What happens to state benefit in a recession

Damzel_In_Distress

Yeh my house is literally the only place i could find anywhere near close to my family-and its still not even that close!....the damp is beyond a joke..its truly awful...and ive got chronic asthma which cant be treated normally as im allergic to steroids so its just not nice at all.

i have a gas meter which to put on for 4 hours gas costs around £7.40 i worked out..and obviously i cant afford to do that every day!! ..ive contacted the gas company several times saying that somethin seems wrong with the meter,sometimes it charges me for things i havnt done for example..but they REFUSE to send someone out and say unless it completly brakes down,its not there "policy" to send people out to things that seem slightly "irrelevant"....shame its not irrelevant to me eh??
being cold is one of the worst things i think compared to everything else,especially which a little boy,but cause the damp is so bad in the house and has been according to the neighbours for over 10 years,no ammount of heating changes anything anyway! so ive got blankets all over the sofa,and most of the time have to bring my quilt down too..i was actually really grateful when a family friend bought me a very very thick black velour dressing gown for xmas as it is very warm and has made a diffrence to me feeling the cold thankfully,best xmas gift ive ever had in terms of things needed!! lol

LydiaJ

SingleSue wrote: »

Yep it is, it's a housing association house which has some lovely drafts where the rather large vent is in the front room.

In the winter if you sit on the sofa, you can't put your feet on the floor as your feet freeze.....it likes a gale blowing through when it's windy. I have asked if something can be done with this as it is a lot larger than the vents my parents have in their house.

Will certainly check out the insulation to make sure it is upto spec, as I said, I have been here nearly 11 years and no extra work on insulation has been done in that time.

It's a waste of money (whether yours, the HA's or anyone else's) to upgrade the insulation if there is a gale blowing through the vent. It won't make any significant difference, because the heat will still go out of the vent anyway. In your position, I'd keep badgering them about the vent, find out more about regulations governing ventilation, safety aspects of house ventilation, that kind of thing...

... or cheat and deal with it yourself. A few years ago, I lived in a house with a freezing kitchen because of a vent. We just blocked up the vent and got a carbon monoxide detector (the bleeping kind, not the colour change sort that you might not notice). We unblocked the vent if anyone from the property management people was coming round, and blocked it up again after they'd gone!

Once the vent is sorted, it might be worth doing something about the insulation.

neverdespairgirl

SingleSue wrote: »

Yep it is, it's a housing association house which has some lovely drafts where the rather large vent is in the front room.

I think you should get the insulation checked - you can get all sorts of grants for it, and cutting heating bills and energy consumption is a Good Thing.

Do you get winter fuel payments?

neverdespairgirl

Damzel_In_Distress wrote: »

TV lisence - £20 a month
Gas - £80 a month (sometimes more)
Electric - £40 a month
Food- around £150 a month
Water - £25 a month

have you looked into re-usable nappies? the Home Start programme often does them very cheaply and / or free.

TV licence is £11 a month, not £20, I think.

I also reckon you should have your heating checked. Your gas bill is really high, and you say you aren't even warm, must be something wrong there.

Damzel_In_Distress

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

have you looked into re-usable nappies? the Home Start programme often does them very cheaply and / or free.

TV licence is £11 a month, not £20, I think.

I also reckon you should have your heating checked. Your gas bill is really high, and you say you aren't even warm, must be something wrong there.

no i didnt no about a home start programme ?? my tv license IS £20 a month..i pay £5.40 every wenesday -which comes to £21.60 a month i think.

my heating has been checked,its not the heating,but the meter and the severe damp that is the problem..you must of mis-read my previous posts.

MissMoneypenny

huntersc wrote: »

So depressing to see them not relating what they learn in the classroom to everyday life, trajectory and motion to the basketball going through the hoop, friction and energy transferal when balls are hit in snooker, the list goes on.

One of the boys at my son's school couldn't care less about why the basketball went through the hoop, he just liked putting the ball through the hoop. He received a scholarship to an American university and now earns a fortune as a professional basketball player.

MoneyTrev

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

One of the boys at my son's school couldn't care less about why the basketball went through the hoop, he just liked putting the ball through the hoop. He received a scholarship to an American university and now earns a fortune as a professional basketball player.

Why would you be relating to it when you play sports anyway? I know I don't relate to classroom knowledge when I play basketball. The more you practice, the more you score. Being scientific will help you but in the end, it's all up to your skill.

SingleSue

neverdespairgirl wrote: »

I think you should get the insulation checked - you can get all sorts of grants for it, and cutting heating bills and energy consumption is a Good Thing.

Do you get winter fuel payments?

I would assume I would if the temp stays at 0 or below for a week...it's not been triggered as yet but according to the gumpf, it says I should if the above happens.

It's not usually a huge problem as our winters have been so mild over the last few years and before that, of course I was married and we didn't really notice/care how much we were putting in..at least we are not at the stage of scraping ice off the inside of the windows yet then I would really panic!

I know the heating system needs to be improved, the rads are ages old and are a little awkward at times, this has been promised for when the weather is warmer as the heating would have to be completely shut down for a few days to a week to complete and they don't want to do that in mid winter...mind you it was promised 2 winters ago!

I think if we can just get over this cold snap, it won't be long before it improves and the outlay cuts down again, in the meantime we can just add more jumpers, socks and quilts to our attire.

We could have got rid of the meter years ago (it was already here when we took over the property) but we liked not having a bill to worry about just after christmas, then we got better off but were so busy that we never got around to changing it.

Paulgonnabedebtfree

amcluesent wrote: »

Some fairness needs applied to restore balance between tax payers and benefits claimants (I mean non-contributory benefits, not pensions).

1) Declining child-benefits, 100%, 66%, 33% then nothing for 4th or greater child. Doing a 'Karen Mathews' isn't an acceptable option.
2) Non-contributory benefits paid in DSS vouchers than can only be used for food/clothes. Jetting off to Tenerife on benefits isn't acceptable.
3) A wee bit more radical, long term benefits claimants taken off electoral roll.

1) ought not to be applied retrospoectively i.e. if someone already has a large family then to suddenly cut income would be immoral IMO. 1) also might assume that someone had a large family while on benefits whereas it could well be that the large family was being supported by earned income and then the family's circumstances changed through no fault of their own. Let's not get sucked into the Karen Matthews stereotype. It could also cause problems for people whose religious backgrounds make contraception a tricky area (notably Catholics) and for people who have medical issues that may cause problems with various types contraception. It's easy to say don't have sex but this instinct is hardwired into us all. I would agree though that having smaller families (maybe 2 children maximum) is desirable as world resources will become more depleted in the mid to long term.

2) Can't see the point of this one. The benefit amount would still be the same. OK, it would help ensure that the money is spent in the UK (with foreign owned companies?) but apart from that I doubt there are many benefits claimants who swan off abroad for holidays. Even a claimant is entitled to a break (under the benefits system's own rules). Also, should you not be making a distinction between means tested benefits and non means tested? Someone can have savings but still qualify for certain benefits. It's not my right to say how someone can spend their savings and nor is it yours. If you were to say no benefits at all until a certain level of poverty is reached then that is a different discussion.

3) So the long term unemployed can't vote? Tell you what. I would much rather a long term unemployed person express their anger at a polling booth than by running riot in a city centre. If things get much worse, they may well be doing both anyway. But if you want the hardest hit members of society to have no say in the running of that society, you run the risk of alienating millions. I wouldn't want to be out on the street when they (maybe us??) start fighting back.

neverdespairgirl

Damzel_In_Distress wrote: »

my heating has been checked,its not the heating,but the meter and the severe damp that is the problem..you must of mis-read my previous posts.

I meant heating in the general sense - if I were you, I'd go to the Citizen's Advice Bureau and ask for their help to sort the gas board out.