"excuse my ignorance but I thought you now get a huge state handout for your children"
Yes massive ignorance - our 'huge state handout' is now £100 a month.
From this 'huge state handout' we pay:
Nursery fees £600 a month
Nappies, wipes etc £20 a month
Clothes, food etc another £50 or so £28 last month for shoes, same again in 6 weeks or so.
If anyone can 'run' my child on such a 'huge state handout' I'd be pleased to hear how it's done.
Still wouldn't be without her though!
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it would be cheaper to have sensible width parking spaces for all than fund the wages of folk to ticket folk, commercial pressure will force this as company car use declines further
daveyjp, you are in la la land, everyone with kids in this country is heavily subsidised by the hard working folk with no kids, much much more than 100 quid a month
you checked your tax allowance? your state schools, nhs, council bin collecting all those dirty nappies, family allowance
you are having a laugh
those wide spaces you are using at the supermarket are cross subsidised by the hard working but no kids majority like everything else in this country
if it was up to me if you couldnt afford kids you wouldnt have them, as it is kids are a licence into a council house at the lower end of the spectrum, and expectations of jumping the queue at checkin and wider bays at higher ends
we encorage the dim to have kids and heavily discourage the nations best, we are running natual selection in reverse
youre making me mad enough to go park in parents and toddlers bays just for fun
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"we encorage the dim"
How many of the 'little ankle biters' have you got then retgwte ;-)
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in reply to retgwte:
let me think now? Who do you think the supermarkets want to have in their shops? A grumpy old man who complains about everything with a chip on both shoulders who buys a half-loaf, 2 pork chops and a pint of milk once a week or a family of 5 who spend £150 weekly and more, much more at Christmas etc?
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retgwe remember if your parents had your attitude you wouldn't be here.
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my dad worked his heart and soul off to pay for us, even including the modest state subsidy we had he more than compensated
and by now we have paid way more into the system than we have ever or will ever get out of it
the country needs folk like us to fund the council/housing associaton housing estates and their generation upon generation of benefits claimants, a cycle which has not been broken despite promises of "education education education", and to fund the middle classes and their given right to live in the best catchment areas and go to the best schools and have the best GPs
retgwte no kids and sick and tired of listening to parents winge on how bad it is for them
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You know retgwte, it's interesting, we had family friends who took exactly the same attitude to the state as you do. Did everything they could to avoid tax if at all possible, campaigned for Maggie Thatcher ardently, moaned about spongers and benefits claimants and immigrants etc. etc.
Then they both got made unexpectedly unemployed and couldn't find another job for a while. I think it terrified them when they realised that the 'cushy state subsidies' didn't come close to even covering their basic outgoings. Certainly it was an eye opener for me living on £42 a week for 6 months following redundancy last year.
To drag this back to motoring, just about, my top tip would be to avoid any debts that can't be mitigated in this sort of circumstance. My PCP deal was a good deal when I got it, and perfect now, but was extremely painful in the 6 month period with no income.
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it would be cheaper to have sensible width parking spaces for all than fund the wages of folk to ticket folk
Have you any idea of the cost of land these days? A parking warden on little over minimum wage is probably much cheaper.
I'd like to see wider spaces, but it would be very expensive, and the supermarkets don't make big profits by spending cash when they can avoid it.
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Costo have no parent and child spaces, Macro has no parent and child spaces, noone takes disabled spaces. How? Well, most bays are large enough to fit van with open doors. Problem fixed.
I still vote for no kids in supermarkets though - food shopping is an "in and out" deloyment by default, why make it longer and crowdier experience just because lousy parenting these days involves family event in Asdas on weekends. Do your childhood memories include crawling around veg stands in supermarkets, chucking toilet rolls off the shelves or crashing trolleys into bystanders in a queue? Of course not. Then why would you want your kids to remember your only time together as a set of "lost kid" announcements on a tannoy, drowning in snot after someone stepped over their fingers or you impatiently dragging them out of toy section for the fiftieth time. I understand we all have busy schedules, but let's not excuse bad parenting. Save yourself and other some time - go to supermarkets to do your shopping, not to entertain your family of 5. The quicker you do it, the more time you'll have for your kids.
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[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
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"Do your childhood memories include crawling around veg stands in supermarkets, chucking toilet rolls off the shelves or crashing trolleys into bystanders in a queue? "
Nope: no supermarkets in any towns/cities when I was a kid. Recall the greengrocers. the butchers, the bakers, etc etc.
My wife had several years of having to shop when I was away on business. She had no choice - with no childminders and a senile mother - but to take 3 children and my senile mil around supermarkets.
She does not think it was entertainment but short of child neglect she had no choice...
We now avoid mums with kids times:-)
madf
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I still vote for no kids in supermarkets though
For those who have someone available to look after their kids, I'm sure that's a good idea. But a lot of parents won't have a babysitter available when the shopping needs to be done.
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I'd like to see wider spaces but it would be very expensive and the supermarkets don't make big profits by spending cash when they can avoid it.
Why would it be more expensive to have wider spaces ?
The way I see it, the same sized piece of tarmac with wider spaces = less parking bays = less white paint used to mark lines on tarmac = less money spent.
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2005 Ford Mondeo Zetec 2.0 TDCi 130ps
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The way I see it the same sized piece of tarmac with wider spaces = less parking bays = less white paint used to mark lines on tarmac = less money spent.
Which also means less parking capacity, which means fewer customers at peak times (and possibly at other times, as customers take their business to shops without congestion). So the supermarkets either need more land for parking, or bear the huge cost of building multi-storey car parks
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Nowheels, my reply was based on your post referring to supermarkets spending money on the car park, not losing profits. I understand they may lose customers at busy times but quite a few of the mothers & toddlers and disabled categories don't work and could do their shopping during the week whilst the able bodied employed do theirs at the weekend, so peak times could be avoided. The busiest supermarket round here is ASDA and I think people go there because it's the cheapest by far for your everyday items, so I don't think they would go elsewhere, even if it was busy, I think they would go at a different time (it's open 24hrs, except Sunday night).
A bit off topic but, why does everybody shop at the weekends, is it a religious thing ? ;-)
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2005 Ford Mondeo Zetec 2.0 TDCi 130ps
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>>everyone with kids in this country is heavily subsidised by the hard working folk with no kids>>
So people who don't have children are not hard working?
"we encorage the dim to have kids and heavily discourage the nations best, we are running natual selection in reverse"
So anyone who has children is dim?
Children are the future of this country; those who don't have children make that choice themselves.
I'm well aware in this instance who is dim and, very probably, not the "nation's best."
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
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So people who don't have children are not hard working?
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Always annoys me how often "hard working" and "families" appears in the same sentence these days in all levels of the press. I don't see a relationship between the two.
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supermarkets squeeze as many spaces in as they can and couldn't care less that the average car doesn't fit in them anymore.......write to the head office and complain...if enough people do it they might well have another look at the issue.
for those people that don't like mixing with kids........and i'm generally one of those (but will have to have a re-think at Christmas).....why not get the supermarket to deliver
unless you live in the middle of nowhere a local store will deliver. You don't have to worry about anti-social parking, poor parenting or the multitude of other things that annoy nowadays.
regards, The Budding Meldrew
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It's a shame that once again, a thread on this subject has descended into the usual spite from some who think that those who are afforded to special parking facilities shouldn't have them. This is a typically British "'e's got sumfing I ain't, 'oo the 'ell's 'e fink 'e is" attitude, which is one of our most loveable national character traits. Not.
daveyjp, you are in la la land, everyone with kids in this country is heavily subsidised by the hard working folk with no kids, much much more than 100 quid a month
you checked your tax allowance? your state schools, nhs, council bin collecting all those dirty nappies, family allowance
Couple of points, there:
1) AFAIAW they got rid of family allowance yonks ago. Tax credits were far more fun because they could make them really really complicated and thus create jobs.
2) You without kids are not subsidising me. Sorry, but you're not. I pay for all the things my child needs out of taxed income. Yes, we get the £17 or so quid a week that all families with one child get, but last payslip I got I was still paying north of a grand a month in tax and NI (and so for that matter was my wife), so all that's happening there is that I'm being allowed to keep a tiny proportion more of the salary I work very hard to earn, than I was previously. Woo hoo, praise be.
3) Council tax on this place is £162 a month, so I'm paying my fair whack there too.
All of our friends who have children are in similar situations, so I'm sorry, but we don't fit your stereotype.
As somebody else further up said, supermarkets provide disabled spaces because the law requires them to, and parent & child spaces because it's what their customers want (although in the latter case frankly I wouldn't care all that much if they didn't). Big deal.
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Why don't they put the child spaces as far away as possible from the entrance? Then all the lardy kids would at least get a bit of exercise.
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People who abuse these spaces are ignoring the First Rule Of Asda Car Parks, namely park as far away from any other vehicle as possible to avoid damage from careless drivers, reckless door openers, and the odd stray trolley. It was one of the very first things I learned in the Backroom!
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