Both work and we claim UC but still can't afford to live.

[Mocha1]

We have 3 kids, 2 who aren't at school yet, my husband and I both work 30 hours a week for charities so not highly paid. We also have childcare for part of the week and then juggle the kids between us the rest of the time (We don't want to work more as we dont want the kids in fulltime childcare). We rent and down't own. We claim UC but we are still really struggling to make ends meet. We really try to live to a tight budget but I have no idea how to lower our expenses any more.

Am I missing something? Is this normal? does anyone have any tips for saving money/ making more income somehow? I feel a bit at a loss as we keep dipping into our savings for just day to day expenses and we're nearly at the end of those.

Our income at the moment (I'm on MAT leave) - £3980
Outgoings- £4250

Do these outgoings seem like a lot for a family of 5 living in the south west? I've been going over our budget and I have no idea how to save any more unless we literally never bought another birthday present or went to a soft play ever again.

Neither parent in this scenario works full-time

3 kids is a luxury
working part time is a luxury
getting help from the state… a luxury.

yet here you are complaining about your situation.

I honestly don’t understand why people chose to have a family but need to rely on benefits to do so.

So basically you’ve had more kids than you can afford and you don’t WANT to work full time but you do want to claim benefits and then moan about not having enough money….

Unless you have been through the whole UC and Working part time on UC it is not as easy as you are suggesting, the rules keep changing with people expected to work more hours with young children, also basic income expected before you are taken out of the group to look for more hours better paid work. Employers have been using this in order to keep pay low.

to receive free school meals your income must be less than £7,400 per annum, after tax and not including any benefits you receive.

The annual income means you must be working less than 11 hours per week - which int he case of op she isn't

Lots of working class women I know didn't work. I have two neighbours in their 80s, the husbands were a labourer and a factory worker. Neither women worked post babies. They bought their 3 bed semi's on one alright wage and had 3 kids each. Its much harder now.

The OP and her husband aren't disabled, they just don't want to work more or get better paid jobs.

People who work in the charity sector aren't typically unskilled workers with no qualifications who can't get anything paying more than minimum wage. They tend to be people with experience and skills which are easily transferable to similar (but perhaps less interesting), better paid jobs in better paid sectors.

You are missing that you both work part-time and rely on tax payers for subsidies.

This is part of the problem for a lot of people - earn more, lose benefits (at the equivalent of a high tax rate). There’s not really any point in doing so.

As to whether or not a government will ever fix that… god knows. It needs to be genuinely worthwhile working vs claiming, or of course people won’t do it.

Lots of working class women I know didn't work. I have two neighbours in their 80s, the husbands were a labourer and a factory worker. Neither women worked post babies. They bought their 3 bed semi's on one alright wage and had 3 kids each. Its much harder now.

it will have been the exception for a labourer and a factory worker in the 1950s to be purchasing a house with a mortgage, although not unheard of many were renting from he council

I doubt living through a world war was easier than it is now tbh

Work longer hours.
Or you could get evening jobs, you don't both need to be at home at the same time.

Most people don't "want" their children in full time childcare but you may not have a choice, of course the extra cost may outweigh and extra earnings.
3 children needing childcare whether FT or PT is always going to be expensive

It’s tough shit - work full time and stop complaining. Why should tax payer top up when you choose not to work full time?

Sick of posts like this. Really feeling like a mug for working full time to cover people like you.

You can't afford the lifestyle you want. You need to both work full time and change sectors to higher paying.

Sorry but it is a choice, your choice to have children and your choice to go back to work full time. As some have said, they work full time to fund their lifestyle it’s all a choice.

Of course it is a luxury if you can’t afford it!

I don't think any previous generation said 'we don't have enough ££ to live the lifestyle we want' and NOT addressed the issue through the obvious answers of:

• work more hours
• look for better paid work

'I don't want to' simply wasn't an option in the past. You either increased income or cut your cloth to live within your means. I despair.

If you're on mat leave can't your husband work full time? That would bridge the gap.

@Mocha1 I think 3 children is a perfectly reasonable number of children to have.
My daughter and son in law have 3 children. 5, 3 and 1 yr old.
They bring home less than you but have not applied for Universal Credit as they don't think they would be entitled as they have their own home, although their council tax is £300 a month.
My daughter shops for free and very frugally, she uses Olio, Community Larders and Fridges, ( These are not Food Banks as she would not be entitled.)
She spends money only at Aldi if possible. and also at a Church led food place where you get veg, fruit and bread for free, and then you buy other items for 40 pence each up to 10 items.
She finds birthday and Christmas presents for the children for free from a local initiative called Family Matters. ( FM has recently joined up with the Baby Bank partnership) but , as a previous member of Family Matters, my daughter is still allowed to go once a month.
She receives bags of clothes from older cousins on both sides of the family.
She buys and sells on Marketplace.
The family have camping holidays.
Whereabouts are you in the Southwest.?

People who choose to work full time to fund their lifestyles are funding their OWN lifestyles and also other people's though.

Imagine if they all chose to work part time and claim universal credit instead?

Who would pay for universal credit then?

Of course it is a choice but you can't make that choice and then complain you can't afford it.

"Three kids is a big luxury, and has been for a long time. You really need two full time working adults or one full time worker on a very good wage. You’ve got two part time working adults on sort of low pay. The numbers just aren’t going to work."

Did you not cost it all out before you had the third child OP?

im disabled with kids with Sen. If I could work less I would but I have a mortgage and bills to pay just like everyone else. Even when I did work full time the childcare costs were crippling and that was with support from tax credits.
many married couples I know , one spouse, usually the wife has stopped working altogether due to the costs of childcare.
im single parent so I don’t have that option, there’s no salary I can earn which would make it easy for me to completely stop claiming top up. Billions of working families claim if because businesses do not pay in line with inflation and the cost of livibg
on the flip side you have business owners claiming they cannot afford to pay a living wage and they their costs are so high because of people like me demanding a living wage.
I am exhausted from pain and fatigue daily before I even start work.?not all those in need of if top up are lazy scroungers, I bet loads of people you know are claiming on top of working.

What does the money look like if your DH works full time and you work weekends/evenings?
Or do you lose too much in benefits.

i actually have a friend who is in a similar scenario, both parents work very part time and get topped up in benefits. However they live in a cheap part of the NE and manage, they do keep applying for new mortgages because they only have a 2 bed and are surprised they keep getting turned down.

The welfare system wasn’t the same as it is now. You didn’t get topped up with benefits if you worked (so I hear).