How can we manage financially as Universal Credit support reduces?

[elliejjtiny]

We have 5 dc aged between 19 and 11 all with disabilities. Dh was a manager up until youngest was born, then he became unwell and had to take a massive pay cut. I'm a Sahm and get carers allowance. We get UC. Dc1 in his first year at uni, dc2 about to start in September.

We are just about managing at the moment but barely. In September we are going to lose the child element of universal credit for dc2 and I'm worried how we are going to manage. When the dc were younger I thought I would be working by now but I'm only getting 4 hours sleep a night and my 11 year old needs constant supervision when not at school so I don't know how I could fit work in. Dh has to work away about 15 weekends a year (from friday morning until late Sunday night) which leaves me completely exhausted each time. We spend 9 weekends a year picking up/dropping off/visiting dc1 and I imagine spending the same amount of time with dc2. There is no childcare for children my dc age with SN and they have to be picked up and dropped off at school. The dc have appointments about once a week on average and dc4 stays in hospital about 1 night a year when I don't get any sleep at all.

Realistically I can't think of any employer who would employ me with the amount of time off I would need and on so little sleep. At the moment I spend the time dc are at school doing the housework, cooking the dinner and trying to catch up on a bit of sleep.

I'm trying to think of anywhere we could save money but I can't think of anything. Dc1 doesn't cost any less money while he is at uni.

You were clear, don't worry about it. Others obviously have a sore spot and think irrationally / or it's known ignorance / cognitive dissonance .. which is necessary to maintain the irrational thinking.

Oh no - there's nothing free about it. Well not for us.

Agreed, well said.

Not sure I understand your point, I wasn’t claiming it started with the Holocaust?

Why are benefits given for the oldest two? They are both functioning enough to go away to Uni. I am genuinely wondering/ trying to understand how this works?

So you want an overwhelmed exhausted person to do a job where a mistake could be catastrophic for another persons health ?!!

If you don’t like helping people less fortunate than yourself, there are plenty of other countries to live in, where the governments couldn’t give a shit about the needy… just saying.

Absolutely - I completely agree. If parental finances are tight then it has to be local uni, with part-time work, or gap year (or two) beforehand to put towards it. Or online / part-time uni course. Or degree apprenticeship (although I think these are rarer than hen’s teeth if I am honest…)…

My bad; you have paid your taxes fair and square to punch down on them, as though she pop her kids back into her womb or give up UC after reading your little tirades.

Well then thank your lucky stars and (your own hard work) you have enough to live comfortably and stop moaning about paying tax.

Stop being angry at the wrong people and cheer the fuck up, you have a enough money and a good life, stop being envious of people who have to claim benefits and live in difficult circumstances like the op.

Op hope you are ok x

To be honest, most people I know have planned their families according to their financial situation. Yes of course sometimes things don’t go according to plan but if children are showing signs of a condition such as autism it may make parents a bit more wary of having more children if they would struggle financially.
5 children in 8 years is a pretty hefty amount of children to support - especially when one parent is not bringing home a salary and is unlikely to do so until the children reach adulthood.
The choices everyone makes in society impacts everyone else to a greater or lesser degree. When that impact is a financial one, don’t you think people should be able to have an opinion?

Exactly. Some of the suggestions of work for the OP, are preposterous. I think that the OP sounds exhausted personally.

DLA is based on care needs, not if they are capable or incapable of going to university when they are older. PIP also doesn't require someone to be incapable of going to university or work.

Oh god. Yet more hyperbole. Give it a rest. If you can't make a reasonable statement without it, don't bother. I've already said a civilised society works on paying taxes to help people in their time of need, and we all (i think) don't mind that. A safety net though, not an assumed way of life. Which they are in a lot of cases today. Millions of cases.

You asked me would I choose to be disabled.

To start with, its not a choice we're given. You just play the cards you're dealt.

So I took your question to mean if you were disabled, would you want to live.

Do you want to be disabled?
No thanks.
Tough shit. You are now disabled. You don't get to choose.
Live or die?

So I answered the question i assumed was actually being asked underneath - if you were disabled (which is not a choice you get to make in reality), would you want to die because you are disabled?

I then gave background as to how I could know that i would choose life.

This was my first thought! My DS had a friend who had an inherited heart condition. Her dad had a heart transplant. She was the oldest of 10, at least half had inherited the condition. Why would you keep on gaving kids in this situation?

It's been said before - she did choose to have 5 children. It is not unpredictable, disabled or not, that a mum is exhausted.

Always one comment with Amazon and time machine… 😂

Because Nordic countries have even more generous social welfare systems and their rich pay more tax but the quality of life over there for the average person is much higher. But this country is generally very short-sighted when it comes to social welfare and don't consider the wider implications for not providing it or the bigger picture on why people end up needing it.

I kick myself every day.
I could have been worth billions.

PIP and DLA aren’t means tested & being able to go to uni doesn’t mean you might not have costs associated with having a disability or illness - as per my Stephen Hawking example earlier. Very famously disabled and attended university

The OP, like most people, I would have thought, make choices that may seem right, to them, at the time that they are making them. Nobody has a crystal ball, and can see the future. If we could, life would be very different for a good many people. I fail to see the value, in berating the OP for the choices that she, and her Husband made. The children are here. Either help with her enquiry, or do something else more useful, I say.

Maybe you stop being so ideological?

I'm angry at exactly right people, thank you very much. What I have is not thanks to lucky stars and I do have DC which are disabled, I just made different choices. I'm not envious of benefits claimants at all, but like many of us I'm thoroughly fed up paying for someone else's stupidity. And I think it's only fair for people to live with consequences of their decisions.

It sounds incredibly tough OP but having 5 children was always going to leave you exhausted let alone adding in disabilities. The easiest option for me would be getting DP to change jobs as him being away that much is intolerable. Then if he was at home more, you wouldn't be solely carrying the load and hopefully able to work part time. The other reality is that benefits face massive cuts across the board when Labour go - and go they will. Under Conservatives it may not be too bad but if Reform get in there could be huge sweeping cuts and I would want to prepare for that.

You were replying to this:
Yes it is extremely well documented how attitudes were manipulated over time. Its crazy to me that people cant see its happening right now
But I would argue that these attitudes already existed. Same as they do now.
Look at Reform - didn't take long to increase their followers, its simply because people already think that way in private. Reform gives their thinking legitimacy with a little help from all the benefits bashing threds. We'll see where it ends.