DLA spending

[Anonmom812]

My daughter recently was awarded DLA.. She has just turned 16, the award is for £412 every 4 weeks...
She gets £25 a week of it for spending and another £20 a week for her bus ticket.
(I have tried giving it her weekly to help her learn how to budget as when she has it all at once she often tends to spend it all at once and then had none left for the rest of the month)
The rest of the money I split between extra food (she often won't eat the same as everyone else) music subscription for her (her special interest), savings etc (incase she needs clothes or other things etc)

She always gets to the end of the week and has ran out of money so am I being too tight with it?
I don't want to be controlling but I also don't want the money to be wasted on take aways and the corner shop

This is new to us so please any helpful suggestions or thoughts are welcome

If I gave 12 year old DS the approx £400 a month DLA he's been awarded he'd probably spend it on Robux, doesn't mean it's not needed.

Some goes towards petrol, some goes on fidget toys etc, it also goes on counselling (CAMHS wouldn't do anything) and pizza to get him to go to the counselling, there's extra spending on clothes (he chews holes in his clothes or announces after a week they're no good), shoes (we still haven't found a pair he can tolerate, we've spent £100's, couldn't risk it without the DLA), a bit on food (hunger causes dysregulation, also if he suddenly announces a desire to try a new food, we don't want to say no), some on hobbies/special interests and very occasionally days out we couldn't otherwise afford, and he is given a small amount as 'pocket money' just to give him some ownership as in 3 and a half years he may be getting it directly.

We get less than £5,000 a year DLA, and DH has just started claiming Carers Allowance. We're not raking in benefit money, we're considerably poorer than if DH and I were both working full time on minimum wage. I'd far prefer to have us both working full time with a happy child who was attending school and spending time with friends in the evening - and who was able to go to a friend's house or pop over to the shop on his own.

Bus ticket may be a disability related expense. Someone who lives rurally may need one anyway but I never needed one because I could walk long distances.
Extra food due to dietary requirements is a disability related expense.
Music apps are pretty common amongst teens but one without a disability could manage without better than someone who depends on it for regulation due to their disability.
Many 16 year olds get a part time job for their spending money, maybe this one can't due to disability.
Parents of children without a disability can work any hours when their child is 16. They can't if they need to care for a disabled teenager.

Will tell you what is mind blowing, apparently, you have a disabled child, all you’ve done, is demonstrate, a lack of understanding.Everything is black and white, with you, your attitude, will use your favourite word again, mind blowing! I don’t believe you have a disabled child, your motivation, is to rant!
I don’t claim, DLA or pip, but l understand the process, l have experience working in the community supporting people with disabilities, there has to be medical evidence, contrary to your opinion, it’s a lengthy process, basically there was to be medical proof, from supporting disabled people, it’s far from an easy process.If a person does get it, they don’t continue to get it, they have to reapply.

Poster certainly hasn't responded to any logical challenges to their comments thats for sure! Just nipped in a few times on their high horse.

You might want to educate yourself on the intention behind disability benefits if you think this is misuse of tax payers money. You’d do well to start with the fact that DLA isn’t means tested and families who claim it will in the main have one or both parents working so they are tax payers too.

Disability benefits are paid in recognition of the extra cost of living with significant disability and they’re assessed on a range of daily living and mobility activities designed to given an overall picture of the likely extra costs a claimant faces, then the appropriate level of payment is awarded. These benefits aren’t meant to be put aside in a separate for ‘disability things’ as many people here seem to believe. They don’t cover anything like the true extra costs most people face, and are meant as a contribution to level the playing field and allow the disabled person to take part in society by recognising the significant cost barrier disability can present.

Some disabilities don't cost anything extra and yet you get Dla (kids)and Pip *adults). For anxiety/adhd/mild autism there are no extra costs: cahms therapies are free. So it's basically extra money for the family no matter that their disability doesn't come with a cost or if the family is wealthy. So it's more like a compensation, or fun money if you like. For many this is the case but not for all before some posters protest.

🥱

Ooooh do you?

So lovely to know that it's awarded on the basis of a diagnosis and there aren't dozens of pages of questions and the need for multiple forms of evidence on how your disability actually impacts your life.

Great news for us all.

It's genuinely hilarious how some people are so determined to prove their sheer ignorance. I mean- what motivates them? If I don't know something I keep my mouth shut and try and learn. I certainly don't start spouting complete and utter nonsense.

Still.... I needed a laugh this morning.

Some of these posters seem to be motivated by their own ableism. So much energy is expended, in a negative way, writing posts filled with misinformation, or downright made up lies.

It's the same everytime posters always know someone who is getting DLA/PIP for no reason 🙄

You get it based on needs not diagnosis, but I can repeat it until I'm blue in the face and it won't make a difference.

⬆

It’s certainly easy to spot on this thread who’s talking purest bollocks when claiming that they or their child has a disability. The blanket statements about people with ASD not requiring DLA or PIP have made me laugh out loud.

It’s pretty rare for a disability not to cost anything. At different times the costs will look different things like reduced capacity for work because a small child can’t access childcare to enable parents to work, and then into school reduced working hours to enable attendance at health appointments, school meetings, and to collect a child who can’t make it through the day, then specialist tutors because mainstream teaching methods don’t work for your child, then additional costs for social activities to enable your child to attend and participate with other kids, travel to the various appointments and parking costs. If you can get a service from CAMHS the therapy might be free, where I am there’s no local service so each appointment is a half day off work and an hours travel there and back - it all costs money.

If I were to count it up I’ve lost around £200k in earnings alone purely due to my DDs disability preventing me being able to sustain full time employment. If I then added up costs of travel to various hospitals and health appointments, the cost of tutoring, the cost of activities, it would be considerably more. DLA isn’t fun money, or compensation - it fills a gap left in the household budget. I’m lucky in that I’ve always been able to sustain some level of paid work - being established in my career and having very flexible employers has helped that. The loss is much more significant for parents who can’t do that.

My child is severely autistic. No therapy available (even privately). They don't eat differently, don't chew their close, don't need nappies. They do need (at being almost 18) 24/7 supervision and support. they cannot be left alone at home or go anywhere on there own. There is no wrap around childcare. As a result, I can only work very reduced hours. Our household income is hugely affected. If I would work full time, I would be about 2k per month better off. It's not just the cost of things per se. You will find that the biggest cost for most families is the fact that they have to provide a massive amount of care which gets in the way of going to work. DLA/PIP isn't fun money despite not having to fork out for therapy or equipment. It simply enables us to put food on the table and keep up with the mortgage. Your post is so incredibly ignorant. Please educate yourself.

Also, what on earth is 'mild' autism. and if you only have a mild disability, you won't qualify for PIP or DLA in any case. You need to evidence high support needs.

See my post above. It’s ridiculous to suggest that these benefits are awarded to those who have no extra costs, because the whole assessment process is designed to gauge the different level of costs people face. They are very difficult benefits to secure - especially child DLA because all children need a certain level of care so disabled children have to meet a significantly higher threshold of care levels in comparison to that of a child without a disability. Before you posted did you never stop to consider that these benefits are intended to make it easier for disabled people to integrate into society, or that the payments go some way towards making up for income lost when one, parent has to become a full time carer, or becomes a single parent when the relationship breaks down under the strain of caring for a disabled person, as often happens ?

These benefits are universal because disability is universal. Whether the claimants or their families are wealthy or not is irrelevant. Where would you draw a threshold, and how would you tell someone with significant disability that they won’t be helped until they’ve drained their bank accounts ? It’s a race to the bottom. We’re a civilised society, and a mark of that is how we view and support our most vulnerable. If some of the opinions on this thread are indicative of general society when it comes the ignorance of what disability actually means and why we support it, I really fear for the future.

And as an aside, it is in no way compensation for being disabled, it’s a costed benefit, and referring to payments as ‘fun money’ when discussing people whose lives are incredibly difficult to navigate, is deeply offensive.

This. All day long.

Yep, so many armchair benefit assessors to be found on MN.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again for those at the back or hard of thinking. If you’re not living with that person 24/7 and caring for them, or a medical professional with training as a benefit assessor, privy to the details on their ’ benefit claim and with the knowledge to translate those details into eligibility for benefit then you really aren’t qualified to judge.

Contrary to popular belief, the extent of someone’s difficulties or the reasons they have been awarded benefit can’t be figured out just by looking at them, so maybe heed the wise words of Abraham Lincoln. ‘Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt’.

"Some disabilities don't cost anything extra and yet you get Dla (kids)and Pip *adults). For anxiety/adhd/mild autism there are no extra costs: cahms therapies are free. So it's basically extra money for the family no matter that their disability doesn't come with a cost or if the family is wealthy. So it's more like a compensation, or fun money if you like. For many this is the case but not for all before some"

If money was given for talking shit, you are one of those that would be getting loads.

I have got two DS. One is autistic. He actually costs us less than the other because he refuses to do extracurricular activities unlike his brother and he only likes certain type of food that is not expensive. What he does need is a parent always present for him- that would be me. And I do not get anything from the state. Dh earns enough for all four of us and we are not striving for luxuries. I do know other mums whose children are with DS in his school and they told me they get DLA and use it as fun money. Which maybe is fine because life is pretty hard when you got a disabled child.

You need to be with him so there's the loss of what you'd be earning otherwise.

Multiple random school parents have told you they use DLA as fun money?

The amount of people on MN who have people tell them all about their benefit money is mindblowing.

It's amazing, isn't it?

I've never once had a chat about DLA with other school parents. Never mind multiple ones.

It's only ever the people who either fraudulently claim, or don't need the money as well.

You would think they would be the ones more likely to keep their gobs shut.