Savings and benefits

[Roobear23]

Hello

I'm currently in receipt of housing benefit and income support as I'm a lone parent with a toddler and studying.

I have been gifted £1000.

At the moment I only have a current account which has about £6000 in but this obviously fluctuates and goes below.

Housing benefit may get affected when you have savings of £6000 or more so I am unsure what to do.

Would it be ok to put the gifted money in a separate account?

If anyone has any experience of this please help!

I don't resent her for having it at all. I just think it absurd that someone can have savings of up to 16k in the bank or a massively high salary and still get a cheque from the welfare budget. I also find it absurd that people actively want to "cheat" the system by putting it in children's names or stashing it in cash.

Anybody who says the OP should hide it, shouldn't also never moan about the wealthy using tax efficient bank accounts or companies doing "creative accounting" to cheat the tax payer. No matter if its one pound or one million pound stealing is stealing as they say.

I mean no wonder systems and processes are failing when the above goes on, but we cannot put the world to rights on this thread.

£6,000, not £16k. The £1,000 the op mentioned was a gift, presumably a one off.

I don't moan about wealthy people who hire clever accountants. Wealthy people generally pay quite a lot of tax anyway, they just want to avoid paying more if they can.

Neither do I complain about people on benefits and am quite happy for some of my tax to go towards that. Who knows, I might need the Benefits Agency myself one day. I hope not but can't predict the future.

Anyway I expect the op will declare her £1,000 and she probably won't notice much difference in her payments.

@Rachelover40
I'm not resentful I'm just saying benefits should be there for people who need to live not rack up savings . I know people who struggle to get by on benefits.

I'd love to know how someone on benefits has managed to keep 6k saved 🤔

It’s standard for everyone to be allowed a small amount of savings. The Govt has set this at £6k for everyone, my granny had around £6k in savings when she died as she didn’t spend much from her pension. It paid for her funeral.

In the case of the OP she has a small amount as a safety net in case she has to suddenly move, have repairs to a car, buy a newer car to replace a behind repair one etc.

Some of us don’t even have that amount but isn’t it nice to know we can have a small safety net as a cushion against big emergencies.?

We get nothing now and I certainly didn’t have any cushion at that point but I don’t resent anyone else who has,

Think everyone here is being pretty harsh to be fair. How do you not know the OP has previously worked to save that 6k? She's studying so will most likely be putting back into the system when she's finished by getting a job. How far would 6k really get you if you wasn't on benefits - 6 months of rent, bills and food max with a child I bet, then she's back on benefits with no money at all for emergencies, for her child to go to uni later in life, for Xmas presents etc.

Also would add I would rather the OP take a bit of money from Benefits if it's to save than waste it on TV's, fags and booze. Nobody should be knocked down for being sensible and saving.

OP, is there anything you've been holding off spending on that will need doing soon? (Car repairs? washing machine dying? New laptop for study? Christmas? Etc). If I added up all the unavoidable expenditure I'm procrastinating it would easily come to 1k.

If so, this would be the time to bite the bullet. Then cash your (generous!) gift.

I saved up while on benefits. I didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, go to the cinema, pub, nightclub, expensive places, buy expensive food, we had very frugal Christmases, no car, charity shop for clothes when needed, one Christmas every present came from charity shops, we had no carpets except for the sitting room (which was a present, I didn't buy it) etc etc etc.

If OP is even a little bit like that then I can see how she has easily saved that.

Now times are better for me, I am still frugal. The result is that I could just buy a new washing machine when mine broke, I don't worry about car stuff, if my wages are late there's no panic.

I don't see why OP should lose her benefits because she has been generously given a gift. So if you got bought a car for your birthday and then sold it you would have to tell? I am not on benefits and don't actually know how it works but £6K isnt exactly life changing and can disappear in a matter of months!

She won’t lose her benefits hellhavenofury they will just be marginally reduced until her savings fall below £6k again. She could infact have savings up to £16k before her benefits were completely stopped.

I suppose 6k sounds a lot to some people and some people tend to think that you only get benefits when you are destitute which of course is not true. I help people to claim disability benefits and some of them have 100k in the bank yet they get them because they are non means tested. Likewise with means tested benefits you can have 6k and they only start reducing between 6k and 16k.

Ahh I see. It sounds like a lot of hassle from there side to mess about with things and It might only be for like a month or 2 before being below £6K again!

I was a single mum working FT and earning enough to be taxed at 40%. I wasn't entitled to anything but CB. I had to pay over £600 in childcare, £750 in my mortgage, 250 petrol and the rest. I had very little left at the end of the month, just enough to save for a cheap holiday and xmas/bday present. I never had £1,000 in my account, let alone £6,000.

I find a system that considers someone left with very little at the end of the month after bills rich enough to pay 40% taxes, yet someone who has access to £6,000 savings poor enough to claim all benefits bonkers and everyone thinking it is right clearly show what a state of entitlement we've become.

@swingofthings but isnt it your choice to have a house that has a £750 mortgage on it for example? As the OP is a student she cant earn enough to be paying 40% tax? Maybe when she has finished her studies she will get a job and pay tax like the rest of us to make up for it. I am in the higher tax bracket too and have a big-ish mortgage but thats my choice. I could easily have a smaller house, smaller car etc and have more at the end of the month.

I had a mortgage before I became a single mum. If we'd sold at that time, I would have had no equity in it and rent would have been the same is not higher so renting would have made no difference and still wouldn't have been entitled to HB. Sadly, this was no luxury house but a very basic one in the SE.

Life is full of 'maybes'. Maybe she'll meet someone, have more children and never get a job.

Of course I could have made the choice to give up work, have the luxury of being at home with my kids, and then time for myself when they went to school whilst claiming all the benefits I was entitled to but why take such a choice when I could support myself and my kids?

Just like I had money to support myself and kids, so does OP for the time being and therefore doesn't require benefits any more than I needed then.

Nothing personal to the OP, like many sévis only doing what she is entitled to but that's why the system had to change. Its not right that anyone on benefits should have more savings than someone who work hard but has nothing left at the end of the months after bills.

swingofthings, you were fortunate to be working and owning a house. Count your blessings rather than resenting someone who has to live off benefits. She's not rich, just happens to have £6k in savings (plus £1k she has recently been given), which no doubt she dips into from time to time. Eventually she will be working and paying tax which will help others on benefit.

Rachel why are you assuming I was fortunate? Funny how that it is the stereotypical assumption that is made when a single mother is able to be self supportive. Won't bother going into details but my owning my house and having a job that paid the bills had nothing to do with luck and many times I cried and would have traded it for being a student and having £6000 in my bank account rather than being totally knackered and worrying how I was going to fix my boiler when it packed up.

Funny too how some sees £6,000 as not being rich when you rely on benefits. It's a fortune to me! As for working, really hope it will be the case for OP, but I know a number of people who we t back to study but then ended up having more kids and still never work and never pay taxes.

I do count my blessing every day but not as a result of luck.

Oh come on.
It's possible to work very hard and be lucky.
There are people who work their arses off and through no fault of their own they are not able to buy their own home.
There are people who want to work but are not able to due to disability or health problems.