Does any have, or have had, au pairs?

missk_ensington

I get £600 a month in ALL benefits (232 DLA, £200 Direct Payments, £200 diability premium on tax cred).

How dare ANYONE cast aspersions of whether i love my child, I absolutely shall not, need not, and will not even bother justifying that comment. If saying that I find 2-3 hours of playing bricks/reading the hungry catepillar with a toddler laborious makes me a bad mother, then I anticipate there are a hell of a lot more closet bad parents reading this now!

As for what I receive in benefits, I have told the 100% truth to all officials, of they have made a mistake in what they have given me based on the info I've told them then that isn;t my fault. I've told them the situation as it is, and that's what they gave me.

I understand now, I shouldn't use the au pair as a carer who is flexible, available, and already here. Instead I should send her back, and pay an agency carer at £12 an hour (thus costing the tax payer an ADDITIONAL £150 A WEEK).

OR I'll employ an offical agency assistant in addition to my au pair, thus again wasting taxpayers monies spo that they can BOTH sit there whilst I have a bath and cook dinner. Very practical.

By rights an au pair isn't what Direct Payments would recommend, but since she was already here (its hardly practical to send her back to Australia in order to be pedantic over correctness).

Really what difference does it make to you, or any taxpayer on here if I claim £50 a week for my au pair, or £200 a week for an agency carer??????? I guess the assessor who okayed it for me to do this, used her COMMON SENSE and realised it was best for everyone if my au pair was my persona assistant.

missk_ensington

PS. If I didn't have my son I would only lose my tax credits, not my DLA or Direct Payments. My son only "earns" me £100 in Working/Child tax credits.

Hardly a gravy train.

Zara33

It's a little thing called concscience

Edinburghlass_2

So are you actually going to pay this girl a proper wage for all the extra work/time you expect her to be there

missk_ensington

I paid her £50 wage because 1) she agreed to it- she had plenty of pother offers she didnt need to accept it. 2) It was all I could afford because as I said, I didnt know about Direct Payments unitl recently and it was coming out of my own pocket and all I oculd afford. Now that I know Direct Payments will help out, yes I will raise her wage to £75 which is a 50% increase.

Zara33

As for what I receive in benefits, I have told the 100% truth to all officials, of they have made a mistake in what they have given me based on the info I've told them then that isn;t my fault.

Perhaps you could get your DLA re assessed then

Edinburghlass_2

No its not a 50% increase as in fact you have her working all hours and not just 20.

So exactly how much is Direct Payments helping out?

missk_ensington

As for having a conscience, why should my conscience be pricked because I am receving monies I am legitimately entitled to because I'm disabled??

I am not "fiddling" anything, although just to p1ss you off a bit more, I really dont care if people do fiddle thing. We're taxed on our fags. Our beer. Our inheritance. Our wage. Our house in many forms - stamp duty, council tax....., our saving (ironically, we pay 20% out of our wages in tax, and then if we decide to put some away, ooooh we pay tax on it again) tax on our roads, on our petrol, on our car................................................................................. Where does the list end?

Many people need to squeeze an extra few quid out of the system just to have some kind of existence.

Zara33

missk_ensington wrote:

As for having a conscience, why should my conscience be pricked because I am receving monies I am legitimately entitled to because I'm disabled??

I am not "fiddling" anything, although just to p1ss you off a bit more, I really dont care if people do fiddle thing. We're taxed on our fags. Our beer. Our inheritance. Our wage. Our house in many forms - stamp duty, council tax....., our saving (ironically, we pay 20% out of our wages in tax, and then if we decide to put some away, ooooh we pay tax on it again) tax on our roads, on our petrol, on our car................................................................................. Where does the list end?

Many people need to squeeze an extra few quid out of the system just to have some kind of existence.

Perhaps try complaining to your MP if you feel so hard done by :rolleyes:

missk_ensington

In all jobs, when you are "on call" you either don't get paid at all, or get paid a drastically reduced wage. I don't see how she is any different.

I also think that £75 for less that 25 hours a week work in real terms, as well as all your food, rent, utilities..... is more than enough.

Do you have £75 a week PURELY DISPOSABLE INCOME? cos I certainly dont