Sad for my friends £125k lottery win.

[Sogfree]

£125k win on the postcode lottery.

Single mum to 3 children (all primary age). Works as a TA, so receiving benefits to top up her income.

She would like to use her winnings for a deposit on a house. But due to the benefits rules not being allowed to pay a mortgage, she can't buy a property.

So she's going to spaff the entire lot as quick as she can, and the government will continue to pay rent to a multi property owner and make them richer.

The only asset she'll get to keep is a newer car - not anything fancy as she knows she won't be able to afford the insurance/fuel once the winnings run out.

Her one chance of breaking free of a life on benefits and she's got to throw it away. It feels wrong.

I didn’t use AI because it wouldn’t have answered my question, I asked what YOU thought, not AI.

Yes, you keep telling yourself that! 🤣

Your reading comprehension is pretty poor.

The one in my child's nursery class does speech therapy for my son.

Oh for fucks sake, not this bullshit.

I’m pretty certain that when she wasn’t a single parent and there were two adults working they could, as a family, “afford to have children”. However, as is often the case when men leave, her salary is not enough to cover food rent & bills, so because her ex is only contributing a pittance, she needs support from the welfare system.

Did I use small enough words for you to understand, @DannyDeever?

Exactly.

My DH works Monday to Friday as a TA. Doesn't sound part time to me.

What does he do when term is over?

Aren't there practical careers that pay well? Even for those who don't have GCSEs.

No, there aren’t. Is that simple enough for you to grasp?

If you don't produce enough output with your labour, why should you be paid more than you produce?

Every job is important, if no one does the ‘low skilled’/low paid jobs society will collapse. Think back to the Covid lockdowns, who were the key workers? Aside from Drs, nurses & teachers, every other type of key worker falls into the low paid bracket. Retail staff, hospital support staff, carers, cleaners, bin men, teaching assistants, catering staff, etc.

Takes the holiday he is entitled to. Yes the wages may be pro rata but most TAs are in school Monday to Friday often until late.

What about the all the ones I listed?

You get paid for what you produce. It's just how it is.

If those jobs are important then they don't need to be supported by benefits. They can simply pay a living wage. The only reason they don't is employers don't have to pay a livable wage because of benefits.

Take away the benefits and employers will have to pay enough to live on or they won't have any staff.

Um, the low paid public sector employees are not paid enough to live on either. The government wont pay them enough, so they get topped up... with money from the government.

Also, people are getting top ups because they are in zero hour jobs and just not getting enough hours.

What's the problem with the public sector paying a living wage rather than one branch of the state subsidising another? It's completely neutral.

If there aren't enough hours then it's not sounding that critical. The state certainly shouldn't be subsidising jobs like that.

However you look at it the state should not be subsidising jobs because you end up with necessary jobs underpaying and pointless jobs that shouldn't even exist being propped up. It's encouraging waste. (102 coffee shops in my small town. I'm willing to bet that without the state subsidising low skilled workers to remain low skilled half of them would-be gone and those employees would strive to find something else. Hopefully something that exports.)

Coffee shops employ people and also provide a service that people are happy to pay for.
But you seem to look down on TAs as not a real job.

If all the TA, hospitality jobs, the jobs you don't think should exist etc... vanished, do you think all the people in them will suddenly upskill and "do better"? There are not enough jobs to go round as it is (2.6 jobseekers to every vacancy).

well she shouldn't need help now 125 G's have dropped on her doorstep.

We can’t all be plumbers, joiners, gas engineers and hairdressers. We still need retail staff, catering staff, teaching and healthcare assistants, these roles are all not paid a living wage. You are being deliberately difficult now.

No one said she did. But if she uses that £125k to live on it’ll be gone in between 5-10 years, assuming she continues to do her TA job, then what? Is it ok for her to go back to claiming the top-up then?

If that is what needs to happen, yes. As pp have pointed out it would be a shame for her to not use that money to give her family a better life by giving her breathing space to train or perhaps look to buy a property.

Even if she put the money in the bank at 3% interest she'd receive £3,750 extra towards her day to day living. And she could do better than that according to Martin Lewis.

It’s been pointed out repeatedly on this thread that £125k isn’t enough to buy a property outright, and that she’s not able to retrain into a higher paying career. So no, she can’t do either of those things. So she’s basically left to just use it as an income top-up for as long as she can, and then go back to claiming UC. Which seems almost like a waste.

However, the thread then diverted (by myself and others) into pointing out that if her TA job actually paid a living wage she could use the money as the deposit against property and then get long term benefit from this windfall.

This led to the usual fuckwits crawling out from under their rocks and saying she should get a better job, or not have kids she couldn’t afford. I swear the level of stupid sometimes is unbelievable.

Yes, I agree re: the property. It won't but it outright. And as a deposit she'd still struggle to make repayments.

MSE reckons 4.5% interest is out there on cash. £5,625 interest per year. £20K P.A. ISA'fied sees that money tax free.

Full time wages are £26,436 on NMW. So she'll get £32,000 without retraining and preserve £125,000 in her bank. I fail to see why she should get a single penny.

Universal credit will want to go through ALL her bank accounts and savings accounts statements from before she won the money to when she runs out of it and that can take up to a year!! A year with no money! So tell her to spend it wisely!!

OP this is poppycock and balderdash. Of course your friend can actually BUY her council home for a discount courtesy of the taxpayer. If she refuses to buy a flat with her earnings and improve her life, then she's a fool.

If she can get that annual return on an investment then yes, she doesn’t need UC, I don’t think anyone would argue otherwise.

Nowhere does OP say her friend is in a council house.