Competitions Discussion Thread Part 16

mrshollysmith

You have to declare any money win over the amount of £20 (Not that people do this!) So if you win £1000 one week you would be allowed to keep £20 and have to pay Income Support £980!
But if you only claim DLA you don't need to declare anything and can have unlimited savings.

nanto3girls

Makes interesting reading.Thank you Marg.

nikkinoo83

ooo this is interesting - on the same subject does anyone know where you stand if you are a stay at home mum and only receive child benefit and child tax credits??? Just thought i'd ask incase one day I am super lucky lol x

Blulu

I think it's an excellent question, and better to ask it ahead of, hopefully, the big win, to be prepared. I have 2 comments:

1) Ask the benefits agency all about what happens if you win big or small, so that you have all the information you need.

2) I would be surprised if winning an amount would affect you negatively. So if you won 10k, surely you wouldn't lose more than 10k in benefits?

Perhaps the thing is to determine with help from the experts if there is a cut off point where it would/would not be worth winning. Good luck.

bcd2009

onviously you will have to declare this, as you would be cheating the benefit system, if you had thousands of pounds and still claim - because then you are not in need, right? so everything above those 6k has to be charged up against your benefit claims, thats why they set this limit.

cant have it all

andrew71

Interesting replies thanks. What would be the situation if you won £5000 of gadgets etc? Providing you kept them would they be classed as some kind of income? Also how long does the cash have to be in your account to be classed as saving? Say for instance you won £10,000 and paid off a loan with it directly would that still be classed as a saving?

timmmers

I suggest people find the facts out before posting garbage here. If you don't know, don't guess.

I know someone who has been in this situation, and his situation won't apply to everyone but basically it's a WIN not income...but there's a capital limit which came into play for him where they start to reduce your benefit in proportion according to how much you have in savings. Same applies to council tax etc. ..when you hit the threshold.

They don't touch your win, but things change depending on your situation as far as future benefit is concerned.

Assuming that this really worried you, and you won say 10k...that's about 4 to 5 grand max that you'd need rid of, a little work on your house (or your nose or boobs lol) would get you back into safe areas for savings.

Amilucky?

The_3rd_Zebu wrote: »

..... knowing how to 'work the system' in order to continue being a burden on the rest of society.

Loopholes are great aren't they? only problem is that they tend to benefit the richest people in society like millionaires,big corporations,bankers and MP's

HGLTsuperstar

One-Eye wrote: »

Opening a tube of Pringles

Thanks One-Eye, but that's already been said as a wrong guess. Any other ideas anyone?

slbhill

I have just posted the Scotsman (newspaper)'s Fantasy Golf comp. It runs until November but scores are accumulated from 5th April (so entering in November would be largely pointless as far as I can see). There are also prizes for the highest scoring team of each month.

For now I've posted it with an end date of 5th April to give people a chance to get in on the ground floor. (Posted here for anyone who's interested).

Firstly - is this the right way to post it for now? And secondly - what should I do after 5th April?

Stupid complicated competition (and soooo not my kind of prizes, so I'm not even entering it myself!)