To think that having two horses at livery is actually a luxury.....?

[Marigoldfetish]

I know this is going to get me flamed etc. but I really don't care well I do a bit else I wouldn't have namechanged

I live near a large family of 8, the children range from 14 years to 18 months. The parents are lovely people, I often have a chat to them about the kids as they have some issues with their teenage girl pretty much the same as mine.

Recently the mum told me they have got two of their children horses, and my children could go and have a ride if they wanted, they are going to be kept at livery stables up the road.

The family's sole income is benefits - I know this as the mum is quite open about this, and that they don't want to work as a) they couldn't earn what the get in benefits and b) she wants her OH at home to help with the kids. Without being too specific so as not to out them or me, one of the parents gets a higher benefit allowance for depression (so the mum has told me). To be honest, fair play to them - if they have made that as a lifestyle choice and their kids are well looked after and happy, and they are only getting what they are entitled to.

I realise this will attract the usual suspects and talk of goats, plasma screens and the like, but..... somebody please tell me, in the name of my sanity, that I am not being unreasonable to think that benefits are not provided for somebody to keep two bloody horses at livery????

[PerryCombover]

I think this is all nonsense.

Not many people have 6 children
Not many people decide not to work
Not many people have a partner who will also not work

I wonder how much this will cause posters to hate all benefit claimants just a little bit more

If the very, very extremely few benefit claimants in these circumstances decide to somehow afford ponies let them
They are far from normal claimants.

I believe that this thread is disingenuous. If any of it is true, which I doubt, it has been based and postedon misplaced envy.
Envious of a depressed woman who is cared for by her unemployed husband
She has to deal daily with her 6 kids
I'm sure she is in real fear of benefit changes in terms of money and definitions
She'll have to be work assessed once youngest is school age etc

I'd rather take my life ta and not judge how she manages her family finances

[ThatVikRinA22]

my riding instructor used to teach kids like this at a college married she did it for 4 years.

she said after that she had had enough and the kids clearly did not want to be there. she described alot of them as vicky pollards.....

[Plomino]

I can see both sides of the argument . Before we were lucky enough to find a house with enough land to keep my horses on , they were kept at a livery yard in Essex , where there were a number of people on benefits . Some long term , some not , some with kids , some not . One of the girls there had two kids , and had had her pony since she was a kid . She had done a runner from an abusive marriage , had had to leave her job as she worked for the DH , and was on benefits as a result . She was trying to find another job , but with little luck , so to keep the bills down , she did cleaning for the farmer , kept an eye on the yard , cleaned troughs and mucked out the farmers animals , which meant the bills were nominal . She was lucky she had a hardy animal which was low maintenance . I don't begrudge her at all , because trying to sell her childhood friend on top of all she'd gone through would have felt like twisting the knife .


BUT . On the other hand , there was a family who had 3 kids and 2 ponies , also on benefits long term . The kids had Weetabix and WATER for breakfast , and all lived in one room downstairs , because 'the dogs had the upstairs ' . Did I report them to SS ? You betcha . And the police , because the kids were often truanting . Several times . Disgusting . I've seen kids in real poverty , over and over due to work , but this was too close to home and made me cry . I used to take rounds of sandwiches and various things to the stables for lunch , and 'accidentally' leave them laying around in obvious places for them to find . I even asked the 'mother' what the hell she was doing, and got a mouthful of abuse . I then moved house , but have kept in touch with people who know them , and have since found out the kids were removed for neglect . Thank God.

[horseygeorgie]

saffronwblue
Slightly judgemental don't you think!? For example, before i had Ava i have worked the last 12 years in a job that involved working like a slave outside in all weathers, working 60 hour weeks, working through proper flu etc. At the min, in the last week, i have now managed to find bar work i can do when Ava is in bed. I am also starting a business degree in feb with the OU.
To many people who don't know me, i am a single mum who hasn't worked in 14 months on benefits, living at home with no qualification or prospects who has 2 very nice horses. It is so easy to judge other people, but what gives people the right to?!

[horseygeorgie]

Plomino
That situation is appalling. Thank God they were taken off her. I think the point is, don't tar everyone with the same brush!

[saffronwblue]

Horsey georgie I am not talking about you or your circumstances. I am talking about the family the OP describes where the parents have made a lifestyle decision not to work. I think their DC are missing out from seeing a really important dimension of most people's lives.
For me the issue here is not about keeping horses. I love horses and I imagine most peoople who have them are making some sort of sacrifice in order to do so.

[Plomino]

Horseygeorgie , I agree . To say people on benefits shouldn't be able to keep horses is too simplistic because of the sheer amount of variables . But when keeping horses directly (in my view) contributes to kids being actively neglected , then yes absolutely they should get rid of the animals.

But at what point can society dictate what benefits are spent on . What about holidays , foreign or uk based ? Netflix accounts ? Sky ? smoking ? A car ? A decent bike? Should we as a society really be able to decide that those on benefits should not have access to such things? I don't know .

[ArtfulAardvark]

"Gosh there must be lots of feckless spongers out there with horses "

Either that or we all know the same one

I too have met the mum who told me (weirdly the first time we met) her entire life story, how they had to be rehomed away from her ex partner, that she didnt work but "Ive got a horse for the kids - they arent as expensive to keep as people imagine"

Give it a decade or two and there wont be enough taxpayers to support the second and third generation of these large families will there.

[ArtfulAardvark]

Really i'd rather the money were spent on a horse though - responsibility of caring for it, fresh air and exercise - way better than xbox live.

[bishboschone]

Artful.. I know a few!

[Marigoldfetish]

PerryCombover
hmmmmm dis·in·gen·u·ous: Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

I think I have been candid, and I am sincere - sincerely gobsmacked - even more so now that some figures have come out in this thread about potential income. I haven't pretended I know less than I do - I have been quite frank as the Mum isn't doing anything illegal, and does not seem to hold back telling people her circumstances.

Envious...? Hmm well on reflection I guess I am a bit.

I am a healthcare worker, I work for £1300 a month, after tax and National Insurance I get just under £1000 a month. My partner gets similar. We get nothing apart from CB. I guess this dark raining morning, I am envious I can't stay in bed longer in the morning, spend some time with my children over breakfast, take them to school in stead of farming them off to childcare. I guess I am also envious that I am here making packed lunches, and having to send in an instalment of a school trip when my friend gets all that for free.

I have sympathy for the parent with depression (which is the husband incidentally), although it has gone on for six years now and has lasted throughout three new children - I myself had depression however once on statutory sick pay I had to get myself back to work pretty quick as I couldn't afford to be sick. It would have probably been nice to be able to have open ended time off with no pressure to return to work - so yes, I am probably envious of that too.

I suppose I am a bit envious, but I don't want what they have - staying at home day in day out, worrying about benefits cuts etc.

As well as envious, I am gobsmacked - If this family are getting approx £700 a week that is me and two of my colleagues working flat out to pay for that amount of benefits - as another post said never mind the services paid out of taxpayers money that are being used but not contributed to.

Everything I have said on this thread is true, the very fact this is questioned shows what a ludicrous situation it is when non working people have this amount of income.

[FrothyOM]

£700 a week is 36k a year. If they really get that, then they will be losing a lot of money when the benefit cap comes in, so I don't understand why everyone is frothing.

[IneedAsockamnesty]

If even half of the people who randomly do benefit calculations for fun actually quit and claimed them they may have an understanding of each ones effect on another.

[2aminthemorning]

I had a horse seven years ago. Always had wanted one, obsessively, through years of school torture and mental illness as a teenager. I wasn't very gifted, but I tried to keep my heels down and hung on the best I could over jumps. Ordered half a school dinner for years so I could put the other half of dinner money towards lessons. Anyway, fastforward a decade and I've just been discharged from a psychiatric unit, where I've spent 3 months battling depression. I can't do the complex postgraduate work I had been doing. DLA etc. has been applied for on my behalf, and is coming in regularly. What to do with all this money? Seems wrong to save it when I'm supposed to be doing something to help myself with it. My mum finds me a cob. All those years as a teenager, I'd ridden over her (metaphorically) dead body. Now she's scared enough to clutch at straws. Would I ride the cob each day? As if was some kind of favour to her. The DLA or some such benefit will cover it...

That cob taught me how to be happy and gave me the confidence to live again. He showed an impressive ability to compensate when medication screwed my balance up, and he made me feel like I was likeable, with his whickerings and charges across the field to be caught.

I probably should have used the money towards a paid carer, but my horse did twice that job and more.

[ThatVikRinA22]

what bothers me more than anything is what happens to these 2 horses when and if they do get their benefits cut?

its irresponsible to own any animal without knowing you cover financially everything it needs. There are hundreds of horses been sold to anyone for sod all because people cant afford them.

i dont think i could risk it.

[marriedinwhite]

Coming back to this rather late.

Regardless of whether benefits are too much or too little if there were two scenarios:

1. Family with 6 children, 72 inch wide screen and a few other tv's, war games, junk food, beer and occasional spirits, little care for the welfare or education of the children and the occasional ghastly package holiday focused on karaoke and beer. The odd slap and one of the girls pg at 15.
   

1. Not a great deal of money to spare but reasonable food, plenty of leaf kicking and every spare penny saved and invested in an interest for the children which will give focus, broaden their social circle and teach responsibility.
   

I know which family I would prefer benefits to paid to without any monitoring.

[Haughtyculture]

What a good post, marriedinwhite! I totally agree

[scarlettsmummy2]

If this is true, that is totally ridiculous. So her children get free school meals but she can afford to pay to feed and shoe and house two horses??

[InNeedOfBrandy]

Married sorry but how does the odd packaged holiday with karaoke. a drink on a weekend, and a daughter getting pregnant make someone a bad parent and not deserving as someone who only buys wooden educational toys?

I wouldn't judge anyone who had a daughter get pregnant young or who was that girl. I'm actually quite sickened at that post. The more right wing you are the more you believe in physical punishment and the MC are more right then left just look at this thread.

[ThatVikRinA22]

married i think thats very stereotypical.
i was a teenage mother. ive never claimed benefits other than child benefit.

[marriedinwhite]

Well I'm glad you think you understood my post inneedofbrandy because I certainly don't understand yours and I don't think I referred to "a drink on a weekend" or wooden educational toys. I was referring to the difference between encouragement and love and disengagement and entitlement.

[InNeedOfBrandy]

How is a package holiday and liking beer better then a villa with a penchant for wine.

[InNeedOfBrandy]

A package holiday does not make you a bad parent and disengaged. There is also a very good argument that letting dc get on with it and not be smothered and have their lifes filled up with activitys every hour of the day is better.

[PerryCombover]

mariogoldfish

I Thought you said that she had depression......oh, that's right you did!!
Weird, eh?

Also if you had been truly depressed your being moved onto statutory sick pay would not have been motivation enough to get you back to work.
There is a difference between being depressed and down

Interesting that you mentioned you "illness" though as it showed your true understanding of a condition that is hugely disabling for many people.

I believe that this is tripe.

[InNeedOfBrandy]

I also agree with the above statement.