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.

I am not sure that we ever had people buying their own homes with a partner on an average wage and a wife at home - in the 50s and 60s people had low cost council homes and by the 70a and 80s mothers worked ourixe the home

I am guessing that you see the years you mention as "history"?

Because you are wrong.

In the 50's and 60's most people lived in privately rented accomodation. Yes council properties were increasing, but not until the mid to late 60's. Entire streets often had the same landlords as they had been bought in bulk from the companies (in my area usually mining or brewing companies) as they sold them off. Slums still existed until well into the 70's, it really wasnt easy to get a council home depending on where you lived.

In the 70's the boomers could afford a 3 bed semi on a factory workers wage. My parents did it. Ma worked part time for the extras but the mortgage and bills were paid by my father who worked in a factory, first on the shop floor and then as a security guard. We had a garage and gardens front and back. The house we lived in cost them £7000, most recently it sold for £240,000. Small town, East/West mids border.

There was a mass increase in the 70's of people moving into local authority housing as it was more secure than private rental (although the private rentals of those years were far far more secure than they are now), and repairs etc were done in a timely manner and to a good standard. Also the houses were built to a far higher standard. But then, many of those tenants bought their homes under "right to buy", so they ended up as owner occupiers too by the late 80's. And again, the standard was wife at home if they had kids (or part time after the kids went to school) and dad at work. Its only very recently that two full time parents were needed to buy a house.

I am sitting in a house that my ex and I bought in 1999 on his, average at the time, wage. Its now worth 5 times what we paid for it. I couldnt afford to buy it if I was looking to buy now.

I'm not understanding this comparison between softplay and booting kids out to the woods to build dens. They are hardly the same age group? Around here soft play is full of preschoolers - maybe up to age 5 at a pinch. And kids playing out are around 7 at the youngest. Who is taking a 7 year old to soft play and who is sending a 3 year old out into the woods to build dens??

Its really disgusting that an almost 4K a month salary needs to be topped up by UC
Thats what the problem is, not the OP (also the Government says FT hours are 32 hrs + a week - the OP & her DH are almost working FT albeit for 2hrs)

£4K a month should be a good wage but here we are after previous governments have wrecked our country's economy (see tax credits rather than making employers pay a decent wage, Brexit, maybe QE & god knows what else!)

Edit: typo

My parents bought a house in the 60s - garage worked in a factory, mum was sahm, occasional part time work in a shop.
But no luxuries -which was no hardship because people didn’t expect them.
But the only ‘single parents’ were those who were widowed, so much less pressure on housing then a few households. So many split families now so more housing required, just at the point where Labour drives out private landlords.

Well she can't shove one back in really.

So the only answer is for them both to work more.

Well then they need to step up their hours, start looking for better paid jobs and be realistic about their circumstances given their choices.

This 100%. Have as many children as you can afford so change to better paid jobs or longer hours. Some parents work less/have badly-paid jobs out of necessity and need more financial support but out of choice? No, forget it! You want more money, then go out and earn it.

Firstly, I didn't call her third child a 'luxury' - but the government only pays UC for the first two kids, so (unless the OP is exempt from those rules) those associated costs will need to be paid out of existing income + child benefit.

Secondly, comparing today with some idealised view of the past is completely irrelevant to the OP's financial situation. We don't live in an ideal world. People need to face up to reality - i e. the world doesn't owe anybody a certain standard of living. Are you an adult? Do you know what life is like for 90%+ of the planet? The world has changed. Factories have moved to China because your parent's lifestyle was too expensive to sustain for those businesses. Nobody has been 'duped' except those people that cling to the notion that the 'deserve' to have the same lifestyle as others.

Thirdly, I think the OP needs some tough love. The reality is that her and her partner have chosen to work for charities (either because it's a cushy little number or because they like the warm fuzzy feeling that gives them). That's fine, make your own choices, but actions have consequences - i.e. lower pay than corporate banking or learning a trade. If you then work part-time hours, and refuse to work full-time while expecting free money from taxpayers, you should expect to be called out for freeloading.

Why should I work full-time in a highly stressful job that involves unpaid evening and weekend work (I do get TOIL), to support their lifestyle?

Lastly, their income after rent (£2800) is roughly the same as ours after paying the mortgage (£2600 per month for a 3 bed semi in outer London). We manage fine. They're clearly pissing away their money.

It’s not personal choice at all. More often than not they are absolutely forced to go back. It’s a choice not to work. It’s sometimes a choice to work but more often it’s because you have to!

Yes but my rent is only 450 a month.

if you had a mortgage they wouldn’t pay it though. The UC system is absolutely bloody terrible. And lol at ‘only’ if it’s ‘only’ why don’t you pay it yourself instead of expecting the state to?!

What really pisses me off is that friends who are in exactly the same boat as me working part time single parents get their rent paid via UC but those of us with a mortgage have to pay the full amount ourselves. It seems unfair if we’re all earning the same income

The old system did used to pay mortgage interest, but the way it was implemented was insane. They assumed an interest rate of 7% and paid that on the outstanding capital. During the financial crisis, when rates were below 2%, people were making big profits at the taxpayer's expense (as somebody that couldn't afford to buy a house at that time, it was galling to know that people who'd borrowed too much money were making a profit at my expense). The media got wind of it and the system was changed.

The system is now clearly unfair to people that have a mortgage and lose their jobs.

The government can give you a SMI loan if you can’t pay your mortgage.

Why should the taxpayer bail out mortgagees while their asset increases in value? Even just covering the interest is unfair to renters but a charge on the property would be totally unviable financially. It's always been a gamble for house buyers to commit to paying a mortgage for 25 years plus and that hasn't changed unfortunately.

Why isn't rent paid as a loan?

It should be! That would be sensible. Like a student loan to be repaid in the future when you earn more.

£450 is very low rent. Is it social housing? Would love to be able to find accommodation in the private sector for five people for £450!

32 hours FT - give me a break, so full
time hours are 6 hours and 24 minutes per day?

bullshit

This.
Unfortunately people would be even less incentivized to get a proper job (i.e. one that pays to support their family)
Though sounds unlikely that the OO or her DH would be b capable of getting or keeping jobs outside the cosy hobby sector

At a guess, practicalities. If there's a property, there's an asset, and even if there's no equity now there could be at some point in the future.

Whereas people getting UC rent top up by definition don't have an owned property or much capital. So while there's probably some claimants who'd be able to pay it back at some point, it would be creating a system full of bad debt. It's obvious there'd be some people who don't stand any realistic chance of paying it back, and that isn't particularly attractive. Such a system would take resources to set up and maintain, and would need to bring in enough to cover that. The client group would need to look like they'd make it worthwhile.

You want the state to pay your mortgage? You want taxpayers to fund you owning a property?

Deleted duplicate post.