Preparedness for when

RAS

Old and useful? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-35550165

moneyistooshorttomention

Hmmm...so leek, garlic, organic wine. The cowbile isn't necessary in the event (thank goodness:eek:).

Instant conclusion = I really don't need the medics to make this up for me - as I can do it myself. Now I wonder if anyone has the recipe for it please?

Found the recipe online. So the non-bile version =

equal amounts of leek and garlic, finely chopped and crushed in a mortar for 2 minutes (my translation - high-speed blender then I guess).

- then add 25 ml organic wine (presumably white?).

- Let it stand for 9 days and then strain through a cloth to remove the bits.

Sorted! It would help to have the exact quantities of leek and garlic needed and whether the wine can be white or red.

Frugalsod

RAS wrote: »

Actually at present the rules are savings over £6K have to be declared and benefits are reduced but over £16K you get nothing for income based JSA etc.

Roughly the same under Universal Credit

Example
You have savings and capital of £12,000. The first £6,000 is ignored, so the tariff income is worked out on the remaining £6,000. For every £250 of this amount, it’s assumed you’ll get £1 of income a week.
Calculation:
£6,000 divided by £250 = £24.
So, the amount of tariff income from your savings or income is £24 a week. This amount will be taken off your Universal Credit.

That is why I used the £6000 figure as the base.

The problem is that the nominal rate of interest you are supposedly getting is far more than you would actually get. Also by keeping to a lower limit then you are not going to have to worry about such things.

So for me, if I were in such a situation I could still qualify, plus my normal expenses are so low that I could cope on benefits without the need to break into my savings. This is why I aim to keep my normal bills to less than £200 a month. Though even this £6000 limit means 95% of people qualify for all means tested benefits, as they are below this figure.

moneyistooshorttomention

Always worth keeping bills to a minimum anyway. Mine are about £250 a month and NHS bills on top (ie paying the cost of visiting my private dentist/hygienist, cost of glasses, etc).

Last time I looked - and I would find it literally totally impossible to manage on benefit income (even if there were no deductions for part of rent or Council Tax).

I'm perfectly prepared to believe that many British people have less than £6,000 in savings. In fact - I'm wondering whether that £6k figure is gross or net. As I know there are a noticeable number of people that say "I have £x in savings" and I think that's what they actually mean - when, on further investigation, they have debts (despite having savings). Typical scenario being someone saying that they have £4,000 savings AND having £2,000 debt (in which case - nope they don't have £4k savings. They actually have £2k savings iyswim).

Mind you - right at this moment - and I'm in that 95% (courtesy of just how much money has had to be spent on renovating my house).:(:mad::(

ivyleaf

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I'm perfectly prepared to believe that many British people have less than £6,000 in savings.

I'm so glad. I have £190.15 :rotfl: and I'm sure that's a lot more than a fair number of people have.

Mind you, I am putting money into a trust fund for my funeral as well. But I can't have that back until I'm dead
ETA It's the sort of plan where you pay over a set amount of years, so although it's a lot of money for me to find each month, at least I know there'll be an end to it. One year down, four to go!

jk0

ivyleaf wrote: »

Mind you, I am putting money into a trust fund for my funeral as well. But I can't have that back until I'm dead
ETA It's the sort of plan where you pay over a set amount of years, so although it's a lot of money for me to find each month, at least I know there'll be an end to it. One year down, four to go!

What happens if you fall under a bus before the last payment is made?

jk0

Thanks for all your advice regarding my girlfriend folks. We did have a discussion about her timekeeping on Saturday night. She says she is late for everyone!

We were due to meet tomorrow. Rather than dump her, I told her that I don't think I would be very nice to her this week, so can we postpone. This seems to be acceptable, and hopefully I will have forgiven her by next week.

nuatha

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I hadn't read anything about that - ie the Government trying to levy a charge on peoples homes to cover them getting their NHS operations:eek:

I wouldn't put it past them mind you...:cool:.:eek:

Do you have any links to anything on this?

Can't find the links at the mo, it was one of the right wing think tanks and it was more a case of ideas that weren't being actively put forward - so why publicise them, so that the eventual proposals seem less problematic or float it now and say no one objected when we mentioned it x years ago.
I did come across this though which should have been getting far wider coverage: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/cologne-only-three-out-of-58-men-arrested-in-connection-with-mass-sex-attack-on-new-years-eve-are-a6874201.html

moneyistooshorttomention

Nautha

Having recently read some obvious commonsense viewpoints described as "extreme right wing" and wondered how on earth the exact same person (ie me) could be described as "extreme right wing" in one breath and "veering on communist" in another breath - I know what you mean by "thinktank" - but haven't the foggiest idea what is supposed to be meant by "left wing", "right wing" or any other similar terms any more. These terms seems to be used as a way of expressing subjective opinion - rather than as an objective fact.

Anyways - passing swiftly over subjective terms and I wonder whether either of these two links I have found are what you are referring to:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/05/nhs-patients-may-force-widescale-charges-warns-financial-thinktank

AND/OR

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/carole-molloy/nhs-charges-zombie-policies-walking-into-downing-street

EDIT; for some reason those links don't work for clicking through on. Hopefully they will work if manually typed in. I found them by googling for "charge on property for healthcare charges thinktank".

I can't see charges levied on property coming to pass whilst the NHS is still being used/abused/claimed on for luxuries in so many other ways. That abuse and claiming for luxuries would have to be dealt with first - and I cant say I see that happening any time soon.

GreyQueen

Evening all.

Re claiming means-tested benefits (housing and council tax benefits, income-based jobseeker's allowance and laterly universal credit) the amount of savings a working age person is allowed to have is £6k, with a taper applied between £6-£16k. For the retirement age cohort, they're allowed £10k with tapering up to £16k. At £16,000.01, both groups fall out of entitlement altogether.

And yes, there is a ridiculous assumption of high weekly interest from savings which was laughable even before near-zero interest rates which have been the case for a number of years.

There can be knock-down drag-out fights between local authorities and claimants (and their welfare advice advocates) about what consititutes 'deprivation of capital' in terms of money disappearing in implausible directions/ implausible quantities conveniently around the time someone finds themselves subject to means-testing.