The recession, benefits, the safety net, and the learning curve

PasturesNew

SingleSue wrote: »

I don't like failure.

I thought you liked me

Harry_Powell

Max_Headroom wrote: »

Little bit of an update. Remember the lady I mentioned who was living on benefits and buying the £140 Nikes?

Well, I've managed to find out how she (quite legitimately) does it.

Basically, she gets child maintenance from each of the fathers of her two children. That comes to about £240 from one and £150 from the other.

Then she gets income support. Not very much apparently because they take the maintenance she receives into account, but a small amount. This also then entitles her to free school meals for her kids, free prescriptions, and other bits and pieces.

Then she gets child benefit. forget how much, I did know. I'm sure someone can tell us.

Then she gets her three bedroomed house rent paid for outright.

Then she gets council tax paid for.

We worked out that someone working and getting no benefits would have to take home something like £1,400 a month to cover this level of income!

So before tax they'd have to be on over £20K a year just to match her. And that's before you start figuring what the free prescriptions and school meals and whatever else are worth.

She doesn't have to sign on every two weeks as I have to, she doesn't have to be seen to be looking for work. She has to attend some sort of career interview once every six months but there is no onus on her to actually have to be looking for work at all. Nothing to prove.

So basically, she got herself pregnant at (working on an educated guess at the age of her oldest) about 16, and again by someone else a bit later, (she's late twenties now) and she's now on the equivalent of over twenty grand a year.

Hence the Nikes, obviously...

Nice "work" if you can get it.

Now, what shall I spend my £15 after paying the bills on this week? Oh yes that's right, that's for food... :rolleyes:

It looks like this person gets the major part of her income from child support from her kid's dads and not the state. The Child Benefit is received by anyone with a kid, regardless of their income so we're just left with the bit of income support, free meals and stuff for the kids with the majority benefit coming from having her (rent?) fully paid. Are you saying that her annual rent (paid by the state ), bit of income support and other benefits add up to £20k?

I dont really know much about rent and mortgage payments, but dont most people receive these benefits when they're unemployed?

dopester

Do you get any reading on how other people are generally doing in your area Max, since last October?

Max_Headroom wrote: »

In my area (SW) there's a popular housing estate (not sure why, other than it's the only big "modern" estate in the immediate area, started about 10 years ago and still building, or they were...)

Anyway, when I first bought I looked at a typical 2 bed tiny terraced starter home but quickly dismissed it as too small (they are tiny) plus I didn't want to live on a new tightly packed estate (wisely as it turns out, lots of problems with gangs of kids up there now). I bought an older larger three bed place in a less popular area instead.

But I've always watched the price of these as the local property benchmark, simply because there is a lot of them, and they're all the same.

They rose to £150K in the mid 2000's and stuck there, asking prices hovering around the £150-£155K for the last two or three years. Bear in mind these are starter homes in an area where a good managerial wage for someone starting out in their early/mid 20's is about £20K, so even with a 10% deposit they're about 7x a good salary. Lots bought by BTL dreamers of late though I believe.

I reckon (have always reckoned) these places are realistically worth about £100K to be affordable to the sort of people that should be able to afford them (young families, first time buyers etc) which is a reasonable deposit and then 3.5x a £25K salary (or combined lower salaries in the case of a couple).

Out of interest I just had a look on Rightmove and found about five for sale, every single one asking £150K+!

Just goes to show, despite all the media and all the reports of the financial problems, lack of available credit and achieved house prices dropping, sellers just refuse to accept their properties are worth less than they were.

I don't think we'll start to see the real price drops until these sellers are forced to start visibly dropping their prices in order to create the opportunity for a sale. At the moment people must be looking at what they can borrow and what the asking prices are and just not bothering in which case no sale and no resultant price drop data.

I see it like an avalanche. It's just starting to slide, but it's not until it really picks up some momentum that it'll pick up any real weight and speed.

Seems like a waste of energy to me... concentrating on the unfairness of what others get from the system.

STR.

Max_Headroom_3

It's relevant because she has an effective income, mainly via benefits of over twenty thousand pounds a year. In her late twenties and without actually working!

For sure some of that comes via child support, but any income stream I have comes straight off my benefits, so why not her?

It's relevant because it finally proves precisely what I said in my very first post, which is that it is entirely possible for someone to live a very comfortable life via benefits (despite those who say it can't be done), whereas a single male who's worked for 25 years paying tax and NI the whole time and finds himself out of work can barely scrape by (I still maintain that I can't scrape by in fact, but I'm assured it's possible to live and eat on £15/week).

That's the relevance, a living breathing example of how it can be done, how it's possible to live in comfort and in reasonable style (complete with three bed house and a nice little car and a mobile phone and £140 trainers for one of the kids for birthday).

And that's before you consider that I have to attend the job centre every fortnight to beg for my benefits to be continued via explaining exactly what I've done to try and find a job, whereas all she has to do is pitch up every six months, demonstrate nothing, and let them know that she can't be bothered to work, thanks anyway.

That's what the whole thread has been about!

(And breathe... )

SingleSue

PasturesNew wrote: »

I thought you liked me

Lol! You are NOT a failure

Max_Headroom_3

Dopester, as far as I'm aware prices are still dropping. Whilst dawdling down the high street on the way to the job centre (I was early) I had a look in a few estate agents windows and three beds are now asking less than two beds were.

So yes, prices are still dropping as far as I can tell, and yes selling to rent still makes absolutely zero sense for me to do.

You'll have to scroll up through this post if you want to try and understand why, it's been spelled out many many times.

But I doubt you will. :rolleyes:

Harry_Powell

Max_Headroom wrote: »

It's relevant because she has an effective income, mainly via benefits of over twenty thousand pounds a year. In her late twenties and without actually working!

For sure some of that comes via child support, but any income stream I have comes straight off my benefits, so why not her?

It's relevant because it finally proves precisely what I said in my very first post, which is that it is entirely possible for someone to live a very comfortable life via benefits (despite those who say it can't be done), whereas a single male who's worked for 25 years paying tax and NI the whole time and finds himself out of work can barely scrape by (I still maintain that I can't scrape by in fact, but I'm assured it's possible to live and eat on £15/week).

That's the relevance, a living breathing example of how it can be done, how it's possible to live in comfort and in reasonable style (complete with three bed house and a nice little car and a mobile phone and £140 trainers for one of the kids for birthday).

And that's before you consider that I have to attend the job centre every fortnight to beg for my benefits to be continued via explaining exactly what I've done to try and find a job, whereas all she has to do is pitch up every six months, demonstrate nothing, and let them know that she can't be bothered to work, thanks anyway.

That's what the whole thread has been about!

(And breathe... )

But is she getting any more than you? She doesnt personally benefit from the free school meals, free milk. She gets free rent, but so do most other people who are unemployed (I believe?). She gets child benefit but so do everyone who have a kid.

I'm confused because I thought you said her income support was reduced by the child support income. if this is the case, then essentially she is just receiving free rent, school meals and milk over and above what a working parent would receive.

PasturesNew

Max_Headroom wrote: »

(I still maintain that I can't scrape by in fact, but I'm assured it's possible to live and eat on £15/week).

I popped out earlier today and happened upon a luxury at a bargain price - well over my usual budget. I picked up two lovely fresh ¼ pounder lamb/mint burgers. Nice juicy, thick ones. Grabbed a pack of full-price bread rolls too. Home .... supposed to have just had one burger in one roll with a squirt of ketchup for lunch ... but greed got the better of me and I ate both. Total cost £1.25 + (£0.81/3) = £1.52. The remaining four rolls will be ideal as two meals, so that'll bring the average down) - and these were an exceptionally high spend for me ... they were lovely though

I picked up 2.5Kg of baking spuds the other day at the supermarket, £1.40, 10 spuds. That's 10 meals, so 14p a meal + topping. Topping is cheapest mature cheddar (£2/400g max) and so that'd probably be 20p a time. Cheap, filling meal, 34p. Chuck in 1/3 of a tin of beans on that and it's about 50p. I still maintain £15 is doable - and I don't meal plan, I don't have a freezer and I don't "skimp", I just buy carefully what I randomly stumble across - and still have treats.

Max_Headroom_3

Harry_Powell wrote: »

But is she getting any more than you? She doesnt personally benefit from the free school meals, free milk. She gets free rent, but so do most other people who are unemployed (I believe?). She gets child benefit but so do everyone who have a kid.

I'm confused because I thought you said her income support was reduced by the child support income. if this is the case, then essentially she is just receiving free rent, school meals and milk over and above what a working parent would receive.

She benefits from the free school meals, free milk, free prescriptions, and free whatever else she's due by simple dint of not having to pay for them.

Is she getting any more than me?

Well, in simple monetary terms, I'm getting an "income" that I suppose would amount to what, £4,500 - £5,000 a year if I were earning it? Her "income" equates to over £20,000 a year if she were earning it.

If you want to look at it a non monetary way, she's able to live a comfortable life on her raft of benefits, I'm not.

So the answer to your question is, I'd say, a resounding yes however you look at it!

To go right back to the very original point, what it proves is this.

We have a benefits system that allows those who dive right into it, embrace it and clutch it to their bosom to live very nicely if they do it right.

But simultaneously we have a benefits system that will not support a working man who has always supported himself and paid in to the system the whole time and finds himself temporarily (I hope!) out of work despite having the absolute bare minimum of expenses to cover.

It's not right, but unusually it manages to be not right at both polar opposites of the scale!

Not supporting those that genuinely need it whilst comfortably supporting those that want to make a "career" of it.

Harry_Powell

Max_Headroom wrote: »

She benefits from the free school meals, free milk, free prescriptions, and free whatever else she's due by simple dint of not having to pay for them.

Is she getting any more than me?

Well, in simple monetary terms, I'm getting an "income" that I suppose would amount to what, £4,500 - £5,000 a year if I were earning it? Her "income" equates to over £20,000 a year if she were earning it.

If you want to look at it a non monetary way, she's able to live a comfortable life on her raft of benefits, I'm not.

So the answer to your question is, I'd say, a resounding yes however you look at it!

To go right back to the very original point, what it proves is this.

We have a benefits system that allows those who dive right into it, embrace it and clutch it to their bosom to live very nicely if they do it right.

But simultaneously we have a benefits system that will not support a working man who has always supported himself and paid in to the system the whole time and finds himself temporarily (I hope!) out of work despite having the absolute bare minimum of expenses to cover.

It's not right, but unusually it manages to be not right at both polar opposites of the scale!

Not supporting those that genuinely need it whilst comfortably supporting those that want to make a "career" of it.

her kids benefit from the free milk and school meals, not her. From your statement, she has less personal income from benefits than you because of her child support. she gets other benefits for the kids, but they dont amount to much.

If you rented a house, then you'd also get your rent paid from the state. I'm sorry but I just dont see what the child maintenance bit has to do with the rest of your thread. TBH I think it's great that the dads are paying for their own kids instead of me via my taxes. If I had kids and split up from my gf ' I'd also expect to pay her maintenance for the kids. I wouldn't see it as providing her with an income but instead see it as being a responsible dad.

Surely your OP is about the inequities of the benefit system, not about the rights and wrongs of absent fathers having to pay OTT child support? In this respect, if she has had her income support reduced or stopped completely due to the income from her ex's child maintenance, then doesn't it prove the system works?