To think some might spend £650 energy payment on other things?

[Hemklop]

I'm prepared to get flamed here, as I know the benefits system is a touchy subject.

However, I was just wondering whether many people will not use the £650 lump sum payment for it's true purpose, given that it's the summer holidays and there are lots of temptations to spend on other things.

These people then won't be any better off when it comes to the winter?

Methinks the Tories knew this, and chose this date on purpose? The result, ie drunken photos of chavs of council estates after the kind-hearted Tories gave them free money, will play right into the tabloid narrative that the people want?

@Hemklop I’ll give you the benefit of doubt and assume you aren’t a goading and tell you of the things I’ve heard it spent on so far.

Clearing debt on meters and topping up so people have hot water and heating this winter ( many didn’t last year).

Bringing water account up to date.

Buying school uniform.

Clearing some debt to reduce the ongoing cycle of high interest and reliance on further debt.

School uniform costs. Mostly shoes.

Putting into premium bonds til needed. ( chase of winning after all)

HTH.

Oh god fuck off!!

But yes I imagine the sale of massive TVs and fags will go up exponentially in the week after one of the payments is made.

One of the above posters said she would add it to her savings.
I wish i had this payment and savings.

Work in social services type role- yes some will spend it on crap/ partying. Others won’t. Not much you can do really.

@Crikeymaccrikey I added it to my savings. I’m cutting my cloth but know come the winter I’ll need it. Would you rather I spent it now? No I’m saving it and trying to use my existing income to budget.

no its not its for cost of living. The energy specific payment is going straight to the electricity companies.

It will get spent quickly on the 'right' or 'wrong' things and immediately be boosting the economy from the bottom up either way. Poor people spend their money more quickly and are much less likely to save it. We are told this personal irresponsibility is bad for the economy. It might be bad for those people who are skint all over again before long, but it's good for the economy. If somebody spends it all in the vape shop or the local pub, getting their nails done or in the fried chicken shop, they are putting money back into small businesses who may be able to expand their opening hours and range of products, take on more employees, open more premises. It's good for the economy, and keeps poor people happy for a bit. It's better than giving it to big companies who just do not trickle down anything to those at the bottom. Rich people hoard their wealth and that is bad for the economy and ultimately bad for the working class worker ants as well. Because economies don't grow well top down, they work much better bottom up. We need those people spending it all in the off licenses and on nights out and all those things people deem "irresponsible" and poor people need to have some kind of life quality too. It has always been this way, but they don't want us to realise that. Why do you think they gave people the universal credit uplift, furlough and these payments? It's not because they truthfully give a shit about poor people, its because they need the working classes to keep spending money or the whole capitalist financial system will fall down around us like a stack of cards when you take from the bottom

'These people' aren't poor because they 'lack money management skills'.

The myth that affluent people 'worked hard for their money' and 'were sensible' and 'saved up for what they wanted' is self created and used to justify the unfair divide between the have and have nots.

Of course

everything has gone up and UC has not covered for that and taken away the £20 weekly increase that covered the pandemic

UC needs to increase further (as well as wages before someone moans that they are working and struggling without any support)

told my sis I will be buying drugs with mine (pensioner, I get mine in october-ish) so i won't care about the energy crisis.

If you are not a millionaire and have to go to work for your money, your all different shades of working class in this system. Because it's really feudalism with a face lift

Is the £400 not the energy payment and the £650 not a cost of living payment?

And you felt the need to NC for this?

Yes of course, all those chavvy poor people will be rushing straight out for tattoos, talons and piercing their babies' ears with diamonds and stocking up on fags. Obviously if they were hard working, virtuous people who budgeted like the OP they wouldn't be in that situation.🙄

Its cost of living support. Much as you might like to force low income families to justify every penny to you its not happening.

What would you like to see OP? A reality show where anyone in receipt of benefits has to appear on TV to have their budgeting held up to public ridicule and then the public votes their least favourite out of the benefits system to rot? Where the better off could smugly talk about 10p porridge whilst ignoring the total costs?

Are you not mixinbup two different payments?

The 650 is a cost of living payment.
Paid directly to eligible households.

The 400 energy payment goes to the companies who credit the accounts directly.

well yes and no. Like everything else sometimes its true (as it was with my parents) and sometimes its not.

Free will is a thing.

I would personally have to spend it on food. So there is that.

It'll go into the overall living pot. Shock horror, it might make someone's life a tiny bit better. Was that not the point?

Why does it matter to you?

Mine went straight into my savings account where it was stay hopefully indefinitely.

Some of my state pension goes on beer and mascara. Should I report myself to the authorities?

Comments like this always remind me of those arguments that absent parents make about child support. "you better spend my £30 a month on my child, not yourself". I haven't spent mine on the energy bills. Its gone towards school uniform, food shopping, bus fare and (uh oh) even taking DD swimming and to get an icecream. Why should anybody outside of the people it's for care what it's spent on?

If somebody hasn't been able to do anything fun over the summer holidays and now they can afford a day out, Great! If a parent couldn't get their kid a birthday present because their bills were to high and now they can, I think that's money well spent. If they just want to treat themselves to a curry because money has been so tight and they've not been able to for months, enjoy! As long as the bills are still being paid its nobody else's business.

We must all submit our bank statements for the public to forensically examine. I’m sure we could be then told what we deserve to spend on or not……

The answer I believe, is to not allow how others spend money, that they're fully entitled to, worry you, and think to yourself, quietly, "by the grace of God, there go I", that you're not in a position to need government top ups because you're working a pittance wage.
The benefit bashing and poverty shaming makes me sick.
I grew up in the benefit system, I worked along time without it, now I'm a carer for a profoundly autistic child, my income is from the welfare system until my child is settled Mon- Fri and I can try opening an etsy shop or learn a new trade that suits him, I am beyond grateful to have it.
The families who have the jobs in the industries you need, from health care workers who wipe the arses of your elderly loved ones, so you don't have to, to the dinner lady's and shop assistants will all need that money. It may be already spent on school uniforms or like ours, the food shopping for the hols. And if the ones who spend it on a lazy spa will have to budget better for winter, it's not your problem.
See benefits as you would child maintenance if you will, I'll stick to a father paying a mother.
Mother works 16 hours a week in asda and dad works full time as a plumber, pays £200 a month from his 3k monthly take home. He moans mum was seen on Facebook that weekend with friends going for a meal.
He has no say in how that money is spent. How is anyone's business? She also works to provide, leave her alone, she's paying her bills, she's allowed a life.
Benefits are there for most families who need them because they're on shit money.
It bothers me that people with wealth let it bother them what people like me spend our money on.
Worry about why the world is such a chaotic shambles and how its got this bad. Worry about why the house of commons has a lot of men in there who are blatant sex pests.
Worry about climate change and tax dodging fuckers.
But honestly, don't worry about how poor people who bare no importance on your lives spend their money, better things to get mad at.

These payments are to help with the cost of living. It is taxpayers' money and it is a benefit not an entitlement. I am a top rate taxpayer, and I see the payments as a good use of my money. Life is going to get tough for many people and it is a way to help. My gripe is it is not going to be enough and it is announced too late. Many people will still be worrying how they can make ends meet, so setting out early what the Government is prepared to do for the next 24 months for those who will be hardest hit should be a priority. Mental health has a massive impact on society.

I do not care what recipients spend it on. The vast majority will spend it wisely. So what if someone buys some bottles of cider or a video game. That money circulates into the economy and VAT and corporation tax is paid on it.

The US have been issuing stimulus checks for years. Sometimes to those in need and sometimes a return of taxpayers' money. In California taxes are high, but rebates then follow.
US Stimulus Cheques