You have to laugh

MrT_5

This is probably covered somewhere else on here but I can't really go through every posting to find out. I'm not really looking for advice but if anyone wants to offer any then feel free.

My wife has been off work for over six months now due to bullying. This is the third incidence and it doesn't look like she will be going back. The union is on the case and maybe we will get them into court one day. Thankfully I insisted that she kept diaries and that should help.

She got the stuff from her employers to say SSP had finished. Then we went to the local DWP (dole, DSS insert your own here) and were given the usual forms to fill in. Must say I got a shock because it is years since I have been in one of those places. Lovely place and the staff were pretty nice too. Shock horror! Anyway, we duly filled the forms in and handed them over. Many times over the course of the next week she was contacted to ask about mortgage, bank details etc etc. Didn't ask for our blood groups and that was about the only thing they never asked about. We need to see an original bank statement was one thing. But I bank on the internet and don't get statements was my reply. Okay we will accept a print out! This went on for a couple of weeks.

To cut a long story short, she gets a letter saying you are getting incapacity benefit of £70.05 a week. Next day a letter comes saying IB is taxable and you have to pay tax of £0.00. Fantastic waste of money don't you think? Could have put both letters in the same envelope is a suggestion but it is only our money they are wasting.

For some reason they put her in for Income support and that is why we had to give all the bank details etc. She never asked for it but they went ahead anyway. All that time on the phone, visiting the DWP and looking for various documents that you put away safely but can never remember where they are, letters galore from the DWP and in the end they worked out that we had far too much money for her to get IS. We are not rich and certainly don't have the £16,000 figure they kept saying you are allowed in savings so why I don't really know? What really made me laugh though was the statement that the Government consider that a couple can live on £90 a week? Now I am sure I will get shot down in flames by someone but I know of no two people who can exist, never mind live on 90 quid a week. You have to love Governments don't you? Ministers and MP's probably spend that much on a bottle of booze for their lunch but expect people to live on it.

Craig Bellamy is reported to be joining Liverpool but taking a pay cut to do so. He will only get 45,000 a week instead of the 60,000 he was offered to stay at Blackburn Rovers. Good luck to the lad, I wish I could have been that good and a lot younger than I am but ask him if he could live on 90 a week and he will tell you he spends that daily on petrol probably.

Well one thing I have learnt is that the DWP and probably most Government departments waste a hell of a lot of paper when a phone call could have done it or maybe one letter saying don't bother because you won't get it anyway.

You have to laugh, don't you?

essexhoney

MrT wrote:

What really made me laugh though was the statement that the Government consider that a couple can live on £90 a week? Now I am sure I will get shot down in flames by someone but I know of no two people who can exist, never mind live on 90 quid a week.

as a single mum who is 8 months pregnant with 2 children aged 6 and 1, with IS, CB, and CTC i recieve £140 a week. I dont waste my money, i dont struggle for money infact i can live quite comfortably on the money that i recieve because i am careful with my money - its a case of having to be.
Where as i have a friend who recieves the same amount of money as me with 2 children slightly older than my 2 and she NEVER has any money.
My children dont go without, they have everything thing they need, not everything they want and the same goes for me.

If you are careful with your money and watch what you are spending it is possible.

[Deleted User]

I find this sad to read and sympahsise with you as i have family members in the same situation as you and are also only getting £90 and they cant live off it. Its not their fault they cant work anymore and have always worked all their lifes, piad taxes etc and this is all they get. Its not right. I know people over the age of 25 that get roughly £82.50 a week income support for having drug problems and they make other people live off £90 and thats for a couple. Its not right.

essexhoney

Well actually thats where your wrong.

I dont live in a council house, because the council wont house me as im not a priority i have to privatly rent my 2 bedroom flat on the 15th floor of a tower block and because the rents are so high around here infact they are not just high they outright ridiculous housing benefit dont pay all of my rent. I have to pay £100 a month on top of what housing benefit will pay, thats £25 a week.

I am 23, i have worked full time since the age of 15 up until november last year because it worked out that i was worse off working than i was staying at home, and for the sake of my sons behavioural difficulties he needed me there full time.

Pleased ont judge peoples situations when you dont know anything about them i am far from having kids so that i can live off the social without having to do a days work. I want to go back to work but whilst i am still living here it is not financially beneficial for me to be doing so.

It is possible to live on that amount of money if you dont watse your money and only live within your means.

Fran

***Boardguide Comment***

Please be nice to all moneysavers and keep the thread on topic.

missk_ensington

OK, you actually have 500 a month spending money. I wasn't implying you lived in a council house, it doesn't matter where you live you still don't pay a gerat lot for it.

Anyway, I'm not saying I blame you, I'm saying the Government makes it difficult to work when you're a single parent, unless you have a fab job making mega bucks. For most of us, we might earn £12,000 a year? You'd come out after tax with £800 or so, plus £200 a month in tax credits giving you £1000 a month, take off at least £500 for rent, another £100 for council tax, and you have £400 left over for everything.

If you go on Income support you have £600 left over to spend, and even if you are better off working, you're only gonna be £200 a month better off, in which caswe how many people are going to get kids to school, get to work, be at work fir 8 hours, come home and do the housework as a single parent, and do this 5 days a week just to be £50 a week better off?!

There should be more rewards for single parents who choose to work. You should have a higher Personal Allowance, and for parents who's ex'es don't pay CSA for one reason or another the government should give them something.

I'm lucky, I'm a single parent but I get £235 a month in CSA, plus my wage and tax credits, and I have a mortgage which is lower than what rent would be, but I have friends who don't get CSA cos the fathers are unemployed or self-emplyed, or can't trace them and it isn't fair.

Rant over!

MrSmartprice

I am not surprised that someone has stated that they can survive on benefits by being prudent with their money. But then she is an MSE member.

What some people do not seem to grasp is that benefits are for essential living, not some lavish chav lifestyle at the expense of the taxpayer. Whenever you see an article on TV the people concerned are invariably wasting vast quantities of cash on scratchcards, lager, fags, tattoos, piercings, designer clothes and expensive toys. Then they have the cheek to say they can't pay their bills.

looby75

MrSmartprice wrote:

I am not surprised that someone has stated that they can survive on benefits by being prudent with their money. But then she is an MSE member.

What some people do not seem to grasp is that benefits are for essential living, not some lavish chav lifestyle at the expense of the taxpayer. Whenever you see an article on TV the people concerned are invariably wasting vast quantities of cash on scratchcards, lager, fags, tattoos, piercings, designer clothes and expensive toys. Then they have the cheek to say they can't pay their bills.

I think a lot of it depends on what situation you are in when you end up on benefits. In my case I had a house which was furnished with all the usual things, but they were all 10 yrs + old. I had some debts, nothing major but a few catalogues, a couple of small credit card balances and normal run of the mill things that you commit to when you are comfortably well off.

Then out of the blue my husband announces he is leaving me and I ended up on benefits. It took almost 3 months for me to get any money because the Jobcentre lost my forms and the tc, well they were just being their usual incompetent selves. In those 3 months I wasn't able to pay my normal commitments, and ended up getting fines for late payment etc. I ended up getting cash advances on one card to pay the minimum payment just so I could still use the card to buy food. Obviously the debt on my credit card reached a large amount very quickly. Yes I did get my benefits back paid, and used as much of that as possible to get up to date with everyone I owed, but that didn't cover anywhere near what I had to put on my card.

In the last couple of years I have had to buy a new cooker, and other small appliances, and things keep breaking down so every time I manage to save a few £ it's wiped out by another expense. I don't smoke, Don't go out drinking, I do have some tattoos and piercing though, but they were all done before my husband left


Anyway what I am trying to say is, if you start with a clean slate then maybe it's reasonably easy to manage on benefits, but if you end up on them unexpectedly and have nothing to fall back on when that happens it's very hard to make ends meet, you end up robbing peter to pay paul and getting further and further into debt

davsidipp

i know i am going to get slated for this but i also dont think you should get pregnant while you are on income support why should earners pay for other peoples children to be fed .also contrecption is free.

viktory

davsidipp wrote:

i know i am going to get slated for this but i also dont think you should get pregnant while you are on income support why should earners pay for other peoples children to be fed .also contrecption is free.

I think what really tickled me is the fact the one of the posters is 8 months pregnant, with two other children and is a single parent! Bad luck or bad judgement? You decide. There must have been a man around at some point! Surely it is time these absent fathers are brought to book and made to support their off spring.

Fran

***Boardguide comment***

I am closing this thread because it has gone off topic, anyway the OP said he wasn't looking for advice.