Skint Britain: Friends without Benefits on C4

[amrscot]

Is anybody else watching this?

One of the couples take their dog out to hunt rabbits and squirrels that they can eat.

They've just shown him with a dead rabbit he has caught skinning it in the kitchen

Horrendous..

I've always been in the fortunate position of having full time employment, as has my OH. I say fortunate because you can never guarantee what's going to happen in the future. The thought of being jobless terrifies me.
Your attitude isn't very pleasant @Jellybears. I sincerely hope that you never find yourself or your partner out of work. Looking down on someone who is less fortunate than yourself is terrible.

Please do continue to feel sorry for people who spend their lives living off your hard earned money

Are you referring to the pensioners, the disabled or buy to let LL? I feel for the first two but not the last lot of scrounging bastards.

It's not Theresa Mays fault, It's not Amber Rudd's fault, it's not Ian Duncan Smith's fault, it's every single person that voted Conservative and Lib Dems, the blood is on their hands.

@WeeTinkerMonkey has it right, people who voted for the tory party caused this, it is cruel and unnecessary and blames the wrong people.

The trouble is that the people who voted them in are also vulnerable, they think they are safe and "good" because they work or have money, but it only takes one accident, cancer diagnoses or redundancy to put them in exactly the same position.

@frequency totally agree, I’m from hartlepool too so know exactly where you’re coming from. Also, your situation sounds shit so here if you need anything

Um. Frequency I don't actually think 350 a month for clothes and extras is all that bad on a care home wage!
I probably have about the same-maybe slightly more- and i feel like I'm doing OK, buy I know it's all relative. I used to be poorer so am used to having nowt and now I manage to save a bit for holidays.

I also have a car ( a really old one) and have been really lucky it has been reliable because it's cheaper than the bus, even with mot etc. It really pisses me off that I need a car as I would actually rather take public transport if it wasn't so shit.
Good luck with college, and keep looking around for opportunities, you're obviously motivated.

@Frequency

Yes this is something that pisses me off, getting housing benefit to pay rent and keep a roof over your head = scrounger.
Getting housing benefit from a tenant to pay your buy to let mortgage and increase your profit = fine.
Don't understand that attitude at all.

Me and dh don't work to pay for others to stay at home because they've become accustomed to a life of not working. It isn't fair on the rest of us.

Perhaps we should explain, one you have no say and two it's NOT YOUR MONEY it's the governments. They can do what they want with it once they've taken it off you.
So don't worry you don't pay for me to stay at home.
HTH

I genuinely do not understand the anger and seemingly sometimes jealousy that people show towards others who live on 70 quid a week or so.

MILs universal credit has been cut down to 190 per month because of various debts, and people in her street are awful to her, saying they work so she can live in luxury. Like, she has no luxury in her life at all. She does have to get taxis to ours rather than buses because of severe anxiety, but we pay for that, we also regularly pay for shopping for her as obviously living on 200 quid a month is horrendous. luckily she only has to go another year before she can get her pension, when her income will triple or so. But yeah, jealousy towards someone who often has no gas on and lives on sandwiches except when she comes to ours, is ridiculous. Anyone is welcome to try and live that way, I am sure they would sharp regret it.

To my mind it's people earning perfectly good salaries and getting 30 free hours of childcare paid for with my taxes who are the scroungers.. I tell myself the tax I pay is going to people with nothing who really need it.

Um. Frequency I don't actually think 350 a month for clothes and extras is all that bad on a care home wage!

It shouldn't be, hopefully, once I finally get an appeal date for the tax credits. I think once that's sorted we should be okay. I'm just pissed off that no matter how hard I work I will only ever be ok. I don't want to be ok. I want to be comfortable. Obviously, once the kids leave home that will go down as I lose WTC/CTC/CB but theoretically I should also lose the expense of feeding and clothing two other adult sized people.

I think I'm mostly pissed off because I was doing well when I was self-employed. We weren't comfortable but we were okay and gradually moving towards being comfortable when the tax credits fucked up during my quietest period and I had to give it up to become employed. I don't have time to do both and know I will never be able to achieve the same income as I could have self-employed.

I'm looking at around at degree options atm with the hope to eventually move from private care to the NHS as there seems to be better progression opportunities in the NHS. I'm swaying between doing a degree in Health and Social care with the OU or doing a level 3 health and social care NVQ via work and studying Health Sciences at degree level via the OU. It's not a sector I am particularly interested in but the sector I enjoy (hair and beauty) is mostly self-employed/rent a chair and I can't risk being self-employed again after what happened last time. The health sector seems to be the only viable option in Hartlepool for career progression.

Yeah, I get you. It's like a treadmill of keeping afloat. I think I forget sometimes that a LOT of people have a cushion. They have property and pensions etc whereas I might have a few more quid now but I don't have that comfort of knowing I'm secure.
I'm self employed now and if it went wrong and I had to go on UC I'd be fucked right now.
NHS sounds like a good plan-there's scope there and it's a huge employer. It's so sad what is happening to huge swathes of the country.

'Spunk it up on the wall'? What an incredibly nasty and ignorant comment 😡

@Frequency I can help with your windows if they're sash for a £2 part (sash jammer) and some glue. If you want Pm me or tag me here and I'll guide you through, picture of the window helps if you don't know what kind it is.

I've lived in my house for over 10 years now. It's a large house converted into two flats (HA). I've worked all that time and my rent comes from my wages. The other tenant here hasn't and gets benefits, including HB. I think she maybe has some kind of disability. Not entirely sure. Anyway, I could sit here and moan about how my taxes are paying for her to sit in her flat living this life of so called "luxury". Except she isn't.

She is clearly very depressed. She looks about 20 years older than she is! She never goes on holiday. I've made my home lovely in that time but she just doesn't have the money for decorating or nice things. I actually feel sorry for her. What is there to be jealous or resentful of? It's a horrible life. Oh and for the record she doesn't smoke and I don't think she drinks either, or rarely.

Thanks, Prawn but I need a new handle/lock and hinge. My handle snapped off due to having to yank it closed because the hinge is buggered. Luckily, a neighbour used to work in the window factory until they made massive redundancies so he can get me the parts I need and fit it for £30. Once the tax credits start paying me again, I'll get it sorted. In the meantime I'll get onto my MP and the crime prevention people as PPs suggested. I've been waiting since November for a hearing date for the tax credits so I'm not holding breath on them ever paying me again. Allegedly, they're going to start paying CTC again in April. I'm not sure about WTC, hopefully that will start up again too.

We had another dc a few months back. We are about to experience childcare bills of £1300 a month for the next year. We can't afford this and we are not entitled to a penny to help us out till dc1 gets his 30 funded hours.
So you had another child when you couldn't afford it? Why should my tax pay towards your 30 free hours when I didn't get them? Why should you get that when you've clearly made a poor choice?
Me and dh don't work to pay for others to stay at home because they've become accustomed to a life of not working. It isn't fair on the rest of us.
And I don't pay for others children to have free childcare because they decided to have a child they can't afford.

I don't mean that by the way, I'm proving a point that it's not up to me to dictate how my tax is spent and decide who's worthy and who's not.
I need some tax credits to help, you need 30 hours free childcare, someone else needs help keeping a roof over their heads. It's all relative.

If buy to let landlords are a problem then what's the solution? More council housing (to be sold off when the conservatives need a boost in the polls)? Or do you think if it wasnt for buy to let, all those on benefits would be getting mortgages?
We could, of course, build more council housing and not sell it off but no one seems to vote for that.

it's not up to me to dictate how my tax is spent

Collectively it's up to all of us. It's called democracy.

Just leaving this quote here as I think it's very apt:

“A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.”

Please do continue to feel sorry for people who spend their lives living off your hard earned money

Welfare includes:
Tax credit.
Housing benefit.
Child benefit.
Disability Living Allowance.
Income Support.
Incapacity Benefit.
Jobseeker's Allowance.
Council Tax Benefit

Most on Tax Credits for working people not people out of work.
We also support those who are disabled and ill because we are a society that does and should care for others. We should feel sorry for people who are less fortunate.
One day you may need support.

You care best of the less well off by conserving money to ensure you can continue with the welfare state rather than the Labour party's spend spend spend which I am afraid very similar to what some (not all ) of the less well off who use benefits for smoking or take aways rather than make the money last a month. The Conservative party cares best and is the best supporter of the welfare state.

That is one reason Labour has not won an election since 2005. Lots of people who vote Labour and Tory support benefits changes.

@Frequency

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/25/hartlepool-eu-referendum-leave-voters-immigration-jobs

You say there’s barely any immigration in Hartlepool but my experience is very much that the perceived threat from immigrants is what caused many to vote overwhelmingly for Brexit in the town.

I'd like to see resources put into decent full time training schemes for the unemployed. At one time they did briefly exist, at least in some areas.

When I was unemployed in the early 2000s I took a 3 month long course in PC skills for business admin that led to an NVQ level 2 and 3. It was essentially training in MS Office - getting a sound grasp of the basics then slightly more advanced stuff like setting up mail merges and databases and writing Excel macros etc.

While I was doing the course I didn't have to sign on or prove I was looking for work - the deal was you put the required effort into the course and the Jobcentre left you alone. It was really well run and pretty much everyone completed it successfully.

I didn't get a job straight away but I was able to secure some voluntary work that in a roundabout way ended up to my landing an admin job with a national charity (sadly since made redundant following a restructure.)

AFAIK there just aren't those kinds of schemes running any more. There are crappy 'Employability Training' schemes which basically amount to sitting in an overcrowded office for two weeks while some spiv in a shiny suit shares such startling insights as make sure you arrive on time for an interview and don't leave any spelling mistakes on your CV.

Then there are apprenticeships, but those are largely aimed at young people and you're competing with loads of others to try and even get one - and when you do, you risk being used for cheap labour rather than receiving decent training with a recognised qualification at the end of it. It's a bit of a lottery.

IMO the gov should look at what employment areas are actually still growing and what skills they require, put together some credible training courses with a credible qualification at the end, then get people on them ASAP.

As it is, the mentality seems to be lets get these lazy scum off their arses into the shittiest lowest paying jobs possible cause that will show them what's what! It's all a bit race to the bottom.

Oh here we go again. Let's have a go at private landlords now.

We invested in property some years ago with a view to providing us with an income when we retire so that we would be self sufficient in old age and would not need to sponge off the State.

Now, years later we appear to be a hated breed despite the fact that we have been providing families with homes over the past years.

Where would these families live otherwise if it weren't for private landlords? They obviously can't afford to buy and as we all know, there was never a programme of re-building council properties which decades ago had been sold off to tenants.

@Xenia
You care best of the less well off by conserving money to ensure you can continue with the welfare state rather than the Labour party's spend spend spend which I am afraid very similar to what some (not all ) of the less well off who use benefits for smoking or take aways rather than make the money last a month. The Conservative party cares best and is the best supporter of the welfare state. That is one reason Labour has not won an election since 2005. Lots of people who vote Labour and Tory support benefits changes.

Labour's "spend spend spend", I would rather they did spend the money on the people who have contributed the money in taxes, ie the working class and not the tax dodgers, who get massive tax breaks. There are many economists who support the fully costed manifesto and agree it would be great for the UK.

Tory's started the austerity, in order (they said) to reduce the debt, do you know how much it has reduced? It has risen by approx 600 BILLION. The Tory's have borrowed more money than all Labour government put together, even allowing for inflation.

While the population is busy pointing fingers at each other and getting jealous over someone apparently living the high life receiving £73 a week and not at the real source of the problems, we will not get anywhere. I must say bravo to the MSN for it's great propaganda campaigns to get everyone on side and ignoring the real problems.