For being fucked off with all the threads about what people on benefits should and should not do?

[conniedescending]

Apparently not have babies OR go on holiday for starters.

What is it with this obsession with what other people less fortunate are doing? I find it absolutely ludicrous that the so called tax payers are more annoyed at vulnerable people claiming benefits than they are at what the rich are actually doing.

Why is it the spotlight is not on the 'rich' people who tax evade left, right and center meaning there is less in the pot.....what about MPs expenses???? What about non-doms?

I find it ludicrous that people actually think the problem lies with people on benefits when it is the rich who are the abhorrent party in this debacle.

When I was little we had a lot of camping holidays - just for a few days at a time. Nothing fancy. Was a very basic type tent in a simple field. But we did have a great time doing it.

I suppose two weeks at home is fine if you have a nice house and lots of space in a good area

Well clearly

But I justify it to myself by saying I deserve it
And I have a nice life

So I could well imagine that if I didn't the temptation to just say "sod it, I deserve it" is even greater

ergo huge debt

When I was Mother to a 3 year old Dd and a 6 month old Ds my partner came home one day and said he didn't love me anymore,didn't want the responsibility of being a parent and wanted a stress free life like his friends.
I was a stay at home mum,we struggled but I wasn't on any benefits.

We had to leave there and then ,luckily I have great parents that took us in,and dealt with everything..to say I and my DD were devastated would be an understatement.

After a couple of days of being in complete shock and desolation I started to calm down and the one point that scared and terrified me the most????

The fact I would be a single mother on benefits and the brush we automatically would be tarnished with,and the reason I was 'tarnished' with this brush ...people's perceptions.

4 Years on,we have a lovely home of our own (privately rented with the help of housing benefit) and I have just signed off of benefits to start my own business.My son starts full time school in September .

Being on benefits for the past 4 years may seem to some that I've had an extended holiday but in reality it's been bloody hard work and we have had to go without alot of basic important things to get where we are now.

There's a saying about not critisizing someone till you've walked a mile in their shoes.....how many can say they have?

Well not in my case

I am just saying that I understand the temptation to do that

But really, there debt is nothing to do with us is it?
And I think there are many wirking people in debt as they are just earning enough to scrape by

It's a similar fashion to how we see people with low incomes absolutely blow out at christmas, they spend every day of ther lives watching the pennies, having to buy the cheapest possible food, having to say no when their children ask for the same as the other kids have, counting out the pennies for a loaf of bread etc
So when it comes to the summer and they know they are going to spend 6 weeks sat indoors witho practically no money to treat their children then some loan shark knocks on the door offering them enough money to go on holiday and payment of about £5 a week back, they accept.
I had more credit offered to me when I was a single mother of two in a one bedroom flat than I do now and we could easily afford to pay it back, why? Because if we were going to use credit we'd shop around and get a good deal, whereas people on low incomes arent afforded that luxury.

this obsession with holidays is new though

I didnt live in a particularly nice house as a small child, although we had a garden

we often didnt go away as my parents couldnt afford it, but then a lot of my friends didnt either and we were allowed a lot more freedom to play in the street etc. My parents were terrified of credit so I guess it has rubbed off a bit.

Sorry their
and working

I think the people who judge have possibly never experience living on benefits before so cannot apprieciate how much of a struggle it can be and credit card companies remind me of the child cathcer in chittychittybangbang...lolipops come get your lolipops! you know you shouldn't do it but it is sooo so tempting to get one and when you do, wham. your trapped.

windygales thats so about your friend, glad she has a good friend like you to come to the rescue for her ds

I dont judge

I really dont

unless I hear or see some particularly obvious form of financial idiocy

Yes i guess teh cheap flights/packages weren't available in the 60s and 70s

We used to drive to the S of France and camp
Or go camping in the UK

A couple of times we hired a cottage in Brittany

The first hotelly holiday I remember was Ibiza in 1981

I didn't stay in a hotel until I was an adult, just finished university, so about 22.

I didn't go abroad (bar a one night trip to France with school which we saved up for) until I was the same age - 22ish.

We camped when little. Big holidays were either rented houses - normally in Cornwall with a really long drive to get there; got an old car when I was about 8 or 9 I think); or a couple of times we stayed in a caravan.

I am on benifits, I have 2 disabled children, and 2 NT children, I planned Ds2 who is 6m old. I really don;t care anymore. I am going on holiday next month, the majorty of the cost paid for by the family fund. I am getting hacked off with the benifit thrads too

BTW I can totally see the arguments against getting into debt, my parents did it, and not even for holidays or stuff that would benefit all of us but they'd get a loan to 'pay bills' and then spunk it up the wall so they'd have an extra debt and nothing to show for it, but they were crap with money anyway.

Actually I do have a very clear memory of asking to stay in a hotel for my birthday present when I was about 10

My mum and I and an auntish sort of person went away to some rancid hotel

It had one of those formica looking dressing tables attached to teh wall with no feet and I sat on it and it fell off

no abroad or hotels here until I did it myself!

caravan on some farm in Devon or norfolk, got there in an old banger that would invariably overheat causing my mum to have the first of many attacks of the vapours

actually they were totally shit and I blardy WISH my parents had had a fecking credit card

The benefit system is paid for by taxes, paid for in the main by people who do not consider themselves wealthy and who feel that if they are going to support a sysytem they want to be damn sure it is fair and not abused.

That seems perfectly reasonalble to me and therrefore not suprised at all that many people want to debate it or feel aggreived at any perceived abuse of the sysytem.

If you're on bebefits and not abusing the system, then stop taking offenceas most comments are not directde at you.

BUT if you are on benefits I think you do have accept the logic to some degree that you are being supported by the state through other people and they will in all liklihood make some judgements about what you do with 'their' money and whether this is really the sort of thing they want to financially support.

That is the reality.

To want a benefit system where the taxpayers cannot express views on what they deem reasonable support would appera to be lunacy to me.

So YABU.

dont know where you are up to on this thread nbut i was 36 before i went on an airpolane for the first time

In the spirit of mumsnet why not start a holiday help thread.

There must be people on here who have or know someone with a caravan/cottage etc who rents it out and could post details of location,price.

Also last year was'nt there a thread about house swapping.
NO cost apart from travelling to destination .

god I would hate someone I didnt know staying in my house

someone i didnt know would hate staying in my house