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.

That's why so many students have to work beside their studies.

Or like my DC, doing a very intense course, thake a gap year, work FT and save save save... then use the long summer break to work and save some more.

Only 5 EU member states (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Denmark) run a surplus budget.

I've got an idea.
What if we rounded up disabled people and took them to big buildings with dormitory sleeping rooms. The government could employ a few people to make sure they were contained. Economies of scale would mean they would be cheap to feed.

Those that aren't too disabled could be put to work doing stuff. Laundry maybe

(Ooh. That gives me another idea. What if we also had big buildings where we could force unemployed people to go. Basic food and a roof and they could earn their keep making stuff.)

This way they wouldn't be visible to the proper people and wouldn't be costing too much and most importantly wouldn't be seen to be having any nice things or a normal life.

Seriously, people on these threads are full of statements about what disabled people and families of disabled people shouldnt do and what they shouldnt have and how they shouldn't exist in the first place.

but they do exist. So forget all the stuff that requires a fucking time machine to achieve - what do you do with people who exist right now who due to severe disability or caring for family members with severe disabilities can't provide for themselves?

Well they shouldnt exist in the first place, the parents shouldnt have had them then they wouldn't need anything.

What the fuck kind of cold heart does a person have to have to begrudge disabled children a life?

Successive governments piss money up the wall on bollocks, don't close loopholes and so allow massive companies to pay fuck all, run things so badly that an eye watering amount of money is wasted every year yet somehow has got the population pointing at disabled people as the problem.

Fuck me. Just take em out back and fucking shoot them if they're that much of a drain on your fucking pocket.

@elliejjtiny please don’t let some of the awful comments on this thread upset you. We don’t all feel the same. You sound like a good mum doing her very best and I salute you. I don’t have any advice I’m afraid, but good luck to you.

Sounds like Nazi Germany, the disabled were among the first to be murdered.
It makes me ashamed to be part of the human race with people so nasty about disabled of any age.

I think most people would find financially supporting 5 kids very difficult. Work out what you need to live on after cutting back and see what the shortfall is. Then maybe get a job when your D H is at home. Say in a care home as overnight staff.

I would have just stopped at two with the unknowns, but you and your dh decided to have 3 more knowing that your eldest 2 may have difficulties. You’ll just have to work hun .

Team @ellejjtiny🙂

Or, some of us on here would not give a child a shit life out of either not being able to afford them, or knowing that there's a chance of genetic disability when kids prior to that have been diagnosed (or not, even a suspicion) I get circumstances change but 5 kids is a lot anyway. And unless you had bullet proof financial stability I think it's reckless and irresponsible.

nobody deserves to he disabled. And with multiple kids down the line you are at that point choosing to bring disabled kids into the world.

some people with disabilities have shit lives due to the choices of their parents. And I will stand on that, and I would say that in real life too if it ever cropped up.

And it is really hard for many kids to get jobs whilst at UNi due to the current job market. However op does say her eldest has a part time job so he's in a better position than many students !
My ds is at Uni in a small Northern town and has tried so hard to get term time jobs and only been successful for a couple of christmas jobs lasting a few weeks. Someone on another thread said that at the uni he is at there are 20k students chasing a few jobs.

I think unfortunately there are a lot of people working full time and not getting any benefits, and would like more children but they can’t afford more than 2 or in some cases have to stop at only one.

I agree, but I would go further and say it's a meeting of like minded eugenicists.

I’m sorry , but you must be getting
4Xchildren
3 /4 children disability allowance
at an time 3/4 DlA/pip
carers allowance
carers Element
I see this all the time parents relying on the money that they’re disability children bringing which can be over £1000 per child and then you Throw your hands up in the air when they become adults

You should also get the disabled child addition in your UC claim, as well as the carer element. Do check it’s there. It’s not uncommon to see it missing!

That doesn't give you the right to be a dickhead towards someone struggling and asking for help. What is wrong with you?

So you agree with nazi Germany then? All the disabled culled.

I don't think anyone is being nasty about the disabled.

I'm seeing multiple posters question why she kept on having children full-stop, healthy or disabled.

She clearly can't afford them without benefits.

She couldn't when she had 2, let alone 5.

And what posters are saying is that if there are too many people who make these choices, rely on benefits for decades, then society collapses, social services fall apart (which they are doing), roads aren't maintained, teaching assistants vanish, council swimming pools are shut... Essentially, there is no money left in the pot, yes, because of too many people like OP who had children (disabled or not) that they just couldn't afford to raise to adulthood.

The OP made her choices, but everyone else has to pay for her choices either via their taxes or the massive cutting or closure of council services.

I admire the woman who says "we had 1 disabled child" but realised we couldn't afford another so didn't have another. She's the woman I want my taxes to help..... The responsible person. Not the person who had all the children she wanted, fully knowing someone else would end up paying for them...

Stop being impressed by the word "manager" too. I was a manager of a petrol station at 21 years old earning £4.25 an hour. It wouldn't pay for 1 child, even in 1995...

Same…

So what do you suggest?

I think to be able to help more we need to understand what you have coming in, what is being removed and a bit of your spending. What is the gap and why is it such a problem ?

I was going to make that point myself. Reading some of the comments here, gives an insight into how people who would consider themselves to be kind upstanding citizens, maybe religious, quite ordinary people came to support the idea and practice of murdering those who were considered to be unworthy due to disabilities.

She gets a job, night shift cleaner. Minimum wage is a tenner an hour plus now... Do it.

Her husband is in the house at night. She can work.

OP is unlikely to post any of that now.

Agree, the amounts of UC when adding up all the disabled child elements etc, carers elements are huge. Then the DLA paid separately could amount to near on another 2k a month depending on rates, although i appreciate op said eldest's PIP has stopped recently. Then child benefit would have been another £300 every four weeks when all were at home.