How do people do it financially on benefits?

[DollyHouse]

Does anyone else (particularly people on income support with one child) find it a struggle financially? I do have a few costs due to illness that probably affect how much I have to spend on a few bills etc but even without those costs I just don't see how people manage.

It's draining. Now I know what my mum means when she said she was always worrying about money when we were younger :/

Dunno...my son is with me 40% of the time but I don't get any!

For a long time I only had heating on in my house when my DS was with me. I didn't attend a dentist for treatment or optician for glasses for about five years. The food parcels my parents gave me meant I could eat and the clothes they bought me meant I wasn't wearing rags.

I worked most of that time, but as I was in a new area I'd lost all contacts and besides where I live is very rural where even a McDonalds job wasn't an option.

I only came off IS last year so I know what it's like with current food prices. The DLA makes a big difference, chances are that the Op is struggling due to not being able to budget in the same way as someone without her illness and DLA/PIP is supposed to make up for that. If the CAB has advised her to apply then it's definitely worth pursuing (and being persistent with it, no point just giving up after one rejection as almost everyone is rejected initially).

With extreme difficulty. I was only on periodically for a short while but it is actually very hard to feed healthily (agirlcalledjack is NOT healthy, it's all fucking tinned tomatoes and lentils, that is NOT healthy food for a child under 3 (or even for adults who need higher protein diets for whatever health condition), if I had fed my under-3 on that (against dietician advice as she had some food intolerances and was also slow to gain weight, she would have been severely malnourished and eventually hospitalised). Food costs at least £60 a week for 5-a-day, occasional meat, and sure start vouchers, if you're in and out of work, are often useless as they get cut off then take weeks to reclaim, by which time you're back in work and they're cancelled. £60 is all your CTC gone, with one child. That leaves you £72 I think a week (thank God I am no longer on IS). I just got billed £129 for a months electric, that's including heating as we are mainly on electric heating here, no central other than solid fuel which is impossible to keep going unless you're in all day and when I had gas in former house, it was about the same. Water was about £40 a month, some contribution to council tax is also expected now so say that's about £10 a month, that's about £12 a week on both those and £32 on electric (rounding down on a 4 week month so underestimate). So you've got £38 left for clothes, transport, phone, TV license etc per week. I was spending about £10 on transport to and from ex to pick up daughter. £28. Clothes from charity shops, kids shoes, and basic phone line take all that. If you're finding it easy to live on benefits with one child then you're living somewhere with extremely low energy prices and cheap food, i.e. probably not the UK. Most people struggle, OP, sorry, that's the policy now, that we are expected to suffer because we got left with a child, as if it wasn't already hard enough.

Also you can't batch cook when you don't have a freezer, never mind illness on top of it, and you can't afford a freezer when you have £28 a week left to save from.

That's right Fudge. What you say is true. We work so hard as single parents on benefits and yet we are just seen as spongers!

Dolly you are wrong about pip, it is much more favourable to people with mental health problems than dla was.

Dolly YHM.

I have never known the cab advise anybody to claim a benefit they were unlikely to get.

Claim it ASAP. The cab can help with the form

Hi,

I was just about to post a thread along similar lines. I am renting with a nearly 5 year old and finding it quite difficult financially.

I work full time, but on a low income so get part housing benefit but it still feels like once my rent, bills, food is paid there is nothing left. I get no child support.

I would like to know how other mums do it! and manage to have their children in smart new clothes, go on holidays and have an abundance of food in the fridge. Any advice?!