£42,000 a year benefits

The system does need changing though.

One of my best friends had a baby with her bloke, decided she didnt want to live with his other daughter so moved out. She signed over thousands of pounds to her mum so she could claim benefit and now has her bloke paying for everything else. So all the benefit she receives is disposable income and mostly spent on clothes, on top of all the money her mums 'looking after'. Its just wrong and our friendship is now suffering because shes lost my respect, but thats her choice i guess.

Look on the bright side, they're all fat and ginger so they'll get ridiculed in later life

Originally Posted by cuffy

Look on the bright side, they're all fat and ginger so they'll get ridiculed in later life

think about it, 1 ginger kid reproduces 2.1 children. high probability of more ginge.

8 reproduce 2.1 - nearly 17 more gingers walking this planet.

when will the madness end....

anyway, back on topic...

Originally Posted by L3nny

In the town where I grw up the cheapest house is over £200k and having kids rather than working is the only way anyone can afford to live there.

It's about time something was done to protect affordable housing for the people who work here. The whole "Property as an investment" is plain wrong.

All very well saying "We'll have subsidised housing for key workers but name me a non key worker. Teachers, nurses, busdrivers etc still need to shop, get their car MOT'd, go out for a meal etc.

Not sure how you'd go about it. Stop artificially inflating prices with "Part buy Part rent" schemes and restrict holiday homes/ non resident ownership and buy to let?

OFF TOPIC

Originally Posted by Sosha

It's about time something was done to protect affordable housing for the people who work here. The whole "Property as an investment" is plain wrong.

All very well saying "We'll have subsidised housing for key workers but name me a non key worker. Teachers, nurses, busdrivers etc still need to shop, get their car MOT'd, go out for a meal etc.

Not sure how you'd go about it. Stop artificially inflating prices with "Part buy Part rent" schemes and restrict holiday homes/ non resident ownership and buy to let?

OFF TOPIC

Sosha, if what you're suggesting is a socialist style intervention into free market economics, that's a fantastic advance on only page 2 of a thread started with a Daily Wail article - well done!

Originally Posted by eviltwin

Sosha, if what you're suggesting is a socialist style intervention into free market economics, that's a fantastic advance on only page 2 of a thread started with a Daily Wail article - well done!

i dont even get close to understanding that sentence!! or

[L3nny]

I think it all started going wrong when council tennants were allowed to buy their houses.

The houses they bought in the early 90s for about 20k are now worth 200k, Every house on the council estates in the town are now privately owned and as it is a rural area there are tight restrictions on building new houses.

Therefore if a new estate is built some of the houses have to be designated for social housing, therefore the local workshy are given a brand new house on a vey nice estate for a monthly rent of about 10% of what the mortgage on the house over the road would be.

And just to make it even more laughable they are given £500 when they move in to decorate it how they like! It's a brand new house FFS!

IMO social housing should only be used as a temporary measure for people down on their luck while they are working to improve their situation. There should be a time limit on the amount of time you are allowed to stay there. The long term workshy should be made to live on a compound built on land where nowhere else wants to live, like next to the sewage treatment plant or something.

Before the debate goes any further, may I refer you all to this...

http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=149292

Originally Posted by Messie

I was in a similar position a few years ago.

me too. I was working at the time and on a low wage. But I kept my job and managed to make the mortgage payments. All in the days before financial help with childcare or working tax credits and with no maintenance payments fom Isaac's dad and no financial or childcare help from anyone else. But I worked extrememely hard to make it all work - I could easily have taken the benefits route but I'd still be there now rather than getting promoted, earning several times more than the average wage and being most of the way to owning my home outright. I think the defining factor was we went without things - holidays, gadgets, cable TV, latest toys and clothes etc. But we turned out OK. Where there's a will...

To my mind the social security system was originally intended as a safety net to help those who, through not fault of their own, find themselves in need. Great - fully support that and am happy to pay my tax/NI on that basis.

The problem is that those in power have, over the years, allowed the system to change to the point where people, like the bloke in the Daily Wail's article, decide to give up work to live off the state. That is just wrong. Why should he have anything at all?

Grrr!!

Originally Posted by CoolGirl

Before the debate goes any further, may I refer you all to this... http://forums.sv650.org/showthread.php?t=149292 me too. I was working at the time and on a low wage. But I kept my job and managed to make the mortgage payments. All in the days before financial help with childcare or working tax credits and with no maintenance payments fom Isaac's dad and no financial or childcare help from anyone else. But I worked extrememely hard to make it all work - I could easily have taken the benefits route but I'd still be there now rather than getting promoted, earning several times more than the average wage and being most of the way to owning my home outright. I think the defining factor was we went without things - holidays, gadgets, cable TV, latest toys and clothes etc. But we turned out OK. Where there's a will...

Thats why im giving myself the best chance of getting a job in school. My youngest starts full time in September and the day after he starts i want to get back to work, and i dont really care what i do, but i have a brain so hopefully it will be something with some prospects!!