Living on benefits

lisyloo

Harrybrown100121 wrote: »

Hi all

Sorry to be misleading, correct I am employed but I was worried that if I ever lost my job, how would I afford to live. I worked out that I would receive 111 pounds a week. I would not be able to afford my rent, council tax, energy bills, service charge. I would probably not be able to eat. I thought the benefit system was in place to help people if they lost their job not penalised them.

The benefits system is a safety for people who have fallen on hard times or people who haven’t planned financially.
As you’ve worked out it’s subsistence level only and not meant to keep you in the style to which you become accustomed :-)

If you are working you should be able to put some financial planning in place for a better outcome.
One method is to have savings.
Another is to get insurance. This can be for death, sickness, accident, redundancy etc.
The best combination is to have some level of savings and some level of insurance but what is best for you individually will depend on your circumstances for example if you have no dependents you might not need to worry about what happens after death.
If your employer had great sickness cover (both short and long term) you might not need to worry about that.
So you need to start with looking at what your employer offers e.g. how long does their sick pay last (if it’s until retirement then that’s great).

The primary responsibility for quite foreseeable events (like death, sickness, accident, redudancy) is yours and unless you’re on the breadline you should be able to put something aside.
Savings are useful for less foreseeable or uninsurable events (like your roof needing repair although property repairs of some sort are not unforeseen ld).

Nullboris

"Survive on Benefits Mr Bond? No, I expect you to die"



Survival on benefits .. Reduce luxury outgoings to zero
reduce esssential outgoings to 40% or less

Take stock of pensions, assets cars other belongings ... sell all.
Prepare to starve and to have to sell your house

When you're at rock bottom ? get prepared for a Kick in the teeth ... there will be some minor thing you forgot, therefore you will have to pay a fine and have your benefits sanctioned.

Mrs_Soup

11krage wrote: »

Oh, and do not expect to be able to keep up your current standard of living. This is what catches people out. UC caseworkers have a lot of conversations with people who receive no UC as they've received 2k earnings within the assessment period, and then the person will try to argue that it's not enough to live on (to add further absurdity to this conversation the most a UC casemanager will take home monthly is around 1.35k, and most are on a lot less than this, and most also have children to support.)

If you notice your outgoings are a lot, I'd start recording them now so you know what places you can cut or look for cheaper alternatives if your income were to decrease.

This. You wouldn't run a car, you might have to change where you live if on benefits for any length of time, you have a basic phone instead of an iphone, you get rid of sky etc. It is also why people in employment are advised to save an emergency fund of 3-6 months worth of outgoings as that would then help tide you over until you can find new employment.

Harrybrown100121

Thanks many help for your suggestions, I am just quite depressed about life in general. I did one of them benefits calculations. I worked out my rent, service charge, council tax, energy and I would have no money for anything else. I get the benefit systems should not be enough to live on but more and more people are becoming homeless/ using food banks.

How much is insurance?

Davy_Jones_II

Harrybrown100121 wrote: »

Thanks many help for your suggestions, I am just quite depressed about life in general. I did one of them benefits calculations. I worked out my rent, service charge, council tax, energy and I would have no money for anything else. I get the benefit systems should not be enough to live on but more and more people are becoming homeless/ using food banks.

How much is insurance?

Come on, this is ludicrous now. Call up and get a quote.

You are in a job that it’s virtually impossible to get fired from, no matter how unpleasant or unpopular, and which you’ll likely be able to stay in until you retire, so stop feeling sorry for yourself.

[Deleted User]

So what were the calculations that you were given?

Pollycat

MarkN88 wrote: »

So what were the calculations that you were given?

Isn't all this hypothetical anyway because the OP doesn't need benefits because he still has a job...
It's all 'what-ifs'.

sparker123

the thing is there are people working 40 hours weeks who are perpetually skint just trying to feed their kids etc so why bother any way ? UC has done nothing for single people who missed out on tax credits and has made things generally worse IMHO. It's not even saved any money since £3.5B extra is being handed out to people who couldn't even be bothered to claim it before.

TELLIT01

Davy_Jones_II wrote: »

Come on, this is ludicrous now. Call up and get a quote.

You are in a job that it’s virtually impossible to get fired from, no matter how unpleasant or unpopular, and which you’ll likely be able to stay in until you retire, so stop feeling sorry for yourself.

No such job exists any more. If you are suggesting that a job in the Civil Service is a job for life you are very mistaken. I worked in a comparatively small DWP office and there was at least one enforced departure every year. That number was increasing toward the end of my time there. In fact the person who was probably the most popular manager there was forced to leave, in part we believe, because she did care about her staff.

Harrybrown100121

Yeah people get sacked all the time in my job. I work in London and the way this government is going, most civil servants will be forced to move outside London.