To rant about government financial help

[Alittlenonsensenowandthen]

Firstly, I'll say that I've previously been in receipt of financial help from govt and extremely grateful and also want those who need help to be helped, but...
I've now met two people (retired) who are telling me what they're spending their fuel allowance on (new flat screen TV, holidays, new sofas). This is not an agiest or benefit bashing thread but it just gets my goat that there are people happily spending money given for heating on luxuries. It's not actually their fault - they haven't asked for the money, it wasn't means tested so arguably why not spend it and see it as bonus money. If govt wants to help, it needs to pay for things directly surely?
Just really bugging me at the moment because we're fine financially but only just, and we earn too much for help.
Argh! Just needed a rant to the ether this eve!

Yet another pensioner bashing thread .

Mumsnet had better delete the thread since I spelled out the first word in O.A.P. I do apologise.

Exactly. What a load of shit.

As was made clear in the previous "pensioners shouldn't get fuel allowance" thread, some of the poorest pensioners are those whose minute occupational pension takes them just above the pension credit limit. So, no, limiting it to those on pension credit wouldn't be effective.

They will definitely struggle to buy all of those things with the fuel allowance money. or even one of them

That's a very good point. There's an economic principle called the multiplier effect. If we take the 600 and assume everyone will save 10% and spend the rest, it's £540 spent. That money is then spent =£486, then 437.40. So already the economy had benefited by spending of 549+486+437.40. So in 3'steps it's become1472.40...which is a boost to the UK economy

Part of me thinks that the decent thing to do, if you don’t need it, is donate it to a foodbank or something (my parents in law have always done this). But then, I didn’t ‘need’ the £400 payment everyone (almost everyone?) for last winter for gas/electricity , and I didn’t donate £400 to a food bank, so clearly I’m a bit of a hypocrite!!

66 is both old and not old, it's all relative. At 61, I don't feel old, but put me next to a 20 year old (daily for me, and I do feel old). My muscular skeletal system is starting to give me problems, I'm in daily pain, but do I feel old? No, neither does my mum, 85 with dementia and barely able to walk.

IKR?! You can't even buy a fatback TV anymore.

by spending the money they are still boosting the economy, if they didn’t have that money is it likely they would still buy the stuff?

bearing in mind how many benefit wasters there are where whole families live on benefits, I dont begrudge it to those who, you say, don’t need it

Oh give over. If you were that old, you'd be getting the money yourself.

Eeh, and I bet the cunts have Sky and iPhone 15s.

~shakes fist~

The term OAP out dated and not a well used term anymore. Organisations and charities no longer use it.

Avocados. They bathe in smashed organic avocado.

I was just about to write the same thing! I'm not in the UK, but the winter fuel allowance here certainly wouldn't buy all those things, probably not even one!

Good Lord, does this mean I can never get a new telly, sofa or holiday without people thinking I'm squandering the fuel money.

Spending money is the reason we have the inflation rates we do currently, and thus the reason interest rates (and therefore mortgages) have risen so much. The only way to bring interest rates down is if people stop spending money.

Haven’t we just had a winter fuel allowance pensioner bashing thread? You could have given it a bit more time OP.

My husband I are unable to work - I had a stroke 2 years ago, get £380 PIP every 4 weeks. He's been off sick for 8 months (SSP for so many weeks but now ESA £82 weekly). He gets a private pension of £900 per quarter. Because he gets that (he'd paid into it for many years), we can't get any help from anywhere for anything. Luckily, mortgage was paid off a few years ago. We're not at retirement age yet. It's not fair that some people who have never worked/won't work/never paid into the system are financially better off than we are - but then life isn't fair, is it?

I remember back in the days before all the government handouts.
We had to use hot water bottles, extra blankets and wooly socks.
No central heating back then, scraped ice off the inside of the windows.
We managed to stay alive somehow 😉

We’ve had several.

Except the ones who didn’t.

Honestly not a pensioner bashing thread I promise. And yes I genuinely still call them flat screen TVs - sorry!

The people in question are close family members who I love dearly. As I say it was just grating the other day when they told me that they were saving the money to put towards things. And yes to me, a new sofa when you have a fairly new one already is a luxury to me. I replace things when they're falling apart not when I fancy a colour change. I was ranting simply because like lots of people I was feeling a bit sorry for myself given the col and a bit jealous! But there was a genuine question in there as well of how could the government use resources better to serve those who really need it. Thank you to pp who answered that part.

Not all countries have central heating. Those of us who don't seem to manage. I still use hot water bottles, extra blankets and wooly socks. I don't remember ever scraping ice off windows however, even living in a frosty climate with single glazing. Condensation yes, ice, no.

Flat screen tv
Holidays
Sofas

All for £1200

I want to shop where they're shopping.