THE PLIGHT OF SINGLE PARENTS AND THE WAY OUT

One of the challenges of adult life is being a single parent. The challenges of being a single parent are overwhelming very difficult that the burden is weighing heavily on many. According to a study done by PayPlan, one in four parents in the UK is a single parent. Surprisingly, nine out of ten of those parents tend to be single mothers.

When you’re a single parent, you’re burdened with taking care of the children and yourself. You take on the responsibilities that two adult couple are supposed to take. From paying bills to taking care of the house, handling childcare, providing for special family retreats, and managing the home, many single parents simply get exhausted.

It is no wonder that a third of children from single homes live in poverty due to improper parental care and financial hardships. In recent times, many marketing programs from leading companies have been aimed at providing incentives to two-parent families to buy more of their services/products. While it is good, it has not helped single parents. It has rather significantly reduced the living expenses and enhanced the standard of living of two-parent families.

Take, for example, important expenses related to transport, tourism, travel and branded goods, two-parent families get special deals in addition to splitting the money among themselves to pay, hence making huge savings, while single parent homes simply get no deal and have to pay for the entire cost. As a result, most single parents have to work full time, get part-time jobs and also employ microcredit services in order to take of their children and home.

As a single parent, going through a lot of hassles to make ends meet, you might be looking for a sigh of relief. Well, you can get that in three ways: living frugally, creating passive income sources and minimizing the use of debt instruments.

The first challenge is to start practising frugality and teaching children to take care of themselves in order to reduce health cost. That means to create a budget for the home, prioritizing expenses, paying in cash if possible, reducing frivolous and lavish expenses and finding creative opportunities to save something at the end of each month.

Consider cooking meals at home, involving children in financial planning and setting financial priorities for managing money at home. While it is still good to plan day offs with family, find ways to get it done affordably without bearing too much financial burden. What more?

You want to focus on how you can invest surplus money saved into investment vehicles that will keep the principal and produce a stead interest rate over a period of time. Some of these investments could be a small home-based business, rental business, dividend stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

Instead of using credit cards and other debt instruments to finance family activities, you can also consider being creative and using council tax, maternity grant, energy schemes and other cash savings systems to save money while maximizing creative skills to generate extra money. If you’re already struggling with debt payments, consider talking with expert debt advice providers to help you pay off the debt and develop a financial plan that will help your family get ahead.