I'm a single mum , whose ex left three years ago and has consistently refused to pay anything (and I mean anything - not even a penny) in maintenance.
From my benefits (£59 IS, £45 CTC, £18 CB - so a total of £122 a week) I am losing £15.26 a week in repayments for the loan I had to take out to secure my child and myself a home after ex did a vanishing act and the council refused to house us. Every week I need to pay nearly £15 for gas and electricity (yes, the heating is on a low setting, but we live in a cold rural area and have no double glazing), £4.50 for TV licence, £4 for Water, £8 for phone/internet connection (yes, I know its not a necessity but I have to have some way to get contact with the rest of the world - being on my own in the countryside means I don't get out much), £4.50 every time we need to get the bus into town for shopping/doctor/library/semblance of social life etc, £15 for the taxi home if I need to do a big shop, oh and feed us a healthy diet, clothe/shoe us adequately, find the money to take my child to see ex (I know thats not my job, but if I didn't do it the relationship would be lost which would IMO be a tragedy for my child), I try to save something, however small, so that we have a fallback fund for holidays/birthdays/disasters...
I am entitled to keep £10 of any maintenance ex pays - but he doesn't pay any, so we don't get that premium.
I refuse to get into debt (other than the Budgeting Loan from the Social Fund that I have) and we do not have a car, or a big new telly (we have one that I found in a skip in fact). I economise wherever I can but its very very hard.
So... I clean the old lady three-doors-down's house for four hours a week for £6 an hour. It means I can have a bottle of wine once in a while, or a coffee before getting the bus 6 miles home after a morning luging the shopping round town, or have a friend over for a meal sometimes, or buy new (by which I mean secondhand-but-new-to-me) clothes every now and then.
And you know what? If you begrudge me that then fuck you.