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The jobless are no shirking scroungers – you try living on £65.45 a week
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(After all: why the hell should a family with a household income exceeding £100,000 a year get Child Benefit funded by a taxpayer earning little more than one tenth of that?)
fwiw DH's salaray isn't quite that and we would not expect a child benefit.
Its also worth mentioning that some people, although I accept they may be few/far between, do not pick up these things they are ''entitled to'' like child benefit. I dn't know if figures are held for that sort of thing in salary bracket. It caused relagtive degrees of difficulty for DH and his siblings, whose well off parents did not claim and we're not in Uk a lot, in getting their NI numbers.0 -
(After all: why the hell should a family with a household income exceeding £100,000 a year get Child Benefit funded by a taxpayer earning little more than one tenth of that?)
Because it's only £20.30 pw for the first child and £13.40 for the others, so the admin costs of means testing it would probably cost more than you'd save in not paying it to the most well off.
People who may not actually need it may be claiming it in order to get the HRP on their NI.Do you know anyone who's bereaved? Point them to https://www.AtaLoss.org which does for bereavement support what MSE does for financial services, providing links to support organisations relevant to the circumstances of the loss & the local area. (Link permitted by forum team)
Tyre performance in the wet deteriorates rapidly below about 3mm tread - change yours when they get dangerous, not just when they are nearly illegal (1.6mm).
Oh, and wear your seatbelt. My kids are only alive because they were wearing theirs when somebody else was driving in wet weather with worn tyres.
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Fair do's, great post, Lydia.
Albeit your math is bound to be based on the current costs of administering, well, anything at all by a Labour Government.
A relatively simple income re benefits indexing at the Inland Revenue would easily resolve this.
(Though having said that, I'm not sure any bunch of politicians from any party is capable of implementing anything relating to IT without a cost / time over-run so considerable as to render the entire exercise, pointless. . .)0 -
LHA is paid on "average rent" in an area. This means the following:...the main problem is the housing benefit, or LHA or whatever its name is nowadays. He's getting £18k pa (tax free I presume) just for that. :eek:
Either the system needs to have a cap on what it will pay for LHA (much much lower than £1500pm) or else people who live in areas where the rent and LHA are enormous would need to be eligible for some small amount of LHA even if they're earning packets. But this is yet another aspect of sky-high HP that is bad for the country and the economy.
- if you're working in an average joe job you can only afford the cheap seats
- if you're on benefits long-term you get to enjoy quite a nice place
- if you're earning a good whack you can pick and choose from lovely places
Obviously people can't immediately move to a cheaper place if they're laid off, plus moving costs a whole bunch of money the unemployed just don't have (new deposit, new credit checks (which they'll fail), new holding fees maybe, new rent up front).
So, there's a bit of a problem there.
Ideally, LHA would be set at a lower rate. Say 20% under average rent. But it'd also need to be in certain conditions, e.g. [a] if you've never worked/not working now once you've been on LHA for 12 months. This coupled with the deposit scheme (temporary loan until original deposit comes through maybe) would mean that the long-term unemployed move into the cheaper seats. This would then skew the average rent back to "the norm" and help redress the imbalance.
Of course, this would require quite complex management - and more cost.
Difficult to know what to do really. Maybe LHA could be reduced by that 20% over the next 20 months, and leave it at that.0 -
But a village where? If it's a village near a major city/town, with good transport links, that's different to living in the middle of the fens, rural Wales or rural/north Cornwall.Sorry, PN - just not true. I don't drive so a car would be a bit useless! I get and have always got to jobs by public transport; despite the fact I live in a village.
It depends where. I calculated the entire cost of running my car over the past 10 years and it worked out at £15/week. If I'd been signing on anywhere in the middle of that, having obtained the car, the cost would have been about £25/month for tax/insurance/MoT then a few quid for petrol. For me to drive into town where I was living (3 miles) cost me 60p return, the bus was £3 return.Getting bored of just taking my 1 bus to all the stops along the route in either direction, I have tried experienting with changing buses/catching trains as well and within an hour and a half (a not impossible commute) I can get almost everwhere within a 20 mile radius. It requires some ingenuity, a good knowledge of bus timetables and a familiarity with online route planners. It probably costs a bit more than driving (or maybe not? when you compare it to all the running costs of a car?) and certainly takes longer.
People can work from home, if there is a suitable home environment. I'm not currently able to work from home, for example, as there is no peace/quiet, no space where I am uninterrupted. No space to set up my PC properly, no desk, no good lighting, no regular broadband.And if the worst comes to the worst, you can always work from home, so no travel costs/time needed, as millions currently do and as newtechnology will enable millions more to do. Set up an ebay business, work online, etc etc - there's loads that can be done if you have the need and the imagination.
After all, you do it yourself.
I haven't written or done a single thing for over 4 months as I just don't have the uninterrupted silence for 15 hours at a go that I need to keep everything on track and my mind focussed.0 -
Drive, tenacity.Rubbish - what 'skills' do you need to set up an ebay business.
Research skills, researching the marketplace, researching suppliers.
Spreadsheet skills to calculate your fees, time, costs, profit. Then to analyse the results.
Copywriting skills to draw the buyer in and convert a browser to a buyer.
Internet marketing skills to optimise your views for your product.
Marketing skills to promote your listings/store.
Time management skills, to manage the auction start/end dates and times and balance that with distance to a Post Office that's open.
Page layout skills, for choosing the correct font colours/layouts to optimise your selling chances.
The ability to understand and perform to eBay T&Cs.
Basic understanding of legal issues, what you can't/can't claim and your rights and responsibilities re refunds, items going missing and bad payers etc.
And that's just for starters.
You had a particular, specialist skill to promote and offer though. You knew your "path".Or do childminding, local cleaning, etc - just classic defeatism.
When we moved here I couldn't drive and was limited to working only when my son was asleep, with no childcare cover. I set up 1 business working at home, and had 3 other work-from-home jobs as well (all self-employed).
Vicky Pollard ...?If you have to, you can, whatever your skillsbase. No one has NO skills.
For most though, confidence is the hardest thing. For me it's confidence. I do something, it does well ... I get scared. I see how successful I've been and I want to run and hide. I'm scared of the success. Crazy I know, but more people are afraid of success than failure. My sister said to me "It's easiser to run and fail because it proves what you've been told all your life, that you're a failure ... and if you can just learn to move beyond that you'll see you can be a success ... and dad was wrong".0 -
Fair enough. But I think the numbers of people who live so far off a workable bus route or other public transport route as you describe must be small - certainly not sufficient numbers that all unemployed people should require the use of a car as an essential.
Maybe they should just accept the need to move nearer the work if they are in that position.0 -
Fair enough. But I think the numbers of people who live so far off a workable bus route or other public transport route as you describe must be small - certainly not sufficient numbers that all unemployed people should require the use of a car as an essential.
Maybe they should just accept the need to move nearer the work if they are in that position.
Carolt, I think you over estimate the efficiency of UK's public transport network outside key areas of habitation. I really do.0 -
You don't need money to start, but you need to find a way to build up that money. I did start with nothing when I started faffing about online for money. What I make, I reinvest quite often. I spent £50 yesterday on something that I believe will enable me to double my income by the end of this year. You have to make a few quid, then re-invest in yourself using the money you've made. I probably spend £2000-3000/year on domain names, hosting, bandwidth, things that seem a good idea ... etc. But that money comes purely from the income my efforts are generating.you need money to sey up a business - as for childminding you need to be ofsted registered again you need money ,
Today I identified I now need to spend about £40 this week (unless anybody has a copy of Dragon Naturally 10 they can post to me!). But this investment is tax deductible and ... should .... help me be more focussed and more productive and be able to do more work... which by this time next year (fingers crossed) will be worth dosh.
It's not easy. But if you can find something that works then it works ....
I would say that single people on JSA have a harder time trying to do this as they have to do so much job searching etc - and at the drop of a hat you could get a job offer to start tomorrow. But for those living on benefits with kids there are lots of opportunities to structure your life to achieve a business because you know that for the next X years nobody's going to suddenly expect you to drop everything and start a job on Monday.0 -
This is an issue. You can't run a business from rented property usually. Also, as you're under an AST it takes months to get approved, during which time you might be asked to leave. Also, if you're single and have been working you're probably only living in a studio anyway as it's cheaper than a 1-bed.2. my flat tennency does not allow me to run a business from my home0
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