Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Money matters

Find financial and money-saving discussions including debt and pension chat on our Money forum. If you're looking for ways to make your money to go further, sign up to our Moneysaver emails here.

Can I claim benefits?

166 replies

babyt2020 · 11/03/2022 12:33

Just curious as everyone keeps saying we should be entitled to something! I've never thought so but Martin Lewis seems to think so. We own our house outright, we bought it in September last year. My partner earns £24,000 per year and I don't work as we have an 8 month old and a 20 month old?

OP posts:
MargotMoon · 20/03/2022 09:49

Interesting that people's anger about "the system being fucked" is directed at the OP for being able to claim rather than at the govt for creating a system that means that people who are out of work/carers/disabled are living in poverty. Need to get your priorities sorted, people

catsandquails · 20/03/2022 10:16

This is silly, people are angry at the claimants rather than the system! It's not OP's fault that the system allows her to claim!

babyt2020 · 20/03/2022 11:27

Ha thankyou ladies!!! Misplaced anger towards me when I've always paid into the system my whole life and my partner still is? Crazy

OP posts:
Babyroobs · 20/03/2022 11:41

@babyt2020

I would also like to point out that we bought our house following me having horrendous postnatal depression, so bad that I was sectioned and put on a mum and baby unit. This was triggered by the area we lived in becoming really rough and I was terrified of raising a baby there. We sold my partners house and used the money to buy in a nice area where our children are safe. Puts a very different slant on it that
It doesn't put a different slant on things though does it? Don't you think all parents want to live in a nice safe area for the sake of their kids ? But as others have said many people will be desperately trying to save enough to buy a house yet those savings if over 16k will wipe out any entitlement to Universal credit. For many it's just an impossible situation for them to even try to get on the housing ladder whilst you are able to whilst owning a house outright. As most people are saying it's not your fault but the system that is so unfair. We currently have a system which allows people on the old tax credit system to save as much as they want without being penalised, those on Uc trying to save for a house but can't because they lose any benefits once their savings hit 16k and they reduce after saving even 6k, which goes no-where towards a house deposit, then people like you op who have no housing costs or live with relatives paying minimla rent and are able to claim hundreds a month. It is all wrong.
Kitkat151 · 20/03/2022 16:58

@babyt2020

I would also like to point out that we bought our house following me having horrendous postnatal depression, so bad that I was sectioned and put on a mum and baby unit. This was triggered by the area we lived in becoming really rough and I was terrified of raising a baby there. We sold my partners house and used the money to buy in a nice area where our children are safe. Puts a very different slant on it that
Doesn’t put a different slant on it at all🙄
GiraffesInScarfs · 22/03/2022 02:41

Wow. Lots of these posts are so vicious. I am really shocked.

Of course it isn't just renters who should get help to afford to live if their income is low.

I'm so surprised that people on the one hand say it is shocking that there isn't enough support, and then attack a family earning a very low income - way below national average for an individual never mind two adults living together! - for receiving support.

GiraffesInScarfs · 22/03/2022 02:45

@MargotMoon

Interesting that people's anger about "the system being fucked" is directed at the OP for being able to claim rather than at the govt for creating a system that means that people who are out of work/carers/disabled are living in poverty. Need to get your priorities sorted, people
Totally agree. The answer is to increase support for those with disabilities etc. Not to have a go at people with tiny incomes who are receiving income-based support.

People rant about how there should be secure housing yet when the OP has managed to get that apparently it makes her a demon and not worthy of any financial support for other basic living costs. Confused

GiraffesInScarfs · 22/03/2022 02:50

No one begrudges you raising your children. It just grates a bit you want other people to pay

Seriously?

Roughly 10% of the taxpayers carry everyone else. Pretty much anybody who doesn't earn in the top 10% is being paid for by others. Especially if you have children, use the NHS or state education etc.

That is called society.

If nobody had kids unless their tax money was sufficient to fund the cost of those kids to the NHS and schools etc then there would be 10% (or less actually as more affluent families tend to have fewer children) the number of children there are now.

Many posts seem very bitter.

You are fighting the wrong person attacking this OP.

🐿👀

FTEngineerM · 22/03/2022 06:06

it makes her a demon and not worthy of any financial support for other basic living costs

I’m not sure any one has said OP is a demon, fwiw I said it was interesting to think that someone has spend example figure £400k to live in a nice area then claim UC rather than spend £300k and have £20k/year until their child is in school and no require UC. That’s being pretty conservative too, spending £350k and having £10k/year is still doable.

The system isn’t the OPs responsibility, unless there is some massive drip feed about the previous job being setting the policy for the UC claimants 😂 which I feel like she would have mentioned if so.

Babyroobs · 22/03/2022 11:29

@GiraffesInScarfs

Wow. Lots of these posts are so vicious. I am really shocked.

Of course it isn't just renters who should get help to afford to live if their income is low.

I'm so surprised that people on the one hand say it is shocking that there isn't enough support, and then attack a family earning a very low income - way below national average for an individual never mind two adults living together! - for receiving support.

No one is saying people with mortgages shouldn't get help. many people are paying 1k a month on mortgages and of course they get help from Uc and get a higher work allowance which in some part offsets the fact they don't claim the rent element. What people are shocked about is that op has no housing costs at all yet gets the same amount of Uc as someone else earning the same wages yet paying a 1k a month mortgage !
MargotMoon · 25/03/2022 07:58

What people are shocked about is that op has no housing costs at all yet gets the same amount of Uc as someone else earning the same wages yet paying a 1k a month mortgage !

@Babyroobs But again I ask why the personal attacks on the OP? Like she designed the system!?

And another poster making pointless speculation about whether they could have bought a cheaper house and lived on some of the money - you can buy a 3 bed house outright for less than £100k in some areas of the city I live in. So the idea of having a spare £100k to live off for a few years is completely theoretical if the price of their house was all they had to spend - what would you prefer, that they wasted it on renting and lining some landlord's pockets!? 😂

Babyroobs · 25/03/2022 13:20

@MargotMoon

What people are shocked about is that op has no housing costs at all yet gets the same amount of Uc as someone else earning the same wages yet paying a 1k a month mortgage !

@Babyroobs But again I ask why the personal attacks on the OP? Like she designed the system!?

And another poster making pointless speculation about whether they could have bought a cheaper house and lived on some of the money - you can buy a 3 bed house outright for less than £100k in some areas of the city I live in. So the idea of having a spare £100k to live off for a few years is completely theoretical if the price of their house was all they had to spend - what would you prefer, that they wasted it on renting and lining some landlord's pockets!? 😂

I appreciate it's difficult for the government to make it fair to all. I guess there will always be winners and loses in any system. Agree not op's fault.
babyt2020 · 25/03/2022 15:03

Our house was £225

OP posts:
babyt2020 · 25/03/2022 15:03

£225,000 obviously, we didn't have any change to live off

OP posts:
Livelovebehappy · 25/03/2022 22:19

If you were a renter, and both of you unemployed OP (lifestyle choice) you would have got very different answers on here. People would have been falling over themselves to give you advice, because they would have deemed you a worthy benefit claimant.

babyt2020 · 26/03/2022 14:22

That's what baffles me! Worked our arses off all our lives, finally got our house and get grief! I don't see why I would work only to give that wage to a stranger to raise my babies???

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page