To ask what's the beef with benefits?

When I first started working many years ago I was made redundant, those were the times where you just went out and got another role. I had a admin type role but was quite happy to work in London. There were lots of jobs around.

Now of course things are very different which is why I have clung on for dear life to this role even though there have been times when I hated it.

just a thought might be a crap one but heyho... the SAHM gives up a well paid job because she thinks fuck it i been working 15/20 years. time i got something back. and can also be at home with the kids...

could work all your life till retirement. government not going to look after you when you get old... how many old people cant afford heating. is retirement age is rising.. time some of us retire we be lucky to get a pension for a couple of years before we dye...

Sorry, but I will not worry and worry about things that haven't yet happened.

Without outing myself the company I work for has a great package(one of my team had to call it in recently so I know what is on offer). If
I died my company would pay out around £250k and pension to my DH. We have only a few years left on the mortgage.

Of course I could worry about getting cancer, my DH leaving, one of the children getting disabled etc.

So it's wrong for someone to not want to take a zero hour contract, if they're on JSA.

But it's not wrong for handcream to not want a zero hour contract.

I agree that sometimes it isn't always down to choice, but very often it is. Buy a house near a river and watch it flood the first time in 200 years is very unlucky (friend had this happen).

Give up a well paid role because you want to be a SAHM is less so.

Personally I wouldn't take the risk but plenty do. My DS lives with her partner and has no will, hasn't got around to it. Do I think she is bananas - yes I do!

all is good for you then handcream :)

You'd be surprised how long that insurance lasts handcream, it's not long at all, it really isn't.

I had to give up work because I worked at an airport with odd hours and my ex was a baker who would wake at 4 am to be a work for 5. Not sure if Childminders work that early.

We both have plenty of insurance to cover this element, my company offers a good early retirement package for this scenario. Our mortgage has got 4 years to go and living in the ?E we have equity in the house that if we needed to downsize we could easily. This will not be our last house.

I course I could get run over by a bus tomorrow leaving my DH a single parent...

i dont think its always down to choice. sometimes it is but not always.

I keep seeing this thread title and thinking I'm missing the new 'friends with benefits' thing, and suggesting that horseradish might be beef with benefits. Sorry, nothing of value to add to the debate.

I truly believe that it's the choices one makes in life that makes you what you are, I don't have a degree, I dont work in a niche industry, I am really no one unusual at all, but I did choose to marry late in life, stay in the SE in a smaller property, didn't give up my job etc.

Thank you!

Who knows, handcream?
You could be permanently disabled tomorrow. Then we'll ask you about 'choices'.

You know, I was planning to write a book about what its like to live on benefits for some people and the lengths they go to ensure they can eat.

And that's why I have stayed self-employed for over 20 years, during everything, to still be able to NOT have to explain myself to anybody. I have and have had many things and for the past few years and a few more I care for my autistic son. That's more info than you need to know - but it makes no difference to any of us. I have the freedom to make decisions so lucky, lucky me.

My friend was on a zero hour contract, several times she really did have zero hours.

How have I got the choice and others haven't, it's not all just luck is it?

I'm a PROPER drain, me
Dawn's an amateur compared.

You wouldn't have one handcream? How lovely to have the choice.

Then you have Dawn. Such a drain on society.

Except she and her family are NOT! Dawn is a highly intelligent and valuable member of society, as is her DH and DC. But they still have to contend with ignorant attitudes and absurd posturing about "benefits".

Ok, my soap box fell apart, my benefits couldn't support it any more.

Of course I know what a zero hrs contract is. I wouldn't have one myself. I live in the ?E, didn't give up work when I had children because I didn't want to lose my skills and also didn't want to be reliant on my partner or put the pressure on him to earn all the money for the household.

I have been with the same company for years. I could have left, earned a little more and have had times when I was ready to chuck it in, but didn't. Company doesn't have complusory redundancies and never will for all sorts of reasons.

I have friends and relatives who have relationships that haven't worked out. I have rarely heard them say 'what can I learn from this and how can I protect myself better next time'. Marriages have a 50% chance of working out and live in relationships less, that is the biggest red flag for me.

We had no help with childcare, parents are too old and PIL live 4 hours away.

Let me tell you about zero hours contracts.

You're told you'll "probably" have 35 hours. Eventually.
You get nowhere near that. You keep trying.
One week you have 20 hours. The next you have 10 hours. Then they are short handed and you get 40 hours.
The benefits system implodes at that. It can't cope with anything other than regular hours and one pay rate.

Before you know it you're apparently earning at 40 hours a week and you're quids in. Right? NO. Then the council, HMRC and everyone else who wants a piece of you is demanding their share.

THAT'S WHY IT'S A PROBLEM.

Dawn, glad you mentioned that, my DD is autistic and its taken her a very long time to get where she is now.

And do you know the toll it takes on you mentally waiting to hear back from job applications or how you feel when you walk into the bloody jobcentre, making you feel like shit on someones shoe. I've battled with depression since DD was born, being a jobseeker and constantly rejected.

Do you know what I did when I realised Sainsburys werent gonna extend my contract. I sobbed my fucking heart out, sobbed so hard I had a headache, because the thought of going back to bloody benefits made me want to curl and die.

So dont lump everyone on benefits in the "Lazy fuckers" box, because some of us dont wanna be there.