Wow £50 a week worse off from today

mrsspendalot

woozyfloozy wrote: »

its about time they revolutionised the CSA too.

Well the CSA is getting scrapped, so they kind of are revolutionising it, although not to the benefit of those who have exes who want to avoid paying for their children.

You'll now have to pay to apply for them to try and get maintenance for you if you can't come to an agreement yourselves

Today is the last day of the public consultation on the changes
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2011/strengthening-families.shtml

Cat1

We have 3 children and we both work. OH is full time plus self employed at weekends. I work 30 hours a week. Once I net the childcare off against my take home pay I actually see about 70 quid a week. My eldest receives DLA and I would be entitled to carers allowance if I gave up my job, but I won't - there is no hope of finding a part time flexi hours job round here that pays more than the minimum wage. He's at school during the daytimes and I'm just going to have to suck up the childcare until they are all in full time education.

I don't understand the huge drop everyone has seen in there tax credits payments? Mine has gone down by about 10 quid a week but assumed that was because I had updated my income last month.

woozyfloozy

mrsspendalot wrote: »

Well the CSA is getting scrapped, so they kind of are revolutionising it, although not to the benefit of those who have exes who want to avoid paying for their children.

You'll now have to pay to apply for them to try and get maintenance for you if you can't come to an agreement yourselves


oh well thats just brilliant! ill never see a penny from him ever then. its just wrong. we both decided to have kids once upon a time so why is it down to me to support them? which i couldnt do without my husband, btw! it would annoy me having to fund someone else children.

liam8282

Cat1 wrote: »

I don't understand the huge drop everyone has seen in there tax credits payments? Mine has gone down by about 10 quid a week but assumed that was because I had updated my income last month.

I understand the drop after 05/04/11, well sort of.

Tax credits goes down for everyone, because tax allowances have gone up for everyone. Simple way of looking at it, and it isn't the same for everybody, but that is a good starting point.

But my drop what I was talking about was from Jan 11, so it was in the year to 05/04/11 and that tax credits year, so the new changes shouldn't have affected it, or should they? & as I said nothing changed except for my girlfriend working 1 hour more per week, but our tax reduced significantly.

anguk

bestpud wrote: »

I've had my eyes opened recently. I had no idea so many families with a reasonable income were raking in hundreds in tax credits!!

No wonder the country is in a mess! It's blamed on those at the bottom of the pile, but in fact, plenty of apparently self sufficient families have been doing very nicely with the help of benefits!!

It's even worse when they moan about pension contributions as that would have increased the tax credit allowance further!

Shocking!! :eek:

I'm also quite shocked by how much is paid in tax credits or help with childcare.

My eldest is now in his early 20s, when he was young I stayed at home to look after him and my OH earned about £400 a month. We didn't qualify for any benefits (I think it was called "Family Income Supplement" back then?) and there was no help at all with nursery costs.

We thought about me going back to work and I even found a job but then we worked out that by the time we paid ALL the nursery fees (remember there was no help for those back then) I would be working full-time for the grand total of £7.50 a week.

I'm quite happy for families with a low income to get help with tax credits and nursery fees but I am very surprised at how much income you can have and still get benefits on top.

It may be just me but £30,000 a year income isn't exactly what I'd call low. Maybe we just expect more now?

Marisco

I can go back even further anguk:eek: Were I lived there was no such things as nurseries!!! You either didn't work or family members helped out, all you got was family allowance, and until the late 70's early 80's (I think) it was only for the second and subsequent kids, nowt for the first!!!

liam8282

anguk wrote: »

It may be just me but £30,000 a year income isn't exactly what I'd call low. Maybe we just expect more now?

If you put that into todays terms and do a rough calculation you would be surprised.

£30,000 Gross, so about £24,000 after tax & NI.

So say a small family, 2 adults, 2 cars, 1 child.

Rent say £600 pm, council tax, gas, electric, water, tv licence, house insurance etc. say £500 pm.

Petrol, tax, insurance etc. say £300 pm.

Food shopping, say £400 pm.

Then nursery fees, say £30 per day, £30 x 5 x 52 = £7,800 pa or £650 pm.

Just using those basic figures plucked out of the air, if there were no benefits today, this small family would be losing £450 pm.

Maybe things just cost more now, the cost of living may have been a lot less 20 years ago?

shaftola

anguk wrote: »

I'm also quite shocked by how much is paid in tax credits or help with childcare.

My eldest is now in his early 20s, when he was young I stayed at home to look after him and my OH earned about £400 a month. We didn't qualify for any benefits (I think it was called "Family Income Supplement" back then?) and there was no help at all with nursery costs.

We thought about me going back to work and I even found a job but then we worked out that by the time we paid ALL the nursery fees (remember there was no help for those back then) I would be working full-time for the grand total of £7.50 a week.

I'm quite happy for families with a low income to get help with tax credits and nursery fees but I am very surprised at how much income you can have and still get benefits on top.

It may be just me but £30,000 a year income isn't exactly what I'd call low. Maybe we just expect more now?

30k sounds like a lot I admit but when your bringing up a young family nowadays it's not a lot of money,

Everything is so expensive?

dtaylor21184

I think they should reduce the cost of living and definitely the cost of childcare it's ridiculous and is the main reason people choose not to work which is ridiculous surely if childcare was funded more there would be more people able to go back to work

dtaylor21184

The scariest line I hear all the time is

" I can't afford to work "

it's the systems fault when they offer more money to people to not work than get minimum wage it's an easy option when this is the case.

What kind of system do the government think they are creating when people can't afford to work cos they are financially worse off.