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!

I very clearly remember TV ads in the 1980s that were giving pensioners tips on how not to die of hypothermia every winter so it obviously wasn't ok for everyone.

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

Bloodyhell! That's a lot of spends for (a maximum of) 600 quid.

Why aren’t you just glad for them that they can buy nice things with it

I doubt £300 would pay for much of a holiday, more like one night & travel. And for a lonely old person, the tv is sometimes the only human voice they hear from day to day.

Why the ageist nastiness? We have all paid into the system. Why should those specific people be excluded? You could equally say that anyone who's had a takeaway this month doesn't deserve to see an NHS dentist because they could afford to go private.

I'm a single mum, I'm 60, work full time plus have full time care of ds (15), still paying a mortgage. I don't get any help but I don't begrudge the winter fuel payment. Old age will come to us all, including you.

Can’t get upset about this when some get massively discounted childcare, UC to help with rent etc.

Some people seem to think older people shouldn’t get anything.

As a PP has said; it would cost more to means-test it.

He must use it though or why bother to apply for it, I am getting mine soon which I will use and I will get it from the local library which issues them as they take a photo for it, so a bit to do on my part, it's not just sent to you. If I wasn't going to go on a bus, I wouldn't bother.

I am happy for pensioners to get a payment for bills in winter. It is about £23 per week. For me this is the people who can’t go out and get a job. Also, disabled people should get help and I guess they do already.

Also flat screen tvs actually started with CRT TVs I had a Sony one in the early 2000s. The screen was perfectly flat.

. It’s shameful that we don’t have a government IT system which knows what our earnings are!
We do have such a system of course.

I doubt they are comfortable on UC.

People in the south have way higher costs of living then in the north.

It reverts to the usual £200 I suspect from next year - and bear in mind it is PER pensioner HOUSEHOLD (why do people not understand it is not per pensioner) so if you are part of a pensioner couple you do not get double.

Oooh, a flat screen TV? Or, otherwise now known as a, TV.

It’s 2023. All TVs are flat screen and start at ‘pretty large’.

When are people going to stop complaining about massive, flat screen tvs on benefits threads?

I’m not convinced that 3 separate people have had a ‘ooh, I’m going to spend my free government money on a frivolous item’ conversation with the OP.

Colder in the North though.

I feel that benefit bashers online seem to have got stuck in the 20th century when having anything other than a portable CRT tv from Argos might have felt luxurious.

Most retired people aren't living a high life
Most retired people have much lower incomes than most working age people

Means testing the benefits would be complex ( complexity is why child benefits are tested by person not household ) and would affect far fewer people / bh than the child benefit cap
Most retired people grew up in far more limited life's than you now expect - my mam was in her fifties before she got a foreign holiday

Most Tory politicians are delighted you are spreading divisiveness between the population

I heard some people might be getting a cordless phone or a digital radio ... scandalous.

It's a throwback to the end of the last century when flat screens were first available and incredibly expensive. Then, it was a cliche used when bashing people on low incomes who needed state support. The OP is clearly living in some sort of timewarp.

And good luck with buying a tv that hasn't got a flat screen. I don't think they've made CRT tv's for 15-20 years or so. I certainly couldn't find one when I had to replace mine in approx 2010.

It’s really irritating that so many people’s attitude is ‘why are they getting something (that I’m not)? They shouldn’t be allowed that because X, Y and flat screen TV’

Why not stop trying to prevent others from receiving a benefits payment and, instead, make a case for the people you feel should be more generously supported by the state?

’its annoying because we earn too much to get benefits’ is not a perspective that reflects well on anyone.

Oh, is the standard amount £200 per household not £250, the extra £300 was part of the energy crisis money so temporary, I doubt that will continue next year. You get £300 if you are over 80 so I have a way to go yet

Ah yes, but where does The North start? 😉
(we’ve had the winter fuel payment argument so many times now I think we might as well throw in the ‘Sheffield isn’t The North’ argument too 😂…runs away)

The North starts somewhere up the A1 between southerners sweating their arse off three weeks ago and the rest of us side eyeing the central heating.

I have a pensioner friend in Scotland and he got £500 but he will definitely need that much!

What’s so wonderful about a flat screen TV?

Tabloid "journalists" are the only people in the world who don't know that all televisions have been flat-screen for well over 10 years, and they were cheaper than CRTs even before that. As soon as you see the words "flat-screen TVs" (they might even chuck in "colour", as if they were born before the last black & white television was manufactured), you know you're dealing with a scandal-rag hack.