Dispatches, Christmas on Credit. Watch it on 4OD

bristol_pilot

PasturesNew wrote: »

For many people working full-time, on minimum wage, they might take home just £150/month more than if they were sat on benefits. But they might be paying £100/month to get to/from work, leaving them £50/month, some of which needs to go on clothes for work etc. They also don't have the benefit of time to look around and make do and be in the right places to get the bargains because they're at work full-time.

A single person, on low wages, working full-time, living a few miles out of town where rents are a bit cheaper, won't usually get any WTC or any tax credits, nor discounts and freebies. Nor the time to spend looking around, solving problems and getting best deals/prices.

Dead right, PN. Not worth working for less than £20k if you are single and over 25 - you are better off on benefits. Add a few kids and you'd need to earn a small fortune to match the dole plus housing benefit. Well done, Gordon Brown!

wageslave

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Only a second-hand washer, mind. I was working, not on benefits, so couldn't afford a brand new one.

You are single with no kids living with you?

Your benefits would come to something like 65 quid a week after your rent and community tax.

Tell me honestly, all smart talk aside, could you live on 65 quid a week? Food, leccy and buy a new washing machine?

If the answer is yes, I know a sea that needs parting.............

lostinrates

wageslave wrote: »

LIR, I cannot believe you are university educated and can't spell nauseous.

While you were having a whale of a time at freshers week, I was married and slogging my way through the OU.

And saving for a washing machine:rolleyes:

I know. I also used to be spelling and grammar police and mulitlingual. Never break your brain: results are rarely good!:o

bristol_pilot

wageslave wrote: »

You are single with no kids living with you?

Your benefits would come to something like 65 quid a week after your rent and community tax.

Tell me honestly, all smart talk aside, could you live on 65 quid a week? Food, leccy and buy a new washing machine?

If the answer is yes, I know a sea that needs parting.............

Given that I would also no longer have to pay the costs associated with going to work, then the answer is certainly YES.

BitterAndTwisted

PasturesNew wrote: »

Or, just one month out of work, could use up a whole year's worth of really careful scrimping and saving.

PN, you have just described my life of late. How could you possibly have known?

My vintage washing machine conked out a few months ago and I was putting money by each month towards a new one then WALLOP! I lost my job with only four days notice and no money in lieu, the savings are being eroded and I am still without a machine. The nearest launderette is 20 minutes walk away and I go there once every three weeks with the essentials and I heave the bag back with everything still wet because I don't want to spend 20 pence for 3 minutes in the dryer. Fortunately I have oodles of bed-linen and towels so I'm not laundering those until I have a complete machine-load.

The credit-limit on my zero-balance credit-card could buy me twenty washing-machines but I ain't buying without a wage coming in, no sireebob. I might be skint but I ain't completely stupid.

wageslave

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Given that I would also no longer have to pay the costs associated with going to work, then the answer is certainly YES.

If I believe you, and it is a pretty big if, at least you have hope.

Hope of at worst a pay rise or at best a promotion.

I do realise there is a very small percentage of people who would not be any worse off on the dole. But it is a very small percentage.

Years ago I remember reading about two small children who were burned alive because their mother couldn't afford a fiver for the leccy and used a candle beside their bed instead.

I dont care how angry the benefits system makes you.

It exists for a reason and it isn't nearly as generous as we like to pretend.

lostinrates

I could live off it, but I really wouldn't want to.

bristol_pilot

wageslave wrote: »

I dont care how angry the benefits system makes you.

There is a growing number of working people on modest incomes who are angry about the benefits system, we all have votes like everyone else and there's an election coming.

wageslave

bristol_pilot wrote: »

There is a growing number of working people on modest incomes who are angry about the benefits system, we all have votes like everyone else and there's an election coming.

You are seriously telling me that of all the things that are seriously fu cked up in this country..... the banking idiocy, MPs fiddling expenses, the state of the NHS, Alfghanistan, Iraq. The one thing that will determine how you cast your vote is the benefits system? WOW.

The benefits system isn't generous, it is barely adequate.

If you had said, I refuse to vote Labour because they have encouraged corruption within the benefits system I might have seen your point.

The poor shouldn't get even poorer so you can feel justified in going to work every Monday morning.

If self-interest is what motivates you, vote for whoever will make you better off.

Anything else is is just bile.

edgex

er, arnt there emergency funds available if your on certain benefits?
& wouldnt cookers & washing machines count as 'emergencies'?

or theres end of range items available, usually through the repairers


i dont really see an issue with people paying things off in weekly payments;

however, they shouldnt then be buying those massive tv's you see in the shopwindows, or the sound systems with the most flashing lights etc etc

there should be some sort of control as to what the 'cash price' is to start with, maybe an average of the big retailers prices over a month

no additional fees or insurances added onto the loan & having interest charged on them