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.

She must put money into an stocks and shares ISA for her children and sipps self invested personal pension for them and for herself.
Also money into pb etc.

There will be ways around it. But she must put money for her children into a junior stocks ISA the limit is 9 grand a year.
If she opens them now ...right..
Now she can get 2x9 grand in before the April year end and then another 9 grand in after april and now is a really good time to buy stocks as the market is low.

Tell her index funds which are baskets for everything ,vanguard are good. World index fund.or similar.
To start off Hargreves is an easy platform

If she can't buy at least let her children have a chance

This is madness. The 125k would be a great deposit on a new house and so her mortgage would be alot less and would be more likely to be affordable and she would have her own place. Makes way more sense that just spending it all straight away. She can still get benefits just not the housing element ? If she still qualifies

I’ve thought this about my mum actually re the postcode lottery. If she were to win, she’d never win enough to buy anywhere yet she’d have too much to be on pension credit and then she’d just have to use the win to pay her rent. I don’t think she even realises it.

She can put 9k each into her children’s isas this year and next to start.
she could buy a chunk of shared ownership and her benefits would cover the rest.
If she’s willing to come off benefits she could use it to cover her rent for three years and pay uni fees while she retrains as a teacher, educational psychologist, social worker, radiologist, occupational therapist etc - all stable in demand jobs that she’d have good experience for as a TA. She could also retrain in something where she’d actually make some money like accountancy.
Or beauty therapy. Or whatever her interests are.
this is a fantastic opportunity for her and if she spends it all on stupid things just so she can stay on benefits she is a moron.

So true.
Financial literacy is so important for all.
This money could change hers and/or her children's lives in social many ways; but without knowledge and likely a bit of fear, she's choosing the worst possible action.

most people would use a big windfall to pay rent, why should the government pay the rent of people with big chunks of cash to hand

£125k is definitely with in the relmes of being able to purchase a house, even an ex-council property.

Or if thats not enough in the area then she could look at shared ownership. Its definitely a sum to be invested wisely rather than blown on holiday and flash cars.

Could you use right to buy on your council house?

She’ll be having her rent covered by uc now but they won’t pay her mortgage

Has she actually looked into this? You can claim UC when you have a mortgage you just can’t claim housing costs (that’s only for rent). It’s takes budgeting but many people do , myself included. It would be very foolish to throw away this opportunity to own her own home if that’s what she wants. And the rules make absolute sense to me, tax payers can’t be paying peoples mortgages.

most single parent teachers in London are on benefits! Even in leadership!

It’s funny they can pay the landlords mortgage though isn’t it. So if she rented off a distant relative the state would pay off their asset for them.

She could spend it wisely and thus come off benefits! Why should taxpayers continue to fund someone who has £125k?!

I worked in civil litigation for years, and experienced this exact same situation with people who received personal injury/compensation payments.

Benefits are for people who are unable to support themselves. She has £125,000, and if she isn’t going to spend it on a property she can support herself for a while. So if she isn’t going to spend it on a property she needs to declare it and stop being on benefits.

She needs to be careful what she uses it on as it maybe seen as deprivation of assessts if she wastes it. Depending on the area she may still be better off putting most of it into a mortgage but thats depends on the house prices. Part buy is an excellent option for her to.

£125K could set her up for life?

Are you posting from 1957?

@Sogfree No matter what your 'friend' spends her money on, it will be seen as deprivation of assets. The benefits will stop as soon as the DWP realise she has been in possession of £125K.

She needs to sign off the benefits and use the money as income (along with the TA income.) Why should she keep it, and 'spaff the entire lot as quick as she can' just because she wants to keep receiving benefits/doesn't want to sign off them?

The mind boggles, honestly! The entitlement is off the scale.

This system is bonkers. She has more money than I could dream of yet I'm not on any benefits and she is - while I'm paying tax!

No one on benefits should just get to keep £125k in the bank and still claim full benefits. As unfair as it might seem.

I would probably treat myself to some (lots of) very nice gold jewellery, some amazing holidays and a new eco car. She can keep £16k in assets, suggest putting it in an ISA.

Lol that was my takeaway.

I genuinely can’t believe someone gets £125k and the only thing they can think to do is ‘spaff’ it.

And the OPs response to her ‘spaffing’ a huge some of money for absolutely no reason is to have a whinge about landlords. Jesus wept. Does no one have a brain? Or Google??

Yes - you are paying tax to support her!! Even though she has a tonne of money we can only dream of.

I’d be interested to know how one manages to “spaff” 125k? And on what?

Wealthy people don’t “spaff” 125k on shite.

I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that I had essentially wasted such a sum of money.

If coming off of benefits is too much responsibility for her to take, at least invest the money for her children, so at least someone can use it to actually benefit their lives.

She will lose benefits once she has over £16000 anyway. She’d be better off buying a house & coming off benefits anyway & then either reclaiming benefits or getting a job depending on circumstances.