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.

you may be in some god-forsaken northern european island; I otoh am a living god in anshunt Rome

"living god" ROFL

deranged looney more like

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but DO be careful with the cash-in-hand work. I've had friends landed with MASSIVE tax bills after doing cash-in-hand work while on benefits. Without a paper trail they can claim you have earned thousands more than you have! You are leaving yourself open to being shat on, frankly. Please don't ignore this risk.

Insolence...

Iota is now dead as I've struck her with one of my thunderbolts

Yes declare it. You're not doing anything illegal by earning this much money

Blimey Caligula - where have you been?

I've been around. Am going back to my other name now... just had to use this one when the opportunity presented itself.

bb, have you been on mn long?

littlebella - I don't think I quite said that, possible implied as I am a product of the society we live in and I agree parenthood isn't valued enough in our culture, otherwise you're right, SAHParents would be encouraged and, dare I say, housing prices would accommodate more people being able to SAH and parent their kids and the benefit system would be more profligate.

I think your idea about the pervasive nature of the stereotype is a very interesting one - perhaps this is why I was so uncomfortable to be on benefits and why some others feel the same - and I agree that when your children need you ie death divorce etc as you mentioned, you have every right to be there and not to worry about working.

BUT at the same time I do believe that once your children are of school age, if there is no other reason to not work ie caring for someone, unable to through medical grounds, you child has BEEN to school and found the environment to be incompatible to a good education, then you should go to work.

Greeny - would 'aspire to be more than the stereotypical image you are continually confronted with, even if that is to SAH and be the best parent you can be through that particular route, while accepting the financial limitations this will place on you and your dc' be a more acceptable way of putting it? You may non-passively and overtly aggressively disagree or think that this was not the original intent if you so wish, but we do agree on most of the points bar a few pedantic semantics

Let's face it, if we were men, we'd all be down the pub right now, slapping each other on the back and sharing a joke IYSWIM.

You have another name

What is it - come on you can tell me

Long enough to get flammed pointy! lol

well, yeah . Good on you.

I personally see home ed as a luxury you can only really do if you (or some other party such as your partner, parents etc) can support you in doing so. So TBH I think it is unreasonable to be on benefits so that you can home ed. And I do begrudge my taxes paying someone else to stay at home and home ed their child when their is a state education available.

£20 is threshold of limit to earn a week but if you were only to earn that 44 weeks a year due to holidays for you both you would be entitled to all money legally as average would be £20 a week.
If you have the skills why not apply to childmind £60 is legal earnings on benefits as there is a big push for childare spaces to be available so for childminding only they disregard two thirds of earned money that way you could home ed and work and you would be takin same money as on tax credits without risk of tax credits screwing up and providing service for parents who choose to work outside the home

She is not saving anyone any money - she is costing the taxpayers money - she is just being a drain - she would pay in tax a year over what it costs to school a child for a year as well as supporting herself and having some pride and dignity.

Christ almighty, what a scrap !!!

Right I wonder how badly going to a state school - a rural one at that where the OP lives affects your life and how well you do as oppossed to being brought up in poverty by a parent who thinks it is ok to break the law of the land - because she has rights.

Mamazon - you are great - what single parents need to be their figurehead and role model not some woman who chooses not to go to work, breaks the law ande then boast about it.

OP I hope your child is taught morals by someone other than you in your HE system because yours stink!

I got to pge 4 and ive had to comment this poor girl is caught in a trap she is living rurally she cant afford the busfares to go to work she cant afford childcre and be able to collect the child mnaybe she is ill herself i could understand it if she was feeling depressed shes now cleaning someones house for £1.50 n hour iirc- i wouldnt work for that an hour would you?.......cut her some slack fgs her child is the only valuable thing she has - shes not dft she knows one day she might need her dd to go to school one dy her dd might want to go to school - for now shes doing the best she can and in my view thats all you can expect- fgs she hasnt even got an electron card,her clothes are all secondhand shes hardly commiting crime of the year ......sometimes the social divide on mumsnet really shows up.

£6 an hour

benefit fraud is a crime

Years ago I knew someone who stopped working and home educated because she read her DD's diary and found out that because of the bullying she was suffering at school, her DD was seriously considering suicide.

It really wasn't a luxury. It was a necessity. Her DD was so traumatised that even going to another school simply wasn't an option at that stage.

Home education isn't a lifestyle choice for some people. For some (all three of the families I know who did it, one of them with a child with SN) it was a desperate measure that they shouldn't have had to take.

Some of you are so bloody self-righteous about things you know nothing about. Yes there was state education available to the child of the woman I knew - but it was a state education that had traumatised her DD to the point of severe depression which took her some years to get over. I think she would be incredulous at the suggestion that it was a lifestyle choice.

But she can get a job whilst her child is at school and childcare then does not cost anything - FGS it is good enough for the majority of the poulation - HE is akin to paying for private school - something you can't do if you can't afford it.

The only reason that you should be claiming benefits is because you have to - you have made a lifestyle choice by choosing to HE so don't whine about the measly amount you get from the rest of the poulation who get off their arses and go to work to buy a coffee etc.

If you had come on here whining and saying all you did because you have a chld under school age or were disabled or had a disabled child I would be behind you all the way but you choose to claim decent honest taxpayers money because you think the system that is good enough for our kids is not for yours - get over yourself!

twinky you do have the moral high ground dont you, glass houses and stones spring to mind.......who is going to teach your dc morals?

We don't know if the OP has made a lifestyle choice or whether that decision was forced upon her.

Most families start off H E ing as a last resort. Only a minority do it without trying school first.

childcare costs, though.

even if you are on WTC/CTC.

Me and DH - we teach them morals - we have tackled not to steal, lie or hit - but they are only young - fraudulent behaviour may come later.

DD is very well adjusted by the way - coming from a broken home and being forced into our Dickensian School State School System at the tender age of 4!