT affecting you or am I the only one?

[Feli]

I am a 25yr old Lone parent to one. Not planned I was abandoned by her father.

Begining of this week I was crying over how cold me and my child are at home as we cant afford heating or hot water (all wired up to electric) and the flat is so cold as its the end of the building, my child has a cold because of it.

I am also paying off the electric debt for which I used to survive last winter which is why I have barely any money to cook more than once a week let alone bills.

I moved where I live 2 years ago after the flat I was living in before got broken into and ransacked my daughter was 8days old, I had 4 days to find somewhere. The rent went from £500 a week to £340 a week after cuts were made to this postcode early this year. I have no family, I am completely by myself and last night I calculated my annual Benefit. Its £3K.

Watching QuestionTime worried me even further to hear the attitudes, I AM shaking like a leaf, I have been crying all night - the cuts they are making seems to be on the basis of people having loads of children to get more benefits to live a high lifestyle but there are genuine situations like mine who are in this circumstance not willy nilly.
I dont know what is going to happen to my daughter and I. I have just found her a school and we have well and truely nested.

When my child is in pre-school I will be running to university to get a degree which I will only get help to do if I am not working(i think)...

You know all I want to do is bring home the bacon, I dont have enough qualifications to get a job better than a telephonist, I just want to study so I can get a REAL paying job cos at the moment whatever I earned will open more expenses the debt repayments wil be increased, I will have to pay part of my rent, I will lose discounts on my electric, and so much more but worst of all I wont be able to study as I cant afford it.

I am NOT work shy or see benefits as a way of life!
Sorry for rambling but I am all over the place.

Thank you

"I think going after people who are seen by and stigmatised by society to be sponges off the state with little or no concern about peoples actual circumstances and actual need maybe polictally astute but it leaves a very bad taste in my socialistic mouth."

That sounds very noble. But she is getting more money than many hard-working, larger families get. And she is caught in a poverty trap. How does that sit with your socialist principles? Of course, she doesn't get most of the money, it goes to her capitalist landlord. Does the socialist in you like that?

OP, is the father contributing at all?

maybe the op could have worded it better as to how much actual income she will lose - ie if she continues to live in this flat, then as most of the benefit will still go on rent and she will have this amount less left over for food etc.

and say how mcuh that would be - then ask advice on how to survive on xxx£££ per month.

options may be then to move somewhere cheaper - which yes is difficult in central london but just by moving 10 minutes away on tube things can be a lot cheaper.

i also agree that jsut getting a degree wont get you a job unless it is a very specific vocational degree like teaching or nursing or Ocupational therpaist or social work or etc .

as was asked earlier - what is the actual amount of "income" you have in your hand each month - not taking into account rent paid to landlord, and by how much would this decrease under the new rules?

if you "losing" 5k and this amounts to actually lsoing 416£ per month - well what are you elft with?

then people can discuss how feasible it is to live off that amount and how?

MollieO and purits, it's my opinion that just talking and comparing amounts of money ernt/paid to an individual in isolation to a persons situation is meaningless. Especially when factors such as housing and childcare can change dramatically between different peoples situations.

Hence I don't agree with the concept of a cap on benifits that simply ignores any differences in and individuals situation.

Purits from what I can gather the OP has £12,000 left after rent payment. That is not an insubstantial sum imo.

OP, do you really get £1,000pcm?

This is a clear example of why the benefits system needs a massive rehaul and it is not going to happen as that in itself is so prohibitively expensive.

The OP said she gets £30,000 in benefit and pays £1,500 per month rent so yes she must be left with £1,000 pcm.

As for living in London, personally no matter how much I was paid I wouldn't raise my children there. The place makes my skin crawl to be honest, but I realise not everyone shares my views .

Me , DH and 2 DCs live on less than £1k pm after we have paid our mortgage. Seriously Op you need help with your debt and you need to learn how to budget properly, I would suggest you contact CAB to help you manage your finances. There is no excuse for you not providing proper food and warmth for your child as most people manage on far less.

using an online benefits checker, and the statistics OP gave, the result came back at £490 pwk, inclusive of housing benefit.

i think Feli has made a mistake somewhere or is trolling / being inflammatory.

"MollieO and purits, it's my opinion that just talking and comparing amounts of money ernt/paid to an individual in isolation to a persons situation is meaningless. Especially when factors such as housing and childcare can change dramatically between different peoples situations."

For goodness sake! Are you saying that becuase London landlords over-charge we should just hand over the money without a quibble? Has it not occurred to you that if the State puts a cap on HB then perhaps the rents might come down? And if the overhead of rent comes down then other things, like childcare costs, will come down too.
London is too much out of kilter with the rest of the country. We shouldn't have to subsidise their housing boom.

We live in central London, pay similar rent, and have a smaller income than the OP (DH works FT, I freelance occasionally). Obv. these cuts won't affect our financial situation, which is 'bit tight, but managing'.

What I worry about is that London might become like Paris with a central area populated by the rich, and rough-as-hell banlieus around the outside which the people from the centre never visit - I think the riots in 2005 highlighted some of the problems with that situation. I like the fact that London has a mixed population - mix of incomes, mix of cultures - and that DS has friends whose Mums and Dads are super-rich and friends who have a single parent and are on free school meals - but they all go to the same school, play at the park together.

But at the same time I do find it annoying that private landlords make so much money out of the state, and out of DH and I, and that it is im-freakin-possible to buy a house in this city unless you strike oil, are a Hilton, or bought early.

If London becomes a place where only well-off people live then we'll leave and go abroad or up North (which as far as my DH is concerned is more foreign than abroad! He's never lived out of London). But if these cuts make landlords cut their rents then hallelujah because it is RIDICULOUS how much money our landlady is making out of our inability to get on the housing ladder.

That is why I factored out rent and childcare costs to see how the OP's net compares to my own. I really don't get it. Here I am working full time, also working from home some evenings and weekends (for no extra pay), a single parent with no ex in the frame and a ds with SEN and mild SN who could do with seeing more of his mum than he does at present. He is the first at before school care most mornings and the last at after school care pretty much every evening. I already feel hugely guilty about that and now I discover I could get my housing paid, be left with £12,000 a year AND stay at home all day.

I really hope that this is a troll as the thought of what I sacrifice on a daily basis actually makes me feel quite sick.

I also find it hard to believe that someone with one child could be entitled to £1000 a month in benefits after housing costs. I just don't. I also don't believe that you'd struggle to feed your child three proper meals a day on that amount. I lived for years on my own with my son on a (tax free) stipend of £1,200 a month while doing postgraduate study and the only benefit I got was CB. I had to pay my rent out of that too (£650-750 a month). We didn't have much in the way of luxuries, but neither of us starved.

The OP must have miscalculated.

The orignal post kind of confuesed me as well, but if rents are between 340 and 500 pcw, it does put annual houseing costs between 17.5K and 26K, so with a 26K cap that gives between 0 and 5.5K for bills and food et-al.

I don't know if OP is a troll but I could see having a weekly income post housing for some people of being between nothing and 100 pounds being an issue if the cap doesn't take the difference in housing costs into account.

As to putting a cap on benifits to control the housing value in London, seems a bit unfair to my friend who lives with their family and nieces. Seems a bit of a strange implement to use to control house prices in a specific region of the country. Couldn't the govenment do something more specific to resolve this issue of inflated prices in the London housing market if this really is going to fix the countries deficit?!?!

I think this government is full of weird ideas demonstrated both by this cap and the CB change which doesn't affect high income households because it would be too complicated to calculate proper means testing.

I don't think any government would want to do anything specifically to bring house prices/rents down in London. A drop in overall house prices is always reported in the media as being a very bad thing. Also the continued house price inflation in London has cushioned the national figures, so when they report that house prices across the country have stagnated half the time they mean that London prices have gone up and everywhere else has dropped. So if London prices were brought into line with the rest of the country it would be a 'Cameron presides over 10% house price drop disaster!' story. Personally I think this would be a good thing, partly because of my personal situation, partly because I think it makes economic sense. But I think it might be electoral arsenic... Or maybe I'm misjudging the electorate?

I thought most people wanted a house price fall. Certainly those I know do and most of them are house owners. In the long term high house prices is unsustainable.

What kind of property charges £300 per week in rent?

I live in central London and am in a Housing Association property so I know it it different, but cost is £500 per month in rent.

Would get nothing like 30,000 in benefits, I with 1 child on top of rent get about £500 a month.

Starting work on Monday and completely expect to be worse off.

Therefore, surely your 340 a week rent plus benefits I would expect you to be on = annual income of £23,680

you are right Dominique, housing association is different.
gumtree today- 2 bed flat in willesden £349
if you wanted the one at blackfriars, thats £500.
both accept housing benefit.

Feli - maybe you have confused your figures to come up with an annual income of £30K and will not be affected by this cap after all???

Do you have any debts, Feli? It might be worth going on something like the Money Saving Expert forums to see if they can help either cut what you spend each month or offer advice on reducing debt payments (if you have them), because living on £1k a month at the moment should be doable really.

Also, as others have said where do you live in London? It could be worth looking at nearby areas. When and after I was a student I lived in Walthamstow because it was cheap and had good transport links. Ended up living there for about four/five years and never had any problems and enjoyed the fact it had a town centre/good community as well as being close to centre of London.

I do feel it's a bit odd that on benefits people can currently live in London and get expensive rent paid while we have to live a fair distance from work because we couldn't afford to live any closer. Part of life is surely accepting you sometimes have to compromise? I know that's cold comfort to the OP, but I think that's how it is for most people. Ie actually we could live closer to work but only by living in a much smaller property. If I really wanted to live in London I would have to choose a cheaper area or a smaller place in the area I did want.

It is scary moving to somewhere where you don't know anyone - but honestly people do that all the time. I've just moved to my town (because, as I said above, we couldn't afford to live where we worked) and at first felt quite lonely but it's easy to meet other mums by going to various baby groups, or using the mumsnet local boards or even (I whisper) the netmums meet a mum section.

Best of luck.

I am shocked that people are shocked about the huge rent per week. This is London we are talking about here and rents are higher than in other places in the UK?

OP do you have any other relatives in the UK who might welcome and support you nearer them?

Indeed becstarlitsea, any drop in house prices even in just a region such as London would be seen as the countries combined assets being shrunk, I guess the fear that this loss in assets would in turn reduce confidence and banks would start getting very twitchy about credit (well even more than they are at the moment). And before you know where you are you've entered into recession again.