council claim we are lving together when we are not

elisebutt65

Just have to say that I am totally disgusted by some of these attitudes towards people on benefits. What's the betting they all come from Daily Mail readers!!!!


I'm a single mum with 2 kids, in a council house and getting IS/housing benefit/CTC. Does that mean I'm scum of the earth as well. oh and my b'freind stays over 1 or 2 nights a week - he actually stays over about 1 w/end a month as well.

He has a mortgage, pays his bills, and supports his 4 kids - I pay all my own bills - neither of us subsidiese the other.

Oh and I also go to Uni full time, so I'll be a 2nd year student in September, getting more tax free childcare and dependents grant along with the loan.

Maybe I should just shoot myself in despair at what i have allowed myself to become!!!!

Tabbykatt

Hey Elisebutt65, may I say a BIG well done to you! :T
Juggling kids and study while living off a VERY basic 'wage' is so very very hard and all power to you for getting yourself out of the rut that can be caused by being in the benefit trap.
I really do feel that the people who express the hard faced views in this forum thread really need a reality check, and I really pity them if their lives were to take a 90' turn and they find themselves living off £120 a week with a household to support.
Maybe it could be a new TV Reality series... Reality Cheque! :rotfl:

elona

Well said Tabby Katt - no one really knows what lies ahead of them and those who look down on others could be only a few pay cheques from being in the same situation.

P.S. I read the Daily Mail but only because I like the Jonathan Cainer horoscopes.

The very best of luck to everyone who is struggling at the moment - financially and otherwise.

jellyhead

elise you forgot to say you're getting your education for free, most people have tuition fees too - gosh what a terrible person you must be :rolleyes:

while on the one hand i agree that people shouldn't be having a new man staying over before the children are ready to deal with it there's more involved than just that. a couple will probably already know after 6 months that they want to be together properly in the future, but the practicalities mean it can't happen straight away. if one partner has a lease on a property they usually can't afford to leave it until the lease runs out. if the property being rented isn't large enough for everyone then that person is tied in to that lease until it expires, and couldn't afford to support 2 households in the meantime. or there might be debts or other financial issues that need sorting out first.

but ted's right, the benefits forum is no place for discussion about the moral issues involved in claiming. the OP is not doing anything illegal, i think from now on we should all focus on the point of this thread - whether or not what's happening is against the rules or not.

pandas66

So I take it now you've had your say, in OP's defence and not knowing all their facts, we can return to the OP question. As a matter of fact I am a single parent family but I have never tried to use the benefits system to mine or a b/f's 'living together maybe' advantage. I have paid in full my mortgage, bills and associated out goings, never had a part time live in b/f and claimed benefits and so I can claim I never read the Mail/Mirror/Sun or other dross papers. The sysyem has rules that go into the grey areas of peoples lives, to live in the black for socirty to be happy and for OP not to be judged they are working the system why not cut back on how many nights he stays at hers 1 or 2 nights, they would be well within then, no problem and a lot of people wouldn't feel like they subsidised a lifestyle seemingly better than theirs.

Phonix

Tricky sitution tbh.

jellyhead

yes okay, i shouldn't have had my say then said let's get back on topic, sorry lol!

i suppose i'm looking at it from the point of view that if the bf has his own mortgage, bills etc. to pay then he probably isn't paying any of hers, so her lifestyle is probably no better than it would be if she didn't have a bf. i'm making that assumption, i could be wrong about it.

i see your point about the amount of nights they spend together. i don't know if there's a set rule about that kind of thing, everyone seems to think 2 nights per week is the maximum but that might be a myth, no idea.

j-baby-scotland

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larmy16

This discussion brings back memories of Kilroy's morning programme!

julesb82

Zero nights!

Sorry but just had to respond this this. I am on housing benefits for the first time in my life as became ill last year, diagnosed with MS, and I am severely disabled and cannot work currently. So to you does that therefore mean I cannot try to have a normal relationship with my partner? We can never spend the night together?! Crazy!

We are at the stage were we want to live together, we both rent seperate flats, but for life of me cannot see how we would ever be able to do it....as the state we make him "keep me" financially, we would live very very poorly.

So three nights per week is really not all that much, all because someone has been dealt a bad hand in life by becoming disabled or husband leaving them to bring up their kids alone, we are surely allowed to have three e we nights of companionship without feeling guilty.

Why should we be made to feel guilty? Are we supposed to be alone forever?