Bath mum cuts children's packed lunches and sells pets to pay rise in council tax bill

“Certain contributors were very keen to point out that the bedroom tax is not really a tax - it's a reduction in benefits paid to an individual by the taxpayer. Interesting that those same contributors are not rushing to point out that a council tax rebate is not a benefit - it's a reduction in a bill paid *by* the individual to the state.

But there are similarities: council tax is also based on the value of your home, regardless of how much you actually cost the taxpayer.

I'm a band E. This mean I'm subsidising everyone in bands A to D because I pay more for the same public services. I don't mind subsidising people who genuinely can't pay - it's those smug ******s with band D houses that I can't abide, with their (nearly as) comfortable lifestyles, getting their rubbish collected and fires put out at my expense, etc etc etc.”

“Cutting her council tax benefit is wrong. We should be looking after the poorest in our society, not penalising them.”

“tomsjan - I would think that even you might be able to work out that a £63 per month increase in a bill is one hell of a hike. I do not work for the Council, but can do basic maths, and I know that if one of my bills increased by this much with little or no warning I would struggle as well.
DaveBathwick - I agree with you. I don't believe the people of this country are, by and large, as nasty and mean spirited as much of the press would have us believe. A friend of mine has cancer of the pancreas and has issued a CD to raise funds for various medical charities. The response from ordinary people has been fantastic and the Disasters Emergency Committee's appeal for Syria raised £3.4M in 2 days. Given that so many of our Politicians have failed us we need to find the means, and the will, for the people to say 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore' to quote from the excellent film 'Network'.”

“@davidp2011.....""How can anyone justify a 700% increase in one bill?""

Do you work for the Council - same warped maths! It may be a big increase but in reality is simply a removal of a MASSIVE discount (around 94%) but the true figure is that it still represents 50% less than most people are paying.”

“Good coment, Dave. We should look at the big picture and see how we've arrived at this sorry state of affairs. Politics aside, the development of the consumer society and easy credit since the 1950s has had major flaws, not least that to have winners you must have losers. Greed and competition was/is encouraged and rewarded. The banks, whose reckless trading in paper tigers and pretend money rapidly caused it all to crash, are propped up with our taxes by the decisions of those in whose interest it is to do so. The final ingredient is the (mainly) puppet-press dis-seminating the 'divide and rule' message.

The big question is how to move forward. In the case of the family above would it not be to 'think globally, act locally' and offer some practical support? A lift to the shops, a receipe for how a humble hen can feed five mouths for a week, a bit of community awareness/involvement... Far better than sitting around trying to work out what makes this article news. It's what's happening out there and will become more and more common but less and less reported.

-think I'd better go and have a pint and save myself one 'pence'.....as George Osbourne said in the Budget speech. Can someone please tell him that the singular is 'penny, new penny, or 'p'. We do not say 'one children'. (-How to succeed at sums coming soon.)”

“Other than to say that to some extent, if you put yourself in the spotlight, you need to be wary of what that might illuminate for others to comment on, I'm not directly going to comment on this particular person.

However there are some interesting wider questions in terms of how society is inadvertently engineering captive poverty. For example someone who lives in social housing in Weston has some interesting choices. Shopping by foot reduces transport costs eating into the budget but that gives you a limited choice of a small Tesco where many lower cost options aren't available (compared to a bigger store) and some independants where possibly fruit and veg can be acquired at lower cost but realistically not a lot else. You could take the bus, but bus fares being what they are, a return trip to Sainsburys could easily negate any savings made shopping in a bigger store. Similarly deciding to run a car - could give access to more distant options like Asda at Longwell Green or Lidl (if it ever opens) which aren't on obvious bus routes, but then the costs of running a car have to come out of that budget at a time when car running costs are being artificially hiked to deter use. Its all well and good saying make a roast last all week etc, but if the only viable "roast" in the nearby shop is 2 choices of chicken, its not necessarily housekeeping skills which limit the extent to which that trick can be made. On the other hand someone like me that can readily run a car anyway and treat that as a sunk cost, can then easily make savings on shopping. Repeat, rinse and spin on energy costs (direct debit versus poor credit forcing prepayment and therefore not the best tariffs, buying cheap versus energy saving appliances, having to buy from expensive suppliers by instalment whereas those with good credit can get the best online deals etc. In other words its often easier to live more cheaply when you have certain financial advantages to start with.

It quickly becomes obvious that the issues are far more complicated than Party A is good and Party B is bad - a lot of these inbuilt challenges to the lower income family go far beyond party politics, and beyond stereotypical images of low income = thick = financial problems being down to stupidity = their own fault.”

“How can anyone justify a 700% increase in one bill? This is just another view of the future where the poor will continually be screwed over by the politicians. Make no mistake about this. The LibDems have totally sold out and you'll get precious little from labour. The Tories, of course, only believe in benefiting their chums.”

“I think what this non-story demonstrates, along with several recently about aggrieved breast-feeding mothers and kids in cafes is that **** happens, parenting skills and cooking skills are maybe not as good as they used to be (who else watched Channel 4's "Bedtime Live" with open mouth?), but whatever the problem, spreading it all over the local rag is probably not a very clever idea - for them or their kids! This article and the lovely clear picture has probably opened them up to bullying at school and certainly singled them out for the wrong kind of attention. Whatever your views on it, going public was not the answer! There are many others in a similar situation who will have exactly the same problem, and at the other end of the "poverty" scale are pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes or eat healthily.

I too would like to see a fuller picture, not just the council tax angle, as there are other "incomes" or benefits involved as pointed out by a previous poster. But with 4 kids at school and her rubbish collected plus all the other services provided by the council I think she is getting her money's worth. There are elderly couples with no kids who are paying £50 more than this lady at full whack and also struggle to pay. Just think of all the newspapers their individual accounts could fill!”

“Sadly, if you've done OK in life whether through opportunity, wealthy parents, era you were born in or just a savvy marriage choice,. The way the divisive embittered wind blows is to blame this woman herself for the way the government is making her family pay for the mistakes of bankers.

As a single parent myself, I ask the likes of the armchair critics here, pray do advise how I should stretch a Sunday Roast out for 4 days and then scrimp, budget and recycle to ensure my kids are fed....? Because clearly, I don't know, I'm too working class to even consider it! Shame on you bigots,,

Because of course, being poor means, I'm ill educated and don't know what's best for my children. Can you tell that by the clothes I wear? Or is it that working class vibe I give off?

As I said, the day you feel righteous enough to judge those struggling through no fault of their own, is the day no-one but yourself looks ill educated, ill informed,lacking social awareness and quite possibly having some manner of narcissitic, sociopathic personality disorder. Nearest support group, The Daily Mail. No need to thank me.”

“Yes Rottidog, perhaps you were merely pointing out that "many people nowadays have not been taught frugal cooking".

If so, please forgive me for misinterpreting your use of the personal pronoun 'she' (as in "has she ever been taught to cook low-cost nourishing meals and make the most of cheap ingredients?") as some kind of personal judgement of someone you've never met.

And I guess the line "I'm betting many "poor" people throw away their chicken remains or ham stock rather than make soup" was not intended to be take in the context of the article it was posted under, and was just a cheap shot at the poor in general?

Either way, I see no reason why a lack of material wealth should correlate with the level of stupidity required to throw out perfectly good food whilst you own children go hungry, and there is no evidence to suggest this has actually happened in this case (or ever, in fact). This leads me to believe your assertion was based only on bigotry.”