I must reply to Lenna Santamaria (Letters, July 5). Firstly, I don't consider myself so badly off.

My daughter is in a nursery I have to pay for because there are no spaces available in government ones. She is there so I can go out to work.

Secondly, I have also tried the private sector and housing benefit will pay only £90 a week, which leaves me with an even bigger top-up.

I did not go for a better-paid job outside Brighton and Hove because of travel costs. I know education is free for our kids but only at a certain age. Below that age, there are no places free.

As for joining the ranks of the poor, I have been here all my life. I am just trying to keep off benefits and pay my own way but keep getting blocked.

All I am trying to do is give my child a better life. This is being made harder because we are penalised for trying to go out to work.

I don't want anyone sobbing into their cocoa on my behalf. I would rather some of that went towards getting the

Government to try to sort out some of this mess.

-Mrs Heather Platt, Preston Road, Brighton