Universal credit and cash withdrawals

kingston1506

I recently had a claim review and they asked me about cash withdrawals and now I am worried every time I withdraw cash, is it reasonable to draw about 100 a week in cash for groceries, going out with friends etc, I am worried in case they review me again

kingston1506

I recently had a claim review and they asked me about cash withdrawals and now I am worried every time I withdraw cash, is it reasonable to draw about 100 a week in cash for groceries, going out with friends etc, I am worried in case they review me again

born_again

kingston1506 said:

I recently had a claim review and they asked me about cash withdrawals and now I am worried every time I withdraw cash, is it reasonable to draw about 100 a week in cash for groceries, going out with friends etc, I am worried in case they review me again

Do you spend it all?

Why not use card to pay for shopping etc?

kingston1506

I sometimes use cash and sometimes use my card, I find it easier to budget using cash 

Ayr_Rage

duplicate topic

kingston1506

sorry not sure why’s it’s posted twice 

elsien

What questions about the cash did they ask you last time they reviewed it? 

Personally I prefer cash for day-to-day spending as it’s easier to see by looking in my purse, what is left for the rest of the week. 

I can’t see why cash withdrawals in and of themselves would be a major issue for the DWP unless they think you are stashing it somewhere to avoid your savings going over the limit.

Muttleythefrog

No issue.... you're entitled to spend cash (legally) as you see fit. And to be honest that's not a lot of cash so they must've been struggling for questions to ask. Obviously hiding cash away is something they may wonder about (as it is one way to hide capital from electronic eyes) but I doubt it in this case.

TELLIT01

born_again said:

Why not use card to pay for shopping etc?

Many people on a tight budget prefer using cash as they then know precisely how much money they have available.  Very easy to overspend when using a card, particularly if you aren't very financially savvy.

Spoonie_Turtle

Please don't worry.  They ask questions about random expenditure - for me it was transfers to my siblings to pay for shopping or things we'd bought jointly and paid them my share.  For someone else it was a PayPal payment.

Legally you are entitled to spend your income however you want.  DWP have no basis to question or challenge it, unless they suspect someone hiding accumulating cash - which by your answer it is clear you aren't.

This is just speculation on my part so take it with a whole canister of salt, but the only way I can get them to make sense in my mind is they're checking a) that we're not squirreling money away somewhere to hide it, and b) that the accounts we've told them are ours, are being used by us and they're not actually someone else's just in our name. 
(Which actually the latter maybe sounds a bit ridiculous when typed out but weird things do happen … like I said, speculation on my part and it's the only way I've been able to reconcile all the questions I've heard other people have had and the questions they asked me.)