good news in a bad time

But don't be sad...the government are giving working parents a break.........£1200 for each child that you spend £6000 a year child care..........

so if you have 2 children and spend £12000 a year in child care then you will get the full help from the goverment.....even if you earn £280,000 as a couple.........

so honestly....who is this going to help.........those working on the minimum wage.......those earning £15000 / £20,000 are not likely to be paying out £12000 a year on child care......

this just seems to be another way to give extra money to those well off who have full time nannies

I don't think you could get a more rubbish system in this country if you tried.

Everyone living on everyone else's cross-subsidies.

The whole tax and benefits system is a mess, there is no way to check everything people earn, what relationship they are in so are they in a 300,000 household, how many dependent children, any second incomes etc. etc.  Nobody wants means testing, no political party will bring it in so benefits of all kinds are paid to people that don't need it, oap fuel allowance is a classic of this.

And it doesn't matter what party run this country or any other, they don't have the will to sort these things out. 

Politics and the way countries are run are a bit like a giant Waddingtons game that university students who don't want proper jobs play for the remainder of their lives

They should make everyone live within their own means.

if they wanted to give people on minimum wage a way of paying for childcare to get off the benfit system then I'm hgapopy with that.........

but this will only help those who really don't need it

I'm really fucked off with this country.  My contract was due to end but they offered me an extension part-time for a couple of months.  I could get no help from the state and I didn't have enough money to meet all my essential bills.  A dietician I know referred me to a food bank because I had no money for food at all!

I wanted to stay working to be in a better position to find work, but I would've been better off letting the permanent contract finish.

Until that happened, I'd never been out of full-time work.  When do I get to see some of this money I've ploughed into the state?

thats horrible to hear RS.....

when the kids were young we wwere always a couple of pounds above the threshold for any of the benefits.we hads a couple of really tight years.......

i hope you get a break soon

RS - sorry to hear that, It seems those who want to work are penalised. I admire your determination to work given everything you've mentioned. At least everything we buy we have earnt - it hasnt been given to us. Fixed / short term contract are a pain. I've been temporary since 2003!

Agree totally with Colin McLaughlin. hubby & I have managed to save a bit of money every month but it means making a lot of sacrifices. I have a crap, knackered car, a crap old phone, dont own an IPod or fancy stereo, our furniture is all 2nd hand and we have cheap taste when it comes to food, doing most of our shopping in Lidls & tesco with vouchers. You cant have everything. We have agreed to do this to save, pay off our mortgage and have 2 holidays a year.

A lot of my peers moaning they are skint are footy season ticket holders, have a brand new car, new phone and spend £100+ a month on their hair and nails, etc. No wonder they are hard up!!

Seren - what a b*gger with that threshold! Well done to you & your husband though

I was over at a pal's house a few months ago and one of her pals was complaining she had to remortgage (no mortgage as she divorced well) to build an extension to her 3-storey house!  Don't build the fucking extension then!

I felt like saying "I don't have a car or a TV you moany old bitch! ... and I'm paying a mortgage on a small one-bedroomed flat."

I have now found a full-time job but unfortunately it's at a v junior level and on a low salary.  Not only am I fed up of struggling on a low wage, I won't be challenged in the role.  Having attended 7 interviews though, I'm exhausted and just need to settle in something for a while and get my mortgage and bills paid.  I will need to stay focused to find something with greater personal development and back at the level I should be working at.  Hard times.

sport is my main spend..........I never ever have my haircut.spend nothing on makeup or any cosmetics, creams etc.and my clothes come from £5 a pair of trousers from sports direct.......

so i am can pay for my several pairs of running shoes and a new pair of running shorts each year.

I heard an architect on the radio stating that she and her husband were both architects and to keep working the long hours the jobs needed they needed help with their child care bills............

 i can imagine what their joint incomes would be if they were both working fulltime......

RS.

I'm sorry to hear that and I promise it will get better just don't lose hope!

Unfortunately i know a lot of people in the same position and it infuriates me when I can see families slipping closer and closer to losing all hope.  My mum is dying of Myeloma and the bones in the bottom of her back have crumbled away and has to visit hospital every Thursday and Friday- How much help does she get.....sod all. My dad is retired and gets a state pension thats all they have to live off. My mum isn't old enough to retire and she will never get to retire. But apparantly she can work according to the Gov. I hate hearing stories like this and I wish I could do something because it's appalling we should be hearing these stories in this country

Good luck RS.

My mother-in-law was 86 when she died 2 years ago. She was of the generation where she was too proud to ask for help, worked all her life etc. Towards the end we managed to persuade her to have a wheelchair, ramps fitted, a device to get her into the bath etc. However, my missus had such a battle with the council to get each and every one of these things installed. She had to go and camp in the council office and wouldnt move until they sorted something.

4 doors down the road is the scumbag family who sponge off the state with their 4 kids who just run riot, making neighbours lifes a misery while the parents just watch and do nothing about it. Most evenings the parents (stereotypical Wayne and Waynetta slob) would sit on the door step smoking and drinking beers. And get this, she was having driving lessons care of the state and rumour had it she was going to be GIVEN a car when she passed her test.

I emailed Nick Clegg about this as I was so disgusted in the way the MIL had such a battle to get things she needed and made her last months more comfortable. 3 months letter I got the bog standard response saying it was local government's responsibility about funding etc. It does make you wonder why you bother, this country is a joke

A favourite read of mine is a site www.howitends.co.uk

Explains why the country is in a financial mess and why there's not much anyone can do about it.

Seren, agree with the childcare cost issue. i have been fortunate enough to have my parents able to look after my daughter lots, especially before she was school age and i had to go back to work when she was 8months old. i too was on part time wages and if id had to pay childcare there would have been absolutely no point in me working! its still the people in the high earning bracket that gain (even though they obviously dont need it) and the working families paying for everything that get minimal help.

Come on now everybody, it's not all bad. 1p off the price of a pint! That'll make a difference...

I can undestand where the architecys are comming from. They are probably not on a very high income if they are newly qualified, have 7 years each of student loans to pay back, see their peers that didn't go to uni earning more than them. They probably have to work more than 8 hrs a day and are on a salery with no overtime and are probably peeved that the government and every agency there is are giving those who could never be arsed a hand up to help them out. I know that's how I felt, negative equity, low income, earning less than those whose work you were suposed to be responsible for, struggling to make ends meet then a friend saying that they were getting a 3 bed council house because they deserved one while you're struggling in a one bed flat, (at the time with negative equity paying any extra cash you had to get back on an even keel).

yeah life sucks and everyone feels agrieved but don't assume that someone is being highly paid just because it took them 7 years of study to get there.