You know what? I commit "benefit fraud "and I think I'm justified

[ScroungingSingleMum]

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.

bb99, I'm not surprised you felt awful - a right-wing snob on benefits, what a dreadful mess to be in psychologically.

But if it weren't for attitudes like yours, perhaps people on benefits (for whatever reason) wouldn't have such problems with self-worth and shame.

By saying "be more than a benefit mummy" you are telling people that they are "less". Which is a horrible thing to say.

Then why get so bent out of shape about it, ST?

I mean, it's a gal cleaning a house for a few bob, an amount that doesn't even total Mr Dorrell's taxi bills.

bb99, I think you sound very motivated and honest. But, as you say, maybe you have a tendency to project! There will be those who draw benefits, yet have all the feelings of self-worth in the world.

SSM, I don't begrudge you a penny, honestly.

BUT my career is in benefit/housing advice, I've worked for various charities including the CAB.

AND I am a home educator, so am very sympathetic.

Please please please consider declaring. I have only skimmed this thread (sorry, I know that is annoying) but as far as I can see you are well under the threshold and have nothing to worry about. The DWP are used to dealing with people in your situation-fluctuating income etc.

You are taking a massive risk here. All it takes is for SOMEONE to dob you in-and believe me, that could be ANYONE, even acting on just a hunch-and there is a decent chance of you getting a caution. I had one client who was shopped by Or even worse-it IS an imprisonable offence, though i doubt it would get that far if all you'd done is failed to declare.

I am really, really on your side here. But honestly, it is not POSSIBLE to be very very careful. At least one person, but probably quite a few, know you are getting this money (the lady concerned will have family etc, I assume).

I know what I am talking about. Please declare your earnings-it is simply not worth it not to. I have seen the effects of being caught and it is not pretty at all

Another problem might be housing/council tax benefit. Are you claiming those too? Are you declaring? Because council tax in particular can be absolutely horrible if you get benefits that you weren't entitled to-they will bascially decide that you owed council tax for that period, and council tax is a really nasty debt to have-they have a lot of power to recover it.

I'm not bent out of shape. What makes you think that? Because I have an opinion?

and the dwp don't really care much about morality. Round here at least they get deeply arsey if you are earning without declaring.

The thing is, this is cash in hand. The real issue is that if you earn without declaring, iirc 1. it could render your claim void and thus could mean you've been overpaid (they prob wouldn't take this route), and 2. they will assume you are getting more than you've declared. You are close to the threshold and £6 ph isn't much for a cleaner, at least round here-they might be very at you being so close to the threshold

actually what is the threshold now-is it still £20?

How far from London do you live? If managable, do you want a car? Not very good one, but a car nonetheless.

bb99 the problem I have with your posts is that you are so evangelical about what going out to work did to your self-esteem and self-worth (and good for you, btw) that you seem unable to see that some other people might not get their self-esteem and self-worth in the same way that you do.

If I'm honest, I'm quite capable of going out to work full time and earning a stack of money and getting a nanny for my kids. Instead, I choose to work part time in a low paid industry and claim tax credits, because I think that spending real time with my children and ensuring that I have hte energy to keep track of their lives and be there emotionally for them, is every bit as valuable as working in the cash economy. I'm prepared to be poor and just scrape by to acheive that and I'm proud of the job I'm doing in raising happy kids who hopefully will not be as dysfunctional as I was when they become adults, thanks to my strenuous efforts.

I appreciate that some women would not agree with me and they would prefer to work full time. I appreciate that others would think the 3 days I have my kids in day care would be too much for their children and they choose to be SAHMs. I appreciate that what works for me, doesn't necessarily work for someone else. I fail to see you extend the same appreciation to other women. The tone of your posts says "Do what I do and you'll be happy". That just isn't the case. What works for some, doesn't work for others.

Greensleeve - my left wing blue collar family would be shocked at you attitude (as we fly the red flag!). Whose making assumptions now - inverted snobbery if ever....

Remember, during WWI my family was thrown out of the tythe cottage onto the streets, with nothing, because ggrandpa had the audacity to go against the land owners and sign up for King and Country....got a lot more historyonics where that came from, want to show and tell??

It's probably because I'm from such an entrenched WORKing class background that I felt so ashamed. No other member of my family had ever claimed benefits before, they'd always worked or not eaten very much so ner

I would really like to see a positive attitude to being a "mummy" "daddy" and that they have a feeling of self worth for staying at home and working at bring up/raising children.

A positive attuitude from society isn't just going to come into being if all lone parents get into work outside the home.

Teachers bear the brunt of a lot of badly behaved children that come from homes both with one or two parents that are never actually at home for the children, or even if they are at home they are to knackered from work to actualy have anything left to give their children in the terms of parenting.

Society bears the brunt of children not turning out as we would like, work outside the home is not the answer.

I have choices and make every excuse to work rather than HE my dc, I just couldn't do it. I admire someone that is going to HE, I use the state system for my dc and it is best for them as I would not be able to give them a good education at home.

I understand where you are coming from BB. I feel ashamed and guilty that I claim and i'm a single parent.

I'd love to have a job and get some self respect back.

there are plenty of working class tories

your assumption of the link between eceonomic success and self-esteem - or the right to self-esteem - isn't terribly socialist, is it?

Perhaps your left-wing blue-collar family would be a bit surprised at you, rather than me

sorry about the bear

I think the bigger picture here is that op and the rest of us have the choice to home ed and be sah parents should we wish to. However crap she and the rest of you believe the benefits system is it is allowing her, as a single parent, the option to educate her daughter at home as she wishes and to be a sah parent as well. In a lot of countries she would have to be working and wouldn't have the luxury of choice. However hard her life is she does have that choice.

Greeny now you're just namecalling - you don't normally do that.

Littlebella - don't have a problem with that at all, respect to you for your life choices.

The acceptance part is the bit I embrace, I could be a SAHM if we (as a family) took a financial hit. At the moment we choose not to. BUT if I had (when single) chosen to remain on benefits, I would have had to ACCEPT that I would not be able to afford any luxuries, so I guess this is where the evangelical nature of the posts comes from.

Accept the situation - ie I spend a lot of time at work (or on MN [grin}), or if you're on benefits it's not going to be financially pretty, or if you get a work life balance and work PT, make certain sacrifices.

I guess I go OTT when people sound unhappy about their choices ie the OP, and then get a bit too enthusiastic, but I do believe that if you are able to work, then you should. It's not fair on people who really can't work - either from the financial aspect OR from the image aspect (ie anyone on benefits is just a dirty rotten scrounger)

Would that I were that privileged right wing over class....

just a thought, but why not get shoppping delivered rather than pay £20 in bus and taxi?

I'm angry

because bb99 called somebody "less" - and moreover, "less" as a mum - which I think is absolutely disgusting

it's hard enough being piss-poor and having to say no to your children and do without things other people take for granted.

name-calling - I called her right-wing (which not everybody perceives as an insult) and a snob (which I stand by).

"be more than a benefit mummy" indeed.

I'm not convinced that home educating is good for anyone really, Laurie. But am prepared to look at all arguments. Off to search for some old threads now.

Greeny - I was speaking from personal experience and have already admitted that I do tend to project my own feelings of happiness on others too much.

Basically it's because I don't want other people to feel as shit challenged as I did when I was in that situation (again another massive projection, but that's just part of my nature)

I do believe that if you can, you should work and I do believe that a lot of people get suckered into the benefit lifestyle because they don't see any real choice and then loose their herdy feelings of self worth because there are always news articles about how useless people on benefits are (not really fair).

Have you ever had to face and fight the benefit trap?

lisad123 - cos the op doesn't have a credit card to pay online.

Although you can get precredit cards where you put the money on a card up front and then use online etc like a credit card. But it is more secure as you can just put small amounts of money on the card and dump it if the number gets taken etc

no, I haven't been a mother on benefits (although I was brought up by one, sporadically) but I have been homeless and in massive debilitating debt, lived without heating/electric light/£5 per week for food etc.

I do see where you are coming from with the self-worth comments, but I'm afraid I think attitudes like yours compound the problem - it's a bit like saying "show your dd something better than a parasitical lazy lifestyle" to a SAHM. I don't like to see people being kicked when they are down, basically, and "be more than a benefit mummy" is one of the most revolting comments I've ever seen on MN.

and stop posting shit fgs, we can still read it. You felt like shit on benefits. You think people on benefits are shit. You call it projection, and I'll call it right-wing snobbery.

Greeny - what is the generalised public perception of single women with children who claim benefits?

It's horrid, and unfair, and in a majority of cases unjustified. People are single parents for a variety of reasons ranging from death and divorce (probably the hardest situation financially) to careless extravagant enjoyment of the biblical kind.

Yet, because of societies perceptions of 'benefit mummies' all are reduced to the same stereotypical image. I think some women get suckered into believing that this is all they can aspire to when in the single parent situation and that IMVHO is grossly unfair, probably as unfair as you believe my original self-definition is.

Yes, parents in this country have the right to choose certain paths and to accept the consequences of their actions, but I still believe that if you can, you should work and more publicity needs to be given to the true face of single parents on benefits - the majority who DO work ft or pt, who DO care for their children exceptionally well, who DO aspire to rise above the stereotype that is thrown at them everyday and who DO challenge the common perception of what it is to be a single parent.

Please don't invalidate my feelings, it makes me feel very undermined

These were very real feelings I had at a challenging time in my life.