£73.10 a week to live on

[abacucat]

If you are single and on statutory sick pay or unemployed, this is what you get a week to live on. You will also if you have savings below £16k get help with rent and council tax, although you are unlikely to get all your rent paid, so will have to make a contribution out of the £73.10. That is the grand total of your entitlement.
So my AIBU is, I am AIBU to get annoyed about people who are well off and have no idea how little many people manage on?

Yes YABU.

Why?

Life’s tough. You being annoyed about it isn’t going to change anything.

I know life is tough - from experience.

What are you annoyed about? Just people, being well off?

How much would you need to live on a week?

You want people who are well off to known how much you're struggling ?

What's the AIBU? I think everyone knows that there's someone out there struggling..we all learnt about poverty in school and the 3rd countries who survive on a dollar a day. should those in poverty be complaining that you're getting more than a dollar a day to live off ?

I think your annoyance is misplaced. It isn’t well off peoples fault. my being well off does not really have anything to do with someone living on SSP. Me being poor would not mean the person on SSP would be better off.

Blame the people who have set that amount and think it’s a reasonable amount to live off.

YABU to be annoyed that other people don’t know the exact ins and outs of other people’s lives.

£3800 a year isn’t something to be sniffed at. SSP and unemployment benefits are supposed to be temporary measures and it’s definitely possible to live on £73 in the short term, especially if you have additional contributions towards rent.

People can be on statutory sick pay for a year.

Most normal people aren’t well off at the expense of others though, so being angry at them just seems like a waste of energy

What? You're annoyed about people who work full time and usually make sacrifices to save and budget their money appropriately. Isn't that something to encourage ? Isn't that something people should aspire to do? Have a decent job with a nice amount of savings and a good sense of budgeting their money?

??

Why be annoyed with people who don't have much idea about it? Pointless waste of energy. What is just as bad is people having little idea about being well off and being annoyed with those relatively prosperous.

It's just a fact of life that some are better off than others, also that circumstances fluctuate. Nothing to get worked up about. We're all going to get old and die.

I am not angry at well off people. But it sticks in the craw to hear people moan about getting by on £50k a year.

Why would you be annoyed about someone not having experienced something?

We're well off and I'm well aware how little some people have to live on. That's why I work for a charity that helps people with their benefits and sign posts them for further help where required. The pay is a third of what I earned in my previous role but I feel like I'm helping in some way.
We also regularly give household items away and donate money to charity.
Being well off doesn't necessarily mean you're clueless.
So yabu.

I don’t think Yabu. The ‘safety net’ of paying national insurance hasn’t kept up with the actual cost of living. Neither have wages.

I’m incredibly lucky that we manage fairly well but I’m acutely aware that we’re one illness/accident away from poverty. Any savings we have would not cover us for longer than a few months in reality.

My parents were very financially savvy but both were cut down in their early forties with illness/death. They would have been very comfortable come retirement but neither made it that far and their various policies/investments were no longer contributed to. It’s made for a miserable existence for the surviving parent.

YABU to be annoyed at well off people, it's not their fault.

But 50k to someone living in London doesn't get them sweet f all, although 50k to someone living up north would be a really nice pay.

You don't know their circumstances so you can't be angry?

My DH suffered 3 redundancies due to downturn and businesses closing so no fault of his own. Thankfully he is back working and has been for 18 months.

After the initial couple of months he was entitled to nothing because I worked. So for someone who had worked and paid taxes for 10 years got a few months and then we had to make ends meet as zero was received. We had to make it work.

YABU be thankful to even receive it in the first place.

At the moment, I’m pretty well off. I have been poor in the past, both with help from benefits and without it.

Some people are thoughtless, others aren’t.

It is a small amount of money but at least it was something. When I was out of work I had to live off my savings until I found another job. £73.10 didn't even cover the basics. I was lucky to have savings though to fall back on. I suspect they don't set it high as they see it as a temporary thing until the person is back at work or working.

Those people have worked hard for their 50k and don't get any handouts. Depending on where you live, how much you drive etc... money may still be tight. So yes YABU.

Getting by on £73 a week must be very stressful and frightening especially when you've built your life on much more but thats why it's essential to not take anything for granted, save, take out insurance, educate yourself, so that if it happens to you, you can trust it is only a temporary position.

Give any more and people become less commityed to get off benefits.

Yabu to be annoyed at ‘well off people’. Really silly generalisation.
. How do you know that these well off people you are complaining about, aren’t doing all they can to volunteer, give to charity etc. Just because well off people might not have experience of an income like that doesn’t mean they can’t empathise or sympathise.