Could you live on £500.00 / $817.00 a week?

[Gob]

A single mother with eight children who receives £2,000 a month in state handouts has complained she is struggling to make ends meet.

Marie Buchan, 31, whose children range in age from 12 to two months, lives in a three-bedroom housing association house in Selly Oak, Birmingham, but says it's not big enough and has applied for a bigger one.



And she says her benefits payments, which were reduced from £582 a week to £500 a week in September after the government introduced a cap on handouts, are not enough for her family to survive on.

Now Miss Buchan, who is £2,000 in arrears with her rent, says she fears she may be evicted after falling behind with her rent.

She said: 'The benefit cap has hit me hard - money is very tight. I am £82-a-week worse off and, when you have eight children, every penny counts.

'I don’t waste my money - everything goes on my children. It is tough bringing up eight children on your own, a constant battle.

'I feel the threat of eviction all the time. I have already been to court once due to rent arrears and I fear I may be dragged there again.

'I am scrimping and saving to try to get the arrears down but it is very difficult.'

Miss Buchan's financial problems are compounded by the fact that she owes £600 in bus lane fines after receiving ten tickets for straying in bus lanes in Birmingham city centre in three days.

[Joe Guy]

Where are the eight fathers?

[Gob]

No fathers, just sperm donors.

[rubato]

Do they look different enough? Look like a matched set.


Only one looks a little different and she takes more after the mother's features.

Yes,
Rubato

[rubato]

$42,484 per year seems very generous but 8 kids has to cost a fortune. I can see capping welfare after 2 kids unless the adult agrees to be sterilized. Or maybe giving a 1-time cash payment of $15,000 for tubal ligation and $7,500 for men going to "Dr Snip".

yrs,
rubato

[Sean]

I agree. Most of those kids look like they come from the same father... Who I am assuming is currently residing as a guest of Her Majesty in Winson Green.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Miss Buchan's financial problems are compounded by the fact that she owes £600 in bus lane fines after receiving ten tickets for straying in bus lanes in Birmingham city centre in three days.

I'd say she has problems with something straying into another kind of lane. It would be interesting to know how long she's been on public assistance and how many children she has "fallen" pregnant with during that time.

[Joe Guy]

Do they look different enough? Look like a matched set.

I agree. Most of those kids look like they come from the same father...

You two are quite obviously racist. You are saying that because the woman has eight children that have African-American characteristics and they all look alike, all of these children must have the same father. Further, you are implying that all black men are absent parents and are attracted to white women.

You could both use some diversity training to help change your racial and culturally stereotypical views.

[Big RR]

$42,484 per year seems very generous but 8 kids has to cost a fortune. I can see capping welfare after 2 kids unless the adult agrees to be sterilized. Or maybe giving a 1-time cash payment of $15,000 for tubal ligation and $7,500 for men going to "Dr Snip".

yrs,
rubato

The problem with a cap like that is the children suffer much more than the parent. Raising a permanent underclass with not enough to eat or enough room to live in, hardly benefits society and results in an indoctrinated underclass of adults, and punishing the children won't deter a parent who doesn't care enough to use any form of birth control. Offering some sort of financial inducement to encourage sterilization might work, but I can't support policies that just penalize the children.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Do they look different enough? Look like a matched set.

I agree. Most of those kids look like they come from the same father...

You two are quite obviously racist. You are saying that because the woman has eight children that have African-American characteristics and they all look alike, all of these children must have the same father. Further, you are implying that all black men are absent parents and are attracted to white women.

You could both use some diversity training to help change your racial and culturally stereotypical views.

Sarcasm Joe ? Of course. Even so

Miss Buchan, whose relationship with her former partner and father of all her children ended this year, has children Tia, 12, Leah, 11, Latoya, eight, Joshua, seven, Alisha, five, Mikayla, three, Amelia, two, and two-month-old Olivia.

Where is the support from the father? She says they've been on and off again together since she was 14 years old.

[Joe Guy]

Where is the support from the father? She says they've been on and off again together since she was 14 years old.

So you assume the alleged father was on and off her at least eight times. How can you be sure that she wasn't under someone else when he was off of her?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well, he made her an offer....