Finding it hard not to resent friend on benefits

My carer lives on carer's allowance topped up with Universal Credit.

He has visited Japan a couple of times.

To afford the trip he never uses the heating in his flat. I mean never, not when it is snowing or when ice is building up on the inside of windows.

He lives a couple of miles away from me and he walks to and from rather than pay for bus fare.

He limits his shopping to something like £30 a week for everything.

His trips to Japan have been by the cheapest route / airline and when there he stays in shared rooms in hostels.

People manage their money differently.

It sounds like your friend has a plan to improve her situation and in the meantime lives within her means.

The mother of 4 will return to full-time work in what will likely be a better paying job than the OP. She will be a net contributor and if her children are as clever as her and have the same work ethic they will also grow up and contribute to society. This is a relatively short term situation and she currently needs the support. I think in 10 years time the OP will still be jealous of her friend as she will not have made progress in her own life. The OP maybe won’t even realise that the friend’s eventual higher tax payments are helping to fund her and her family’s life.

Jealousy evokes feelings of hatred, bitterness etc. That she wishes the friend harm.
The OP is envious, she wishes she had that income level - and lifestyle that’s all.

Presumably there’s no white van on the driveway in this case.

Do something that warrants gross misconduct or reduce your hours to the minimum and claim UC.

It is not like it is unobtainable.

Only the amount of money won't cover car expenses and your personal debt, your friend is good at budgeting and hunting bargains.

Just focus on yourself.

Look at doing a degree too, if you reduce your hours and spending, studying for a few years.

I'd hazard a guess that she's found some cheap flights on Easyjet, has booked their accommodation separately and self caters.

A week self catering in Greece can be done very cheaply indeed especially with free child places and booking flights in advance. I’ve done it with two kids in summer holidays and it really wasn’t more expensive than a UK based holiday.

Maybe her husband was a high earner before he left? Anyone's husband can leave them or die. It's not even a Crazy number. It was considered a small family back in our grandparents time.

Meanwhile people in other countries have way more children while we die out and make anyone who has more than 2.4 kids feel like shit. The future doesn't look great for great Britain

From spending a lot of time on the Holidays topic, it would appear that an awful lot of people think that you need thousands and thousands to go to Greece, and that the only option is an all inclusive package.

However, given that the woman in question shows other signs of being a good budgeter (buys all clothes on Vinted, debt free, can afford Christmas presents which I strongly suspect she picks up second hand for a song for kids that age), I'd hazard a guess that she's found some cheap flights on Easyjet, has booked their accommodation separately and self caters.

And well done her, for making her money stretch that far! She could probably give budgeting tips to some of the nasty people on this thread, I'm sure.

Have 2 more kids then and do the same????????

Where do you live though? Most places the waiting list is ten years long. So they have no choice to rent privately then they just spend all their money on rent and have barely anything left.
One person going on holidays while having chea rent doesn't mean everyone on benefits goes on exotic holidays

Yes most people i know who are on benefits (but not working) are in housing association properties. Like you say how on earth could they afford private rent as it can be hard enough for those working to afford it.

So, when someone’s life goes to shit and they need a temporary safety net, do you actually want them and their children to live in poverty? That’s what you think should happen to people? She was married and stable and had a career, and it all got taken away from her. She is still in work, she’ll go back to full time but due to her ex-husband’s actions, she needs a few years of help and you’re envious and want her to be living in poverty to make you feel better?

I don’t think I’d want to be your friend. Nor do I want to live in the society you seem to be yearning for. Husband leaves you or dies while you have young children, well it’s poverty for you until you can get back into full time work.

Yes, we all know the individual anecdotes of benefit recipients "gaming the system", "never worked a day in their lives", etc, but that's NOT the case for OP's friend who is clearly reacting responsibly to her "D"H buggering off and not paying to maintain his own DC. He should be receiving our opprobrium, not OP's friend who seems to be doing a pretty good job of managing her current situation as well as having a plan for the future.

So, she isn’t doing anything wrong then! And she isn’t choosing a benefit lifestyle. This is exactly what benefits are for. To get you through when things are tough. When her kids are in school and she goes full time, she won’t be living on benefits anymore. What is your problem?

Rents for HA properties are not as low as LA properties and supply is also limited. There are a lot of benefit recipients competing for housing in the private sector and their housing benefit is capped at the local housing allowance so they struggle to find decent, appropriate housing.

What is hard as a person working like a dog/making every sacrifice to keep a roof over your families head, is it can feel like no amount of poor decision making actually results in real consequences, for many.

Really it needs to be that being in full time work makes you much better off, after costs for childcare are taken into account. At the moment the difference can be marginal so why bother?

Among social renters, the most common household type was single person households (43%), followed by lone parents with dependent children (18%) and couples with dependent children (13%), Annex Table 1.4.

Single person households make up 43% of households in social rented sector, but only 30% of owner occupiers and 34% of private renters. Lone parents with dependent children were also more common among social renters (18%), than owners (3%) and private renters (12%). Social renters were less likely to be couples with dependent children (13%) compared to owners (21%) and private renters (19%), Figure 1.1.

Overall, 31% of social rented households had dependent children, similar to the proportion of private rented households (31%) and more than the proportion of owner occupied households (24%),.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-housing-survey-2021-to-2022-social-rented-sector/english-housing-survey-2021-to-2022-social-rented-sector#:~:text=Among%20social%20renters%2C%20the%20most,13%25)%2C%20Annex%20Table%201.4.

OP she's not "just on benefits" though is she, she is working. Do you or have you never claimed any at all? No UC, no CB, no free 30 hours childcare? All of these are benefits plus many more that are easy to forget about when you are use to getting them.

Even if she was, an abandoned mother with 4 children all born to the same father ie. a stable home with a reasonable expectation of provision, is exactly whom the welfare system was designed to support. And it sounds like she's doing a very good job of working (ok half as much as you but with twice as many children), raising her four children and making her budget stretch to include niceties for them.

Maybe not. She's also a single parent with two children, broke and miserable. Personal responsibility is relative, and that's why I do less judging and envying.

What about housing association properties

I'm likely 10 to 15 years further down the line than OP & her friend. What I'm attempting to get across is the hard truth of what your 50s & 60s have in store if you're a lone parent. Women's earnings & potential earnings are severely affected by child rearing. SEVERELY. And your quality of life after the kids reach an age when UC support stops, relies wholly on what your income will be when you re-enter the workforce. There is no safety net, there is no 3rd option, your quality of life will reflect how you spent the child rearing years. It's unfair & it's because we live in a patriarchy (child rearing treated with no value or respect) - but that doesn't alter the fact that it happens, it is our current reality. The different choices that OP & her friend are making now, will have significant knock on effects in midlife. Make your own choices wisely & don't waste energy on envy.

Absolutely. And only 21% of single parents are living in council properties - heaven knows where all the benefit bashers think the other 79% are living.

Maybe the op has a sense of personal responsibility?

Honestly it is an issue at the moment that people with children in some parts of the country can have a more pleasant life working 16 hours a week in low responsibility roles, than someone working full time.

Yes, the way UC works you will always technically have more money working. But it can be a frankly negligible amount more for a huge amount less leisure time/time with your family.

OP - just be aware, its only really like this for a relatively short period when DC are young. Later on your friend will find that her benefit & housing entitlement plunges, her pension is poor, and she's probably not developing a career that will provide a salary to fill the gap.

It has to be this way or the alternative is children growing up in abject poverty/food insecurity. Long term that costs us far more as a state.

Not 4 children, no. There aren't many moderate to high earners with 4 children and there's a reason for that.

True it's not her fault op resents her. She got lucky with the council house and now has cheap rent. Plus the other side is maybe she's just better at budgeting than the op she has no car and buys all clothes off tinted. Plus didn't get herself in debt.

There's many reasons for someone to have more disposable income it's not always about how much income they have but how they spend it and what outgoings they have.

I went on benefits for a time in Covid and definitely wouldn't of afforded exotic holidays so it's not just about her being on benefits