For being FED UP that people are living in council houses & on benefits, yet some how can afford to go on a holiday every year??

[cleo43]

I have had it with lazy shites that sit in the house that I & my dh ( the tax payer) pay for , living on money that I & my dh ( the tax payer ) make possible, having more than I have!!

Perhaps it's a little bit of a green eyed monster going on here ,but, this evening my neighbour that lives in a council house & on benefits has been round to show me her new car and ask me to look after "her" house when she and her husband ( plus the two children and a grandchild) go on holiday next week!!
I am sick of it. It was only last month that she was dragging me in to see her new giant flat screen tv!!
We can't afford these things yet we have to pay for these idiots to have them??

Good Luck Tink - go for it if you want to.

Cleo43,i tend to agree with you, we struggle through everyweek and we both work and have not had a holiday for at least 9years.
I understand that there are some that simply cannot work for medical reasons, or single mums who cannot get the right job and childcare, or older people who find it hard to get a job but there are those(and i know many) that sit on there arse, have never worked, not because they cant but because they wont because they have an easy ride...2 able bodied adults living in a house, at least 1 of them should get of there backsides and get a job.
Why should i and others pay for them to live free? It would be very easy to quit my job and dp but i prefer to hold my head up high and know that everything i have is mine and i have paid for it and i dont have a lot!
I really think its high time the government gave these people a wake up call and put them to work for their money...and they should pay at least some rent and council tax..they are using the services after all..maybe then they would be more inclined to think gettin a job would be a better idea.

Believe it, they live better than us and can get much more credit too!
Just goi around and look at my mums house..bloody lazy cow had 7 kids and her and my dad brought us up on social.
I dont want that for mine, big 5 bedroom council house..free house, council tax, free school meals, free everything..makes me mad..all new stuff...just think how much better off you'd be if you didnt pay rent or council tax?

Thank God for Custy

I don't envy anyone making a lifelong career out of living on benefits. Imagine if all you had to look forward to was another year spent scraping by. No getting excited or hopeful about a job promotion/new job and sitting chatting about how to spend the not yet won pay increase. No flexibility to decide that this year will be the year when you cut back on food shopping in order to buy a new sofa or decorate a room.

I think the real poverty in being on benefits is not financial poverty, but the poverty of hope for the future. Always knowing that this is the best that you can offer your children

No thanks - not for me - not in a million years!

'Imagine if all you had to look forward to was another year spent scraping by. No getting excited or hopeful about a job promotion/new job and sitting chatting about how to spend the not yet won pay increase. No flexibility to decide that this year will be the year when you cut back on food shopping in order to buy a new sofa or decorate a room. '

Plenty of working poor people live like this. Has nothing to do with benefits.

'I think the real poverty in being on benefits is not financial poverty, but the poverty of hope for the future. Always knowing that this is the best that you can offer your children'

That is so spot on Soapy and is the thing that bothers me so much more than the financial side of things.

Expat - I think it is more likely to be the case with those on benefits. If you don't work you never have the hope that your dream job will come along. I actually believe that a lot of working poor (as you describe them) cling to that hope, whether or not it is a liklihood or not.

oooooooo guess what!! I am on benifits (thanks to having 2 disabled kids!!) and we are going to Mencora next month, we booked it last may and have been saving for it we paid it off over the year. You better shoot me now!!

Agree it is outrageous when able bodied healthy men in areas of high employment are supported by the state for years and years. I see DH striding off to work his arse off for 12 hours a day whilst the chap next door sits in his garden smoking weed, fiddling with his bike and fathering children. His partner pretends they are not together so she gets more benefits as a "single" mother but he lives there anyway.

I had never come across this before but around here it seems to be a common way to exist. Really dont understand it - there are loads of jobs where we are in centralish London. Surprised the system is not more rigourous.

'I actually believe that a lot of working poor (as you describe them) cling to that hope, whether or not it is a liklihood or not. '

Hmm, not been my experience at all, and I've been working poor most of my adult life and, by default, most of my colleagues.

You just dodge along.

FWIW, I lump 'dream job' into the same category as 'soulmate' or 'the one'.

hands Sparkly a bulletproof vest.

I don't begrudge people on benefits, unless they're commiting some serious fraud and all that stuff about 'that's my taxes' and 'they live better than us' is tripe.

I mean, who cares?

We work, others don't. Most of us get screwed by this government either way so I can't say I'm really angry at anyone else but them.

ooo thanks expat, is it a free bulletproof vest? because I am on benifits and everything should be free, you know!!!

I'm sure one of DH's Eastern European colleagues can get you one very cheaply, sparkly .

Hello Expat

Sparklygothcat - I want people like you, in your situation, to have MORE benefits and people like me (had able-bodied baby, am able-bodied) to be encouraged back to work, so there's (in my naive view) more money for people who really need it....don't begrudge hols in your situation - don't think OP would either.

Do work now, life changing marriage (OMG) and happy to pay taxes for you IYSWIM...

I don't care anyway lol! I didn;t ask for 2 disabled kids and I can only do what is best for them, and that means being at home with them

we are massively in debt. nowhere near what we used to be. dh being in hospital drained our small savings, and we put a lot of catalogues, credit card etc etc. since he came out we have been clearing debts one by one.

we are desperatly cutting back on everything to try and be as debt free as possible by the time #4 arrives, so i can go back to work and know things are more stable money wise.

dd1 dla stopped (yay!! she is now classed as having normal needs) and even though this means we are now approx £500 a month down after tax credits recalculations, i cant be down about it as it means my dd is now considered 'normal' for her age, as she can manage her own meds etc most of the time. its actually something to be happy about. dh also cant wait to be considered 'not-disabled' anymore, and is looking forward to his new course starting in the summer and getting back to work. so am i. life outside of hospitals and appointments is great.

We get housing benefit. We have a nice car (bought for cash six months before we needed to claim HB and looked after). I go on 'holiday' four times a year twice to Scotland (I save for the ticket - or sell stuff on ebay and stay at a friends), and twice up to Yorkshire (staying at various friends and relatives homes). I'm off to Gibralta in a couple of months (my friend in Scotland owns a house there and I have my ticket, and finally got a passport (all saved for over 2 years by saving a couple of pounds a week), and I may be going every year from then on. We will be buying a big TV this year CASH (currently saving towards this). We have recently bought a DVD recorder and a laptop - all saved for). We have just put up a very large shed in our garden and are converting it into a playroom for the liddle 'un (donated by DH's boss after DH asked if he would considering selling it to us). And I have just got a gorgeous old drop leaf dining table that goes fabulously in this cottage, immaculate condition (for the grand sum of £1 at auction).

There are ways of getting things without defrauding anyone.

You do not know anyone's situation unless you are that person. There are an awful lot of assumptions made about us and most of it is absolute bollocks!!!!

It is soooo very easy to judge others isn't it. We are all guilty of it in one way or another. But, just remember : There but for the grace of God.

I risk getting my head bitten off here and there has already been a thread but:

Lazy sponging cow one: Lives with her DH/DP on benefits, sponging off the state. Or lazy sponging cow two: Marries for money, lives off of DP/DH and looks down her nose at lazy sponging cow two. NO this is not a SAHM issue so please dont make it into such. But sometimes i wonder if alot of the snootiness is just a matter of who they married, if you see what i mean. Of course, most women pay their way, they either work or are proper SAHM mums looking after the home and the children. Lazy cow one and two, thankfully, are in the minority.

cleo you need to stop twitching your curtains making assumptions and casting aspersions about other's

Mind yer beak

Sparklygothcat - can only echo your sentiments, you must be a very lovely mummy!

Sparklygothcat - enjoy your holiday darling, get some sun.dont wear the big vest though, spoils the look

oh no Swimsuit all the way!!

I live on benefits as a single mum in Ireland. I'm also doing a degee and working part time to free myself from benefits. My childhood was pretty dysfunctional and miserable. My mother shczophrenic and my father a child beating gambler.

Poverty was and if I'm being honest is still deeply embedded and imprinted in my soul. It was and still is part of my identity.

I'm 40 now but when I was 20 I remember as a single parent going to a back to work/education Government funded course. I was given a choice of hairdressing/electronic assembly or funiture upholstery. I wanted to do the computer course but wasn't permitted because I didn't have the 1oo pound course fee oh and I hadn't finished my secondary education.

I did the electronic assembly in the end.
Over the last 20 yrs, I have worked part, time full time, two jobs. Sometimes none, though in my defence when I didn't work I was busy spending up to two weeks in a psychiatic ward having a breakdown.

I have had the charity Vincent De Paul call to my home and give me hand me downs from clothes that from more well off people with fancy brand names. I was often ashamed to wear them.

I've had a "rich" boyfriend or two who eased the financial end of things but I always earned my keep! There are so many levels of poverity, it's hard to know where to begin. I want to applaud Custy for her typical spot on accurate analysis.

I'm not quite as far on in the way she says I can aspire too but I'm getting there !!!!!
Hopefully when I get my degree, I will work part time. I also still want to spend quality time with my son and who knows there might be something more that I can aspire to.

I'm sorry but I have a really lousy day ahead of me tomorrow so feel free to ignore this post.

The way that I went was to marry for love, stay at home with the kids, sometimes living a very poor existence - second hand clothes and toys, absolutely no extras - because that is what you feel is the right thing to do for your children and then go back to work to contribute the minute your kids are old enough. I'm afraid to say that having known people on benefits who have told me that other people on their street can afford their drugs (cannabis) and can quite happily stay up all night smoking it as they don't have to get up for work in the morning, I am very disappointed in the system as it stands. I was brought up with 6 of us in a one bedroom maisonette but my dad had too much pride to claim benefits so we went without everything. I'm afraid that my friends daughter who is now 12 has never seen her mother go out to work and is in awe of me because she comes to stay with us and sees me get up and go to work. Surely there is no reason why children should not have seen either of their parents go to work, ever. I believe that in some areas we are in the third generation of non-working parents. There is no way this can be necessary.