To set the scene, My mother is a widow. She is a complicated woman and we have a complicated relationship, she was very cruel to me as a child and teen, but we’ve somewhat moved passed this on a don’t ask don’t tell, don’t discuss the past basis.
she is saying she will be hit hard by the winter fuel allowance cut. Very hard. She says at winter she sit in the freezing cold as she cannot afford to heat her home. She has no money, she cannot afford it.
except, she does and she can. And I can’t understand why she’s claiming she can’t. She has a large 4/5 bed house, no mortgage. Has single occupancy reduction on council tax and works part time. Her take home after tax is £3,300. Her expenses are £1,700. She drives a £500 a month car. The caveat there is this is the expenses I know about, council tax, health insurance, bills, food etc. She does not gamble nor drink.
But she is very cagey. She will not work through a budget with me or show me her bills. She also has another house, that sadly she’s just left to rot because she won’t do anything with it, so if she did need capital there’s at least 60k there.
I can’t work out if it’s necessity that she needs the winter fuel or if it’s a nice to have that she’s going to miss, because who wouldn’t want extra cash.
any tips on getting the crux of this?