Feel like going back on benefits.

pelirocco

merlin68 wrote: »

Hubbie is now out working 12 hours a day, six days a week. For about £200 a week. We have no family time and getting to the point I can't afford to feed the kids or anything else for that matter. Can't even afford to save for the tax bill as his self employed.
Before we got £100 hb/ctb
£175 income support/ca
£183 CTC
£33 CB =£491

Now we get
£174 ctc
£74 wtc
£55 CA
£33 cb
£200 wages. =£509-£100 rent and council tax-£50 petrol- [EMAIL="tax@ni"]tax@ni[/EMAIL] £20=£339

So were over £100 a week worse over, We have also lost free school dinners and school transport.

You have allowed for tax and NI ?

merlin68

It's all declared, honestly. I had to notify HMRC and carers allowance of my income. Not that i'm working now.

ska_lover

Merlin, I understand how you feel. It IS disheartening sometimes. I have a slightly different point of view on this subject.

Me and OH work full time and live on a council estate at present (saving hard to move off) and in the mornings when we all get up to go out, we see one other family on the same road getting up to go to work. One other family! Most people on the road are on benefits. It's disheartening when you really do not feel like getting up on an icey morning to go to work, and know your neighbours are going to have a nice long day of chilling out, after a long day of relaxing the day before and all on your income tax. I do hear where you are coming from with this.

The point I would like to make after my long ramble, is all these familys who do not work, I have lived near some of them for 15 years, and these are the same familys who pass down the benefits torch to their kids - I have seen it...., because they see that as the way to live, that is how they have seen their parents live, and that is how they will live. They are impressionable. The girls become single mothers and the lads become dossers with no aspiration to do anything other. It is how they have been brought up - it is the message their parents have given them. I would be scared of giving the 'It is OK to be on benefits for an easy life/more money - rather than go out there and achieve something' message to my kids. You really do need to think of the message you would be giving your kids if you did this.

Thats all really, i'm not trying to infer you are a bad parent at all, just offering up a different, but imo valid point of view.

3v3

ska_lover wrote: »

....Me and OH work full time and live on a council estate at present (saving hard to move off) and in the mornings when we all get up to go out, we see one other family on the same road getting up to go to work. One other family! Most people on the road are on benefits. ...
..... I would be scared of giving the 'It is OK to be on benefits for an easy life/more money - rather than go out there and achieve something' message to my kids. You really do need to think of the message you would be giving your kids if you did this.

Well said! :T

The two points I've quoted really struck a cord with me: at which point did living on a council estate change from something to be proud of to being synonymous with benefits?
And secondly, when did being being on benefits equate to an "easy life/more money"?
I grew up in a council house at a time when having one was a privilege, not a right and people in council houses took pride in their upkeep and adhered to strict rules about how it was kept!

When I was growing up, claiming any benefit (and they were pretty meagre then too!) was seen with a degree of embarassment and people took a pride in the fact they worked (no matter how lowly paid; there was a pride in having *any* job and earning an "honest" living). My widowed mother worked very hard, doing menial work despite her intelligence, so her children were fed, clothed and had a roof over their heads.

Equally, I had to rely on state benefits for a brief period when I was made redundant and was a single mother with three primary school aged children. I took three part time jobs just to keep my head above water (and had to take my children with me after school hours). But, at least I earned the money for the food on the table and the clothes on their backs and being fortunate enough to take them with me to my cleaning job meant I at least was able to still supervise them and make a game out of it so it wasn't tedious or debilitating for the children. I did anything and everything (just like my mother) - aside from prostitution - because my family were my responsibility and not the responsibility of the state or fellow tax payers.

Maybe "standards" in the traditional sense are a thing of the past? I find that saddening.

ska_lover

3v3 wrote: »

Well said! :T

The two points I've quoted really struck a cord with me: at which point did living on a council estate change from something to be proud of to being synonymous with benefits?
And secondly, when did being being on benefits equate to an "easy life/more money"?
I grew up in a council house at a time when having one was a privilege, not a right and people in council houses took pride in their upkeep and adhered to strict rules about how it was kept!

When I was growing up, claiming any benefit (and they were pretty meagre then too!) was seen with a degree of embarassment and people took a pride in the fact they worked (no matter how lowly paid; there was a pride in having *any* job and earning an "honest" living). My widowed mother worked very hard, doing menial work despite her intelligence, so her children were fed, clothed and had a roof over their heads.

Equally, I had to rely on state benefits for a brief period when I was made redundant and was a single mother with three primary school aged children. I took three part time jobs just to keep my head above water (and had to take my children with me after school hours). But, at least I earned the money for the food on the table and the clothes on their backs and being fortunate enough to take them with me to my cleaning job meant I at least was able to still supervise them and make a game out of it so it wasn't tedious or debilitating for the children. I did anything and everything (just like my mother) - aside from prostitution - because my family were my responsibility and not the responsibility of the state or fellow tax payers.

Maybe "standards" in the traditional sense are a thing of the past? I find that saddening.

I agree, I grew up in a council house and it was seen as a privilege, and all houses on the estate were very well kept, neighbours knew each other etc. I do think council tenants are kind of looked down on these days - it's a shame, and not the reason we want to move, we just would like a choice of where we live.

Even the Council themselves look down on their own tenants and constantly patronise and belittle them. From the first point of contact onwards, it is quite demoralising dealing with them.

I had to get my local MP involved to get an 'urgent' water leak attended to, which was meant to be a 12 hour call out, yet took two weeks of constant water leak (obv I turned the water off most of the time). The repairs office kept saying that they had been here to fix the leak but we were out (which was bs) until they finally accused me of being out on a repair visit when at the time I was in fact at home having a meeting with a senior housing officer.There was a major investigation into their repair 'service'.

I'm not sure what it is like in other council areas, if there are large proportions unemployed - I only know what I see on my road. If you walk down the road at 7am, you would be lucky to see another living soul, but if you walk down the road at midnight, there are always people about.

I remember the benefits embarrasment that people felt back then as well. Our dad was made redundant and we were on free school meals at senior school for a while, which at our school meant at the beggining of lunchtime, the kids on free school meals were called to the front of the class to be given these giant pink laminated cards which we were to take to the canteen to get our meal. There was a real stigma and bullying attached to being seen with these cards and getting a free meal, to the extent that most of the time I never ate at school - it was awful. And if your parents earned low wages, it was tough, there was none of this working tax credits to help.

Back when my lad was little, I was a single parent, and on benefits but also did what I could, work at home schemes, Avon, you do what bit you can don't you. As soon as he was at nursery I luckily found a job to fit in with school hours and have over time progressed. Back then I used to go to mother and baby groups, and have met many single parents around this area and an awful lot of them (from off the estate), I'm sorry to say, used it as an excuse to never work - and still don't years later.

I can really ramble when I get going, sorry if anyone has fell asleep!

3v3

ska_lover wrote: »

...
I can really ramble when I get going, sorry if anyone has fell asleep!

:rotfl: I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

Mupette

catch up dmg merlin has already said that she no longer cleans

3v3

Mupette wrote: »

catch up dmg merlin has already said that she no longer cleans

Eeeeewwww, dirty!

Oldernotwiser

3v3 wrote: »

The two points I've quoted really struck a cord with me: at which point did living on a council estate change from something to be proud of to being synonymous with benefits?

I don't think that there's anything wrong with living on a council estate but I don't think it's ever been something to be particularly proud of.

3v3

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I don't think that there's anything wrong with living on a council estate but I don't think it's ever been something to be particularly proud of.

Really? Maybe we come from differing backgrounds then

There was a documentary in recent months specifically about "council housing".

After the war, in the 1950's, (boom time for council housing projects) there was a huge increase in the availabilitiy of "council housing"; for many, this was an opportunity to be released from the degradation of private landlords/tied cottages, who didn't give a damn, yet charged regardless, and the those who were still homeless following the WWII. To be "awarded" a council property was deemed a 'step up the ladder'. Certain criteria had to be met (such as ability to pay the rent) and strict regulations were laid down on how the property should be kept (standards in curtains, for example; cleanliness, keeping the 'grounds' neat and tidy, etc., ). People were 'proud' because it meant, if they obeyed the regulations, they would have a home for life - this meant that when the original tenants died, the offspring were able to take over the tenancy: just so long as the rent was paid and the property cared for ) So, yes, there was indeed a sense of pride! There was no other scheme in existence which offered such security of tenure (other than mortgage, of course!). Rackman springs to mind (in terms of private lettting) and was the fear of many in terms of private renting.

Also, council housing in its infancy, included space to grow-your-own and was deemed essential (at that time: a lesson to be learned in today's lean times?).

With respect: it really *was* a source of pride!