Nice People 12: Nice in Nice

ukmaggie45

GDB2222 wrote: »

It's DW's birthday midweek, too. I am not allowed to buy her presents, as she is in mourning for her ma, but she'll be upset if I don't. What to do? Lol.

Good luck with the move, pn.

Only suggestion I have is maybe a bouquet of flowers (for the house?).

And good luck for the move from me too, PN.

Cleaning shower - Lakeland do a cleaner called Scrub-Free for £4.99. Comes with some caveats though: "(Not suitable for use on gold fittings, frosted glass, aluminium or galvanized metal, enamel, natural marble or stone.)" Which means it's no good for our bathroom as bath is enamelled. Would be OK for downstairs shower though.

GDB2222

PasturesNew wrote: »

No. Day after.

Completion = get keys, look around, take a couple of "handy" things over there e.g. the new shed shelves, the fabric wardrobe (bought and still in the boot) and maybe the sunlounger, folding chairs and vacuum cleaner.

Idea is to look around, maybe measure up those curtains again .... buy a ladder.... buy some quick voiles, put those up.

Moving is the day after.

Now I understand. That makes perfect sense. I knew you were an old hand at this, but that timetable would have been a bit too fine if it applied to completion day.

GDB2222

lostinrates wrote: »

You know that smug, wonderful , 'I've got everything SO sorted feeling of getting the washing on just before the rain starts?'


Yeah, well, missed that by about eight minutes. How is it that the washing always gets in less wet that the person collecting it?

Its very heavy rain.

You have my sympathy. Yesterday, it was fine and sunny all afternoon. So, we stayed in so DW could watch some blokes grunting and hitting a ball about. Then, after that, we went out together for a good walk, only to get drenched, of course.

lemonjelly

LydiaJ wrote: »

Oooh, jelly's suggestion is the same as mine!

& of course, we're both "lj's"

That has confused me a few times, when people reply to you, & I'm scratching my head thinking "I didn't ask that though..." :rotfl:

LydiaJ

Doozergirl wrote: »

Tread carefully here, PN. There are options open to you as well through the welfare system. Working Tax Credits are available to people without children - I don't know details, but Martin was on This Morning this morning(!) talking about it. I know next to nothing about entitlements, but you will also be entitled to Council Tax benefit etc and I know that owning a home doesn't eliminate people from most forms of benefit.

I know you don't like forms, but money is available to they people you call 'they' primarily because they fill out the form, perhaps not just because they are in a couple or have children. Like Lydia says, you can't make a profit on childcare.

There is a website called 'entitledto' or something, where you can plug in your circumstances and it will tell you what you might be able to claim, or maybe you could muster the energy to speak to CAB.

I think you should claim what you are entitled to. It's not fair to be angry with low income working parents getting more if you don't ask for what you could have.

It's important to realise that now you've spent all your money on a house, PN, you qualify for more help than you did when you had the cash in the bank.

PasturesNew wrote: »

Yes, but the cut off is low, pretty much NMW. So really of no benefit most of the time to your average single person working full-time. And, if I did go to "the bare minimum" of 30 hours/week (the criteria), I think I'd get £5 WTC.

Never knew that to be honest! I know about the 25% discount, but not a benefit. Or maybe that's it.

I generally expect that salaries on offer might be around £15-16k ... who knows, maybe I'll get £23-25k when it comes to it....

At £15-16k there'd be nothing.

I'm not really bothered about "me" as such, just the system and low wages in general being supported by the system. Bosses who offer low salaries, because they assume everybody in their employ will be getting £100-200/week top ups.

Low Wages: That's the issue/point I am trying to discuss. Not me .....

I actually expect/hope to get a job at £18-21k ..... way way way above benefits cut offs. But, I know that without the system underpinning low wages I'd have easily been able to find a job paying, say, £25-27k... or more.

Benefits lets bosses off paying a fair wage.

I do understand your frustration, PN. But it's very difficult. The regulations around staff/child ratios make childcare expensive. If bosses had to pay everyone the kind of wage that would allow parents of small children to afford the childcare to work, then the NMW would have to go up by more than bosses could afford, and then all the childcare workers would have to be paid more too, so the childcare would get even more expensive, and it would spiral.

Even without the childcare consideration, I don't know if it's possible to structure benefits so that they adequately protect people who have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own without inadvertently incentivising the workshy to stay at home doing nothing, or not much. Agree that the present system is capable of being improved, though.

PasturesNew wrote: »

NMW for over 21s is £6.31. 30 hours/week (WTC cut off for a single) = £9843.60 per annum.

Fed that into entitledto. It'd be worth £25.72/week WTC and £1.04/week for council tax (if no savings as it's means tested).

Tried it at 35 hours/week = £11,484.20/year and that gave £0 WTC/week. I checked for council tax and it came up as £0.

Adding up the £9843.60 + WTC, it looks like the cut off for a single person is £11,181.04. Earn more than that and you're on your own.

It works out that once you earn about £7.20/hour, you are either earning too much, or not working enough hours, to qualify.

Edit: Oh, I forgot the £25.72 is tax free. So I did some more calcs. NMW/30 hours is a takehome of £801.42/month + £111.45 WTC = £912.87/month takehome, which would be the equivalent of earning £12k.

But now you've got no money, PN, you could be claiming out of work benefits while you look for a job. You should be able to get council tax benefit now too - AFAIK that's for people on low income with low capital whether they're working or not.

Go back to entitledto and put in your actual current data, and see what it tells you you can get right now, before you get a job.

lemonjelly

Doozergirl wrote: »

Tread carefully here, PN. There are options open to you as well through the welfare system. Working Tax Credits are available to people without children - I don't know details, but Martin was on This Morning this morning(!) talking about it. I know next to nothing about entitlements, but you will also be entitled to Council Tax benefit etc and I know that owning a home doesn't eliminate people from most forms of benefit.

I know you don't like forms, but money is available to they people you call 'they' primarily because they fill out the form, perhaps not just because they are in a couple or have children. Like Lydia says, you can't make a profit on childcare.

There is a website called 'entitledto' or something, where you can plug in your circumstances and it will tell you what you might be able to claim, or maybe you could muster the energy to speak to CAB.

I think you should claim what you are entitled to. It's not fair to be angry with low income working parents getting more if you don't ask for what you could have.

PN I agree with doozer here. Plus I do this for a living. Sure I've suggested ctb before? But if not, on your subsequent calculations seems you would get some WTC as well as the 25% discount (but possibly not ctb as well).

lostinrates wrote: »

You know that smug, wonderful , 'I've got everything SO sorted feeling of getting the washing on just before the rain starts?'


Yeah, well, missed that by about eight minutes. How is it that the washing always gets in less wet that the person collecting it?

Its very heavy rain.

Happened to me yesterday. Worse, I'd got all the washing in, except the socks, which were a little damp.
Then it rained, & they were soaked....

LydiaJ

lemonjelly wrote: »

& of course, we're both "lj's"

That has confused me a few times, when people reply to you, & I'm scratching my head thinking "I didn't ask that though..." :rotfl:

It's confused me a few times too! Although I think most NP who put lj mean you most of the time... just not quite all the time, to keep you and me on our toes. :rotfl:

lostinrates

If you were a clarisonic face brush who had been missing for a few weeks, where would you be hiding? Not in the bathroom, not under the bed. The places it goes are bathroom and bedroom......so.....kinda run out of ideas.

I'm worried it might have dropped down a hole in the floor.

lostinrates

Clarisonic makes one's skin so soft and smooth its incredible. Your pores get tiny too. My rosacea likes it, my dry bits like it, every thing likes it. And because the skin is so smooth you use hardly any product so save money on expensive lotions and potions.

silvercar

Lydiaj wrote:

I do understand your frustration, PN. But it's very difficult. The regulations around staff/child ratios make childcare expensive. If bosses had to pay everyone the kind of wage that would allow parents of small children to afford the childcare to work, then the NMW would have to go up by more than bosses could afford, and then all the childcare workers would have to be paid more too, so the childcare would get even more expensive, and it would spiral.

Without wanting to sound older than I am, I went back to work in 1995, there was no help with childcare in the form of benefits at all and childcare was a lot cheaper than it is now. There were a lot less nurseries and a lot less childminders. Most childminders were mums of young kids who didn't want to leave their own and were happy to have some extra money themselves. There was very little provision for wrap around care, little ones either went to nurseries with restricted hours or childminders. Nowadays there seems to be nurseries offering varied hours and nannies and childminders providing before and after school/ nursery care. It was also very difficult to find high level part time work.

*feeling old*