ask a simple question.. why does someone earning one thousand pounds a week.. a thousand pounds a week.. need 20 quid extra a week to raise thier kid?

i d much rather the 20 quid was spent on someone who would see a real difference for that 20 quid..

I have the lovely situation of earning £60k with my wife not working

Whilst my gross salary is decent, the disposable income is pretty much bugger all at the moment
Would it be rude to suggest that you’re living beyond your means or one of you is spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave?
We managed great on a single wage of about 75% national average with 3 kids

Not rude.

But also incorrect. Mortgage is about £12k a year, which is nearly half my net income after pension contributions. Then there’s council tax, utilities, insurance. We end up with about £100 a month for frivolity.

Which is hardly rich, but according to the taxation system…..we’re evidently loaded.

Mortgage is too big then, thats a choice. Benefits should be for those who cannot opt to pay 12k a year on their mortgage.

Tonyd.

Not accurate in the slightest.

I live in one of the lowest paid counties, Herefordshire, which has one of the highest housing costs when compared to salary. The housing costs are nowhere near southeast prices, I’m not claiming that, but the difference between salary and housing is high. I can’t afford to buy a house, never have been in the financial position to. Low paid or average salary up until a couple of years ago.

I earn above the national average, but not by much. I recieve no benefits other than Child Benefit. The Wife and I made a decision when we had kids that she would stay at home to raise them. When they were old enough she returned to college, got qualified, and now works part time as a SEN Teaching Assistant. Works term time only, 15 hours per week for just above minimum wage, to ensure no child care problems.

I lived and worked in London, a long time ago admittedly, but decided that it was not the environment in which I wanted to live and eventually raise a family. Where to live, work, raise a family are choices I / We made.

You do not have to live in the southeast and work in London. You do not have to buy or rent a high priced house. These are choices you make.

To claim its hard to make ends meet on £50k is ludicrous. You really do need to have word with yourself.

well you are paying a 12 K mortgage – that is about 70-80% of the average earning net ish and you can afford a pension on top and its not even half your net earnings

You then have over £1k after your mortgage and pension.
You must be paying a lot for something if there is you only have £100 left over from that

Whilst you may not feel rich currently but in say 20 years time when you own the house and have the healthy pension pot you may feel differently

Someone poor will still be renting, may have had to move somewhere cheaper etc. You iwll retire to the coast with a nice pot from a house sale and a good size pension pot – and you will still think you are not well off – if my retired parents reaction is anything to go by.

Some of it is relative but really you cannot believe you are amongst the neediest in or society and at x 2 the average wage you are rich whether you accept it or not.

A few years ago this withdrawal would really have hurt us. At the time my income would have been c£61k and my wife’s £25k. It sounds a lot doesn’t it! Until you consider that…

– As part of my car allowance I had to fund a 4 door premium brand car less than 3 years old – £400 p/m
– My wide needed a newer reliable car also for her then job as a community nurse that could hold 3 child eats and two adults – £200 p/m
– We unexpectedly were the parents of twins rather than a single baby needed a lot of additional equipment
– The provider of our childcare, my mother-in-law passed away suddenly at the age of 59. (Totally OT, but one of the greatest people I ever met…)
– Decent child care started to cost us £1600 per month – only just under £500 provided by tax free vouchers – so I had to earn c£1500 p/m gross to pay the remainder
– The mortgage we were locked into without huge penalties, would not allow us to extend despite having only 12 years left and significant equity £1100 p/m
– Insurances for cars, home etc… c£220 p/m
– Utilities c£150 p/m
– Council tax c£115 p/m

Total earnings after tax and pensions – c£4200 p/m
Total fixed costs – c£3585
(And let’s face it I have not included all of those…)

That would leave us with c£615p/m to provide food, clothing, commuting fuel (Significant amount for both of us…), for a family of five who preferred to eat freshly prepared non-convenience food – healthier but certainly not cheaper, did not go out a lot, did not smoke or drink and were not addicted to fashion/gambling/shopping/gadgets etc…

If one thing went wrong in a month e.g. washing machine broke or car broken into or child taken ill and had to pay huge car parking fees – all of which and many more happened, we were in a bad place.

The extra money that child benefit provided really kept us afloat…

jamj1974 – if your childcare was £1,600pm and your wifes car requirements were £200pm why was she still going to work?

Because…
– She loves her career and actually believes she is giving back to society by doing so (very important for her)
– Spending 5 days a week at home with 3 children under 3 may have driven her mad – and for clarity I mean clinically it may have made her mentally ill. Can you imagine spending at least 45 waking ours a week housebound. The difficulty involved in taking 3 children of that age out is huge with or without a car…

I’ve no doubt you had you reasons, but you can hardly claim poverty when you are making those choices. FWIW – lots of women (and not a few men) manage to look after 3 kids without going mental.

Spending 5 days a week at home with 3 children under 3 may have driven her mad

Perhaps that explains why my poor mother is the way she is as she looked after 3 of us – poor thing.

My wife works 1 day a week as she doesn’t earn enough to pay for the childcare – actually she could do 2 but her employer won’t let her.

So you were earning £86k a year but were struggling? **** me what am I doing wrong. Admittedly only 1 kid but we have been fine on less than 35k for the last couple of years. This year mrs has done more work so we have more income which has mostly been saved. I really am puzzled.

For those saying that £50k etc is plenty to live on, and they manage fine on average income, I did some calculations.

If I was a sole earner on £65k a year, renting at £1k a month with four kids, then I receive no help from the govt.

In exactly the same circumstances, but the single earner on national average wage (£26,500 according to this link) then the govt will top that up by another £20,257.76 (figures from http://www.turn2us.entitledto.co.uk). That figure is made up of Tax Credits £8,539.79, Housing Benefit £8,571.97, Child Benefit £3,146.

So the difference between average earnings and someone on the face of it earning nearly 2.5 times average, is actually much nearer 1.3 times. Still more, still a lot of money, but the focus on gross income is misleading – the net take home per person in the household is more relevant.

The guardian has a calculator that looks at where you come in the UK wealth stakes using after tax income. On the figures above, the rich £65k person is classified as “59% HAVE A LOWER INCOME THAN YOU – You are in the squeezed middle: income levels have not risen significantly and you’re feeling the pinch”.

The person on average wages – “51% HAVE A LOWER INCOME THAN YOU – you are in the squeezed middle: income levels have not risen significantly and you’re feeling the pinch”

So neither are near poverty then and the wealthier one is wealthier – no offence but what was your point?

How does it work with average children numbers [ 1.8 so lets say 2]and average rent [£725]? The tax system will always have anomalies but better to look at the average [ as this tax rise does not use household income it is a rubbish , but cheap, and unfair [ tories for you eh], way of doing this

back up to about x2 then i assume on average?? Your links would take too long to do properly

Not saying they don’t go mental. However at the time my wife was grieving very deeply and getting over a hugely difficult pregnancy where neither if our twins was likely to survive, had to get over the stress of two of her children being in neonatal ICU for many weeks, the continuing health issues if said children… Not an easy time…

Besides we would not have been hugely better off if she didn’t work…

BTW was not claiming poverty just saying that the benefit was tremendously helpful and that perhaps others may now suffer in similar circumstances – painting the picture if you will…

Also worth remembering the costs of living have increased in the few years since my example… Probably by c£300 p/m.

Costs have increased by 300 quid? Really? I AM POOR A.ND NEED HELP

Look at average utility costs and food prices before using capitals.

That figure is made up of Tax Credits £8,539.79, Housing Benefit £8,571.97, Child Benefit £3,146.

I think you’ve got your figures wrong, salary of 26,500 and 1 child you wouldn’t even qualify for tax credits, 4 children and you’d get less than a quarter of what you have stated.

anagallis-arvensis. I posted simply to illustrate how it was for us. You experience is obviously different but does not make mine less relevant or valid. I can understand that and don’t have a need to challenge your approach, choices or experience. Perhaps you could try the same…?

Bless, I feel sorry for you now, I might start up a collection.

You could but considering your stated income and the associated taxation position it would only be my money paid in my tax that subsidises your taxation position coming back to me from your own donation. So for that reason don’t bother…

what is she going to live on?

Your income.

On second thought perhaps you could make a donation? Donate yourself to my toolbox – it is missing a tool or two…

I wasnt going to pay in myself. I was going to stand outside shops and rattle a can for the squeezed middle.
Mods, mods help the poor richman called me a tool and my world is caving in and I’m too poor to afford therapy.

Cost of living irrelevant here
But if you are and its a problem that you can’t afford to look after yourselves
let alone bring a child into the world in which will demand more money
you cannot find yourselves to live on.
IE Dont have any kids.

Unless the government will make up the shortfall of course.

Don’t worry about universal human rights – just the benefit budget…

If you’re earning 4500 (at a guess – you don’t say how much your pension payments are), and 80 quid is enough to make a big difference, then you are seriously overstretched – that’s less than 2% of your take home.

And I notice you calculate everything ‘after pensions’ – whilst pensions are lovely and all that, the purpose of benefits isn’t to subsidize your cushy pension surely – and I bet you were paying more than 80 quid a month into that. And 400 quid a month for a car – I bet you didn’t drive the cheapest car that you could get that fitted the specifications of your company scheme? And I bet you weren’t squeezing that family of five into a two bedroom flat in a not so nice area?

I might be wrong obviously, but I would be surprised if that ever so expensive lifestyle didn’t include quite a lot of ‘essential spending’ on things that people on normal salaries either don’t get (massive pensions), or can’t afford (big houses, more expensive cars than needed).

Cant say Im a big fan of universal benefits anyway, but Im sure they could have worked out a better way of doing it…

Ditto.

Funny my wife stays at home and looks after our kids, we manage on 1 not very high salary. We took the decision for my wife to give up work, as its much better for the kids, especially in the first 5 years. We wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I guess it’s just a choice some people make, to still have a fancy house and nice cars or well brought up kids.

Just seems to me there are too many people living way beyond their means.

as its much better for the kids, especially in the first 5 years.

The research on this is very mixed and it s nothing like as clear cut as you suggest

I guess it’s just a choice some people make, to still have a fancy house and nice cars or well brought up kids.

Its not either or here there kids may still be brought up well Albeit in a manner you disagree with.

to still have a fancy house and nice cars or well brought up kids.

Do you think nurseries are bad places?

Stevewhyte I think your point of view is fine but any working mothers would get really upset about it and its only based on your opinion. I dont care you can say what you like to me but just be aware its only an opinion. My son goes to nursery two days a week when the mrs works. It might go up go three soon. In comparison to other kids I know who dont go to nursery he seems a lot more mentally robust.

I find it odd that anyone would think keeping their kids out of nursery is a good thing – maybe 5 days a week for a 6 month old might be too much though!

what they are saying is that it is good for kids to be brought up by their parents* – I find it odd you have never heard this view articulated anywhere before

You could also heed your own advice a-a – its not like you were overly civil when discussing it with the “rich man”

* without pointing out the obvious it depends on many factors not least what the parents are like and what the nursery is like. I dont think there is an actual law of nature here that shows which is best in all circumstances.

3 bedroom house £150k in Birmingham, so take a guess at the quality of the area. Try buying a year old Audi/BMWMercedes 4 door saloon over two years for less than £400 p/m.

Also child benefit for 3 children is 4.6% of £4500…

Children that *need* benefits.
(No four door saloon was harmed in the taking of this picture)

Ha ha! Funnily enough I believe in some universal benefits – and more solidly applied and constructed taxation as well. I also think re-distribution of wealth needs to cross international borders. There again, I am a socialist.