Do people on here wonder how someone like me copes? I earn £12K/year.

[hekissedmybottom]

I grew up poor, single parent on benefits, partied through uni, worked all my life but never got paid much. My highest salary was 28K/year in London as a single woman. Felt absolutely minted.

Now I'm on benefits with a child as a single parent and still feel well off compared to how I grew up.

I think this kind of life is unfathomable to some people on here.

Yep and her child will probably go to continue this oh so noble family tradition 🤦🏼‍♀️

Seems unfathomable to me, my rent alone costs more than you earn a year.
Your earnings would leave my rent in a deficit of £200 pm.
I don't live anywhere luxurious, but I'd be fucked. If you're comfortable, then that's good. I'm glad that life is still OK on a small amount of money.

what's your WFH freelance job?

I could just about scrape by on £1,000 per month. My mortgage is only £350, for which I am grateful.

But living on £1000 per month- it’s not a life I would choose and to be honest it’s not one that I’d be happy in. It would limit my options.

i am glad OP feels happy and content in this amount.

Yes I absolutely agree. I earn over 10 times that and still find everything unaffordable. I suppose my goalposts are different.

What do you find unaffordable?

I have literally no idea what your life is that with those earnings.

Depending on your benefits claims, debts, child maintenance from DC's father, family support, childcare costs, and most crucially your housing costs you could be anything from pretty comfortable to grindingly poor.

You earn more than £120k and find EVERYTHING unaffordable? Really?

Are your goalposts diamond shoes?

I'm pretty frugal but there's no way I could live on £12k, I can only guess you're not including all benefits.

Where are people getting these benefit figures from? I earn about what op earns, live with my disabled husband (he can't work) and 2 children and with esa pip and tax credits we still don't get the kind of figures people are talking about here, and we have a mortgage so no housing help

It’s probably an MLM 🙈

No I don't mean I literally find things unaffordable. I mean that I earned 50k in 2006 and felt like I had heaps of money, lived in central London, nice holidays, eating out etc. Now I earn so much more (admittedly not done the maths on how much in inflation adjusted terms), live a while out in a not very desirable area, and the money seems to disappear. Bloody ski holidays might have something to do with it!

She told you. EVERYTHING.

Not if she is earning £1k a month

You don't get free school meals if you claim working tax credits.No matter what your income is.

She’s probably earning nothing and the 12k is benefits

Where are people getting these benefit figures from? I earn about what op earns, live with my disabled husband (he can't work) and 2 children and with esa pip and tax credits we still don't get the kind of figures people are talking about here, and we have a mortgage so no housing help

It’s just to stir people up.

The average single parent on benefits is in total £12k per year.

Even working full time and receiving benefit top ups most people receive less than £20k in total.

Most MNers don’t live in the real world and think people on benefits have it easier than they do on double the amount or more.

I remember cleaning which was my second job and some woman having a go at me that I’m so lucky because I probably get benefits to top up my wages and I don’t get how hard it is because her and her DH ONLY get £45k between them - which was almost 4x the amount I got every year but I somehow had it easier because my child got FSM.

It'll be because you have a mortgage. If you rented you'd get help with that.

@Cocobutt so are you saying that posters are stirring the pot and people don’t get benefits packages of £35-40k pa?

This

on min wage you’re working max 20 hours a week?

If you have benefits on the side it's probably quite simple to live on if you live in a modest area and don't drive a new car, foreign holidays etc. 12k a year on its own would be unimaginable, even without a child.

Wouldn't OP get housing benefit for rent

Thanks. I knew it was different but couldn't remember why!
So regardless of which system she is on OP won't qualify for FSM

Well OP didn't seem to want to chat that much...