Is it sustainable to be idealistic/not be concerned about money (when you have none)

[onlychildhamster]

DH and I were talking about his younger sister who is going to israel for an internship trip. She has an arts degree and only wants to do 'creative jobs' (marketing roles in the creative seçtor) which don't involve Excel/Microsoft suite. DH (who works in an investment bank so probably not an expert on creative jobs to be fair) tried to tell her most jobs nowadays would require some knowledge of excel. She said that his job was too 'admin' and wouldn't suit her and she was terrified of 'falling and being trapped in such a job'. I am a bit perplexed at this, as from my viewpoint, a job would be an improvement. I mean, currently she is on UC and earns so little from freelance tutoring that she doesn't pay NI. This is quite understandable as she just graduated during a pandemic so it is very hard. I am in my 20s so I can clearly remember being a fresh graduate as it wasn't that long ago

But when I was her age, I was so terrified of being jobless that I wouldn't have written off any 'serious job' because it wasn't my ideal job. I studied law but wasn't fixed on being a lawyer so applied for jobs in finance. I was scared I would not be able to afford London rent in the long term if I didn't buy my flat so I stayed with in laws for 3 years so we could buy our flat. I even postponed our wedding for years so that we could buy our flat and we only managed to do so in 2019. The fear of not being able to afford to live seems to be the main motivator for many of my decisions even if we are objectively fairly ok finances wise. I think it's because I come from a country where there isn't a welfare state so my first thought is always - how can I afford this and if not, what can I do to afford it (whether now or in the future).

But maybe I got it all wrong. My SIL never worries about how to earn money to afford things (she just tried to find the cheapest room and the cheapest food; and then applies for benefits and grants). And it all kind of works out. I mean her lifestyle is very simple but it's not terrible either, she has enough food and clothes and yes she can't go shopping the way I do but that's not the end of the world. I fear having no money because I automatically associate it with movies like ' I Daniel blake' etc but this isn't her reality. She and my DH are from a poor family, her mum lived this way too but had some help from family which she wouldn't have.

I just wonder if she can live like this forever which would be positive for her as she can then do the jobs she wants and focus on her passions rather than worry about bread and butter issues. And if she can do so, why are we worrying so much about bread and butter/cos of living issues (judging by the number of threads on Mumsnet)? Her mum had 4 kids and has a similar mentality/lifestyle/low earnings and has scraped through thus far (not sure how much of it is due to family help) so this isn't an issue of pre children life Vs 20s life.

@drpet49 I think it's ok as a temporary thing. It's the pandemic and it's not easy for younger people to get established. As a taxpayer, I would rather young people who are trying to establish themselves spend half a year or so on job hunting/UC than get the lowest paid job they can find. But that's just my opinion.

At the same time, young people should also be broadminded about the opportunities they can get.

subsidising her laziness with Universal Credit

That could be completely unfair. Many university students now claim universal credit because the government introduced hefty tuition fees.
She has just graduated and is working freelance for a short period before starting an internship, therefore the universal credit would deduct her self employed earnings. I assume she graduated in September so we're talking about a few weeks? There is nothing wrong in my mind with a graduate claiming the benefits they are entitled to for a month whilst trying to establish themselves in their career.

It's not as easy as just getting a "more lucrative job". I think it's unfair of your dh to label her internship as a "holiday"

I really dislike the general narrative that people claiming benefits are choosing that "lifestyle choice"
Over 40% of Universal Credit claimants work, many full time but the NM wage is not a living wage.

I've gone slightly off the point but let's not assume all people on benefits are lazy, or have a great lifestyle.
It sounds as though the sil rents a cheap room and works part time. I would imagine her UC is peanuts.

@SmileyClare she was doing her degree part time so she has been freelance for a while. But yes the issue is not her claiming UC at all. It's just that I thought that as someone with not much money at all, she would be jumping at any chance to earn more rather than have such specific ideas about her job. I mean she would be doing her music as well but just like her tutoring, the job would be to help pay bills..

@SmileyClare she has been cleaning UC for a while but there is nothing wrong with that as she truly does not earn enough. It's just that I have always imagined people on UC had no chance to earn more, and they would love to if given the chance.

I see your point hamster. I suppose she'll come to the realisation that her meagre life style isn't sustainable if she can't secure her dream job in the arts. It is rather idealistic I agree. Perhaps she will be successful in that area because she has such tunnel vision.

It sounds as though her sister secured a decent job after a similar internship, that may be her hope too.

If she does qualify for UC then her income must be incredibly low. It's around £80 a week for a single person less any earnings so I imagine she is living on a shoestring at the moment.

I can see your dh may resent having to help her out with purchases. Shes also out of line to sneer at or look down on your and your husband's careers/financial choices!

@SmileyClare my DH doesn't mind spending money on her. At that time, she was doing her degree so he felt she needed the tools for her to do well. It was my idea to buy her the phone for her birthday and the laptop was to replace a stolen laptop!

But I think he is frustrated because he feels she should be trying to earn enough to support herself rather than saying all non creative jobs are beneath her cos frankly it's not realistic to have such expectations when you have no money.

To quote Dickens, "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six , result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
People have forgotten that the original purpose of work was to trade labour to meet basic needs. It is only the fairly recent proliferation of wants, that has led to such misery in the west. If you have few wants, it is possible to have little concern for money.

[quote onlychildhamster]@SmileyClare she has been cleaning UC for a while but there is nothing wrong with that as she truly does not earn enough. It's just that I have always imagined people on UC had no chance to earn more, and they would love to if given the chance.[/quote]
Why doesn’t she earn enough?
If she can earn more and get off UC then she should . I have no issue with people who claim benefits when they are unable to get a job or get one that pays enough for them to live on but if being on UC is a conscious choice and she isn’t trying to get off UC when she is perfectly capable of doing so then I think she IS taking the piss

I understand your dh's frustration. Now she has graduated and starting to get more experience in the real world she may well change her attitude.

I have been on Universal Credit. Now she isn't a student she will be given a work coach, will have to prove she is actively seeking work, regularly applying for jobs and/or undertaking training. Her coach will also forward her CV to employers and apply for any available jobs on her behalf. If she refuses to attend interviews or take job offers on the basis that the work is "beneath her" her benefit will be stopped.

It's not possible to stay on Universal Credit if you refuse available work, the new set up forces people into work unless they have valid reasons (health conditions, disability or full time student).

To be honest OP if she stays on UC for any length of time they are going to start pushing her if she carries on bringing in less than minimum wage. And you can be sure that they will not be saying that she only needs to take on a nice creative position to do this.

Relying on UC will be OK for her for a while whilst she gets herself established but, especially as a single person with no children she will eventually be pressured to up her earnings.

I think the DWP have been a little less insistent about this during the pandemic but they will get tougher and she may find that if she wants to carry on claiming she will end up having to get work she really doesn't enjoy or lose her UC.

I agree with alien despite what you read on here about posters "knowing someone who refuses to work, goes on holidays and has a great life on benefits, lounging about on tax payers money" or read in the media, it's simple not possible to be intentionally unemployed and on UC for a long period.

@SmileyClare that's interesting cos DH also has another younger sister (aged 22) who is also on UC (I know cos her mum told me when I was picking up her prescription). This sister believes she is employed cos she writes novels on Patreon..no one has dared to tell her otherwise and anyway she doesn't need to earn cos she lives at home and her mum pays for her but she does collect UC . Does that mean she would have a work coach who would tell her that writing online stories is a hobby not a job....I don't think that would end well.

As a taxpayer, I would rather young people who are trying to establish themselves spend half a year or so on job hunting/UC than get the lowest paid job they can find.

Why can’t they do both? You can easily work a low paid job while looking for or qualifying for a better paid job or one you are more interested in. That’s what I’m doing, and to my mind it’s a lot better than spending ‘half a year’ on benefits waiting for the perfect job.

[quote onlychildhamster]@SmileyClare that's interesting cos DH also has another younger sister (aged 22) who is also on UC (I know cos her mum told me when I was picking up her prescription). This sister believes she is employed cos she writes novels on Patreon..no one has dared to tell her otherwise and anyway she doesn't need to earn cos she lives at home and her mum pays for her but she does collect UC . Does that mean she would have a work coach who would tell her that writing online stories is a hobby not a job....I don't think that would end well.[/quote]
I've no idea what or how the other sister is claiming.

My experience of UC is that a household have to make a joint claim, so if her mum is receiving UC then the sister would be listed on her claim. If they have no housing costs (home owners don't qualify) then they must be awarded the basic £80 (or less as joint) a week for food, utility bills and living?

Both have to prove they're actively seeking work and will take positions offered unless there are diagnosed mental health conditions or disabilities?

My experience of trying to survive on UC was awful. I could barely afford to eat or put heating on, I had to sell my car. I barely had enough to pay utilities and provide for my dc and had the humiliation of having to borrow from my parents who are pensioners.
I wouldn't wish that miserable existence on anyone.

@Kanaloa 1 striking thing about my DH's CV is with the exception of law firms and a stint at a publishing house, he has only worked at major companies and investment banks . I do notice that a lot of people do have such 'clean' CVs and it probably does improve their prospects of being hired. And of course these big companies/banks have comparatively high salaries compared to market rate. My DH was lucky that he didn't need to go on UC or benefits ever as we married just after graduation and either one of us has always been employed so we have never been eligible for benefits from day 1. So in a sense he has never had the pressure of taking on a lowly paid job to survive.

Of course not everyone can do that and there is a time when you have to take on a job rather than wait around for the perfect job. But I don't see the point of going for the lowest paid minimum wage job just cos you fear being on UC for a couple of months. If you are on a good wage, you are a bigger asset to the taxpayer than if you are stuck in lowly paid roles. Of course you shouldn't use this as an excuse to stay unemployed for years...

Benefits should be used as a stopgap anyway. I would prefer a German style social insurance system where you get a certain percentage of your last drawn salary if you lose your job and your benefits taper off for every month/year you are on benefits. That makes sense cos right now the benefits system is essentially useless to anyone who earns a remotely decent wage (we have to save up a year's mortgage payments to be truly secure) while giving the impression that it is overly generous to people who have never worked.

@Athrawes

I have a friend like this. Her lifestyle is only sustainable because she claims various benefits. So, she thinks she is self sustaining but actually it's me, the tax payer, who is funding her choice of lifestyle. She could work in a more lucrative role but chooses not to.

Basically this.

You can be creative and earn a living.

If dh's mum told you her other daughter was on UC when you picked up her prescription then she might have just been wanting you to tick that box on the script to avoid the prescription charge.

I've always wondered why pharmacies never ask for proof when a person ticks the UC box to get free prescriptions.

It is increasingly difficult to "play the benefits system" now. Unfortunately, it sounds as though mum has? I doubt her daughters will be able to coast without working , particularly now the rules relaxed during the pandemic are now being enforced.

@SmileyClare but I didn't tick any box, I just said her name and the pharmacist gave me the medication. DH's mum told me that so that I wouldn't automatically pay as I usually do and was actually expecting to. I had to pick up the medication as she was self isolating.

DH's mum is not playing the system, she earns a low income for London (I estimate 16-18k) but she pays full council tax, bills and food and owns a house (albeit bought at 1997 price). She can support herself well cos she was born at the right time :) and she is an established freelancer who has done this for nearly 30 years. She qualified for a lot of child related benefits during Blair's time (forgot the name) but that was years ago. I don't think she tells any of her daughters to play the system either; like any logical person she tells them to apply for whatever they are eligible for.

Her youngest who lives with her probably does only get £80 a week but she can definitely survive on that as she doesn't need to pay for food or bills and her mum buys her clothes. I have just fiddled with the entitlement calculator and I don't see why she is ineligible just cos she lives with mum who earns more. You can't claim if your partner earns anything remotely resembling a full time wage but that doesn't apply to parents even if living together!

like any logical person she tells them to apply for whatever they are eligible for.
I'm getting mixed messages from you here - why is it logical to tell one daughter to claim anything she can get but you criticise the other one who has chosen to let UC fund her lifestyle? By the way, I disagree very strongly with this ethos, apart from your husband, are they a family that are propped up by benefits?

I don't think OP is criticising her SIL, more that she doesn't understand her SIL choices. OP said at the beginning of the thread that she'd spent a lot of time with her DHs low earning family, seen their apparently carefree attitude and had wondered if she had made the wrong choice being a career woman. I say "apparently" because we only know about someone what they choose to reveal. We don't know people's hidden internal struggles with stress, debt or health conditions.

Regarding SIL lifestyle, if you can't be broke and idealistic when you're young then when can you? Not when you've got DC and possibly a mortgage, that's for sure. A few hundred pounds a month is enough if you eek it out. I once had someone insist that I must be spending more than £20/wk on food (some years ago, not now) they wouldn't accept that I had the figure correct. I know I definitely did because £100 was all that was left in my purse every month after putting fuel in my car to get to work, paying the insurance and chipping in my share of the rent/council tax and utilities.

The 'household' thing for benefits is you, your DP if you have one and your DC if you have any. Your younger SIL living with mum won't be getting the housing component of UC. Other relatives and friends don't count, otherwise people wouldn't be able to share homes with housemates, friends or family and still claim benefits. This would lead to even bigger benefits claims if all the single childless people lived alone with full rent to pay and nobody to share it with, which they would have to do if that was the only way to get any money for food.

You can't assume the people they live with would happily feed, clothe and pay transport costs, as well as sucking up the increased council tax and utilities caused by having this unemployed person in their house. Relationships would quickly sour and the unemployed person could find themselves homeless, which would prevent them getting a job through dirtiness and no address. Leading to crime when they resort to stealing food or things they can sell for money for food, as well as other possible problems like poor physical health or mental health problems or dug addiction. Better all round to let them live with others, pay them the benefits minus the housing elements and avoid all that.

@Billandben444 It's logical to claim any benefit you are eligible for if you are low earning/have no earnings. I would do the same if I was in their situation but somehow I have never been cos as a couple, we have always earned more even at our lowest. If I had a child tomorrow, I would claim child benefit and not feel any guilt about that but our income is too high for even child benefit so that's not an option.Also my husband's other sister in Israel isn't on benefits.

And also the younger daughter who claims UC has Asperger's (no one in DH's family accepts the diagnosis apart from me and DH), no GCSEs and so it would be significantly harder for her to get any job as compared to my DH's other sister who has a master's degree (plus distinction) from a Russell group university but just wants a 'creative' job. If she didn't claim benefits, it would be my DMIL supporting her with her meagre income and I would honestly prefer the state to help on that front.

I honestly don't think they want to be a burden to anyone. Unlike me, they just don't have a self preservation instinct. I met my youngest SIL today and was telling her 'a proper job for a start is one where you pay national insurance; and where you get a pension'.

She then said 'well *insert elder sister's name would get that in time, she just came out of university and she is at the start of her creative career'. Well to me, that's a ridiculous statement because there is no guarantee of a job for any graduate let alone guarantee of income for a creative career.. but they don't mean to be reliant, they just think about what they want to do and money seems to be the incidental benefit rather than the point. But from another viewpoint, maybe I am the silly one worrying about money.

@FluffyWhiteBird that makes sense. I mean, the SIL who lives with her MIL, she is her mother's baby so she would always be supported in terms of food and clothes so the UC or any benefits she is eligible for would be a supplement.

[quote onlychildhamster]@FluffyWhiteBird that makes sense. I mean, the SIL who lives with her MIL, she is her mother's baby so she would always be supported in terms of food and clothes so the UC or any benefits she is eligible for would be a supplement.[/quote]
My point is, the state recognises that it's not like that in every family, or if eg someone was living with a random stranger for a housemate. What if MIL was abusive? What if MIL was barely scraping by herself and had literally nothing to spare and couldn't afford to fund another adult? It doesn't matter that MIL provides younger SIL with basics. MIL's generosity, that's the additional thing, not the UC. You've got it the wrong way round. The UC is recognition that SIL is an adult in a household of one, ie her, and nobody else is responsible for her. So that money is for her basics. What she actually spends it on is upto her.

The comment on older SIL not having self preservation I'd have to disagree with. Avoiding a 'sensible well paid career job' where that's so far removed from everything she is that it would possibly make her miserable, if not actually ill, shows a lot of self preservation, insight and self confidence.

Your approach is to ensure your health by ensuring you have money to chuck at any problems which occur, to know you'll never struggle for basics and to possibly afford things like private healthcare which gives you added options than just relying on state healthcare, affording holidays to relax and preserve well-being etc.

Your SIL could have a different approach, preserving her health and well-being by ensuring she doesn't end up a square peg in a round hole, shackled to an unsuitable job by a mortgage that's a millstone round her neck, trying to live a life that goes against who she fundamentally is, just because it's what society expects. It shows courage. She's taking the risk of struggling financially in order to remain true to who she is.

She's possibly recognising what would be a disastrous path for her and actively avoiding it, for now anyway. That's not feckless, it's knowing who you are and what you need and taking steps to get it, in the face of adversity and disapproval. Now the pandemic situation is easing she's taking the next step, the internship and she's found funding for it, which doesn't involve breaking UC rules by not job searching. Just because she hasn't chosen the same path as you that doesn't mean she isn't being sensible.

I wish you and your family and in-laws luck anyway. You're very different people so it makes sense you'd struggle a little to see each others point of view. If you hadn't been caught up in a global pandemic and only socialising with the in-laws, you'd likely not be feeling the odd one out, because your life choices aren't odd amongst greater society.

FWIW I've known several (dysfunctional, in the cases I've known) families where the DC have either followed in the parent's footsteps or gone totally the other way, so I don't think your DP behaviour is odd for the circumstances, nor is his siblings behaviour.

I think it's very easy to be lofty and choosy about your job when someone else or the State is picking up the bill.

I get your point OP. This sister wants to waft around doing arty stuff and is disdainful of anything involving admin or actual work as that is beneath her ideals and she considers herself too good for it. But she's not too proud to take benefits. She's not alone, there are plenty like her.

She's basically a workshy sponger.

A workshy sponger

What bollocks. Do you label every person who claims top up benefits this way? ..families claiming tax credits, free childcare or SMP or just students who studied at a prestigious university whilst working part time throughout, have graduated a matter of weeks ago, are working free lance tutoring in their speciality, are keen to work in the area they're qualified in and have secured an internship abroad?

I assume you'd call your own son or daughter a "work shy sponge" if a couple of weeks after graduating they are doing the same and haven't applied for and secured any minimum wage job in an area they aren't qualified in?

Incidentally, Op has said her sil is earning a few hundred pounds a week doing private tutoring before starting an internship. How much could she earn in a low paid job as an under 25 year-old? Around £240 a week before tax, around the same as her freelance work pulls in.
Therefore she would be eligible for Universal Credit to top up her wages anyway.