Universal credit and spending on luxuries

[Paulajane40]

Savings between 6-16k so have deductions , is it ok to use around 2k - 2.5k of savings to buy luxury items for big birthdays and big events eg eldest finishing GCSE.
Eg Tiffany , Gucci . All bills are paid and no other major outgoings for those months . I worry as some say your not allowed to spend on big purchases etc
doing so will still keep me above 12k so will have deductions still which I’m fine with

I’m not at the bottom.

but even if I were - what is your suggestion for these pay grades? Are you suggesting they're not allowed to claim UC?

Are you saying their roles have no value as a result of claiming qualifying for UC? Who will do my job if I upscale? Are you going to sneer at them too? Is theif job redundant because it doesn’t pay enough to escape UC? If you are suggesting that, who is going to support the most vulnerable? Are you suggesting service managers do their job abc the job of their sub ordinates?

Show me your well thought out solution whoch supports people and those doing yhd job aren’t eligible for UC.

Im looking forward to perusing your roadmap to a up topic where taxpayers aren’t affronted (which would include ms, several thousand pounds above minimum wage - though I’m not affronted as my sight is long)

Why are you assuming I have no ambition?

I'm completely upsides of employers who fail to support employment law and the exploitation of workers.

What I don't buy into is using them as an excuse to inappropriately and blatantly using UC for frivolous purchases and come on here to discuss it. It's not in the spirit of UC, and everyone on here should know that.

I have personal experience of people who are genuinely on the bones of their arse, and they don't spend their UC on Tiffany, they're juggling their finances and making difficult choices to be able to buy the basics, not discussing luxury purchases on social media.

the OP does not have financial challenges if that's what they do with their UC.

Thanks everyone as some of you said it is my savings so I’ll spend it how i wish

I’ll try not to worry about it and explain it if I need to thank you

If you get UC @spicemaiden, and work in local government, I assume you don’t earn much? When I started in LG I didn’t either. However my ambition was to get much further on in a career with them and my job paid very well in the end. Sadly if I was starting out in the world, my salary when I retired would not get me much of a house where I live. However I could not imagine taking benefits and spending money on Tiffany /Gucci. It just would not be right.

Just a thought - if you partly own a house, do you get UC?

I work full time and earn above minimum wage by several thousand and still qualify. I think people should consider just how low and stagnant wages are instead of looking down their noses and demanding how people choose to spend their money.

Are you asking about UC in general or yhd housing element of UC?

The answer is yes either way and if someone has a mortgage they may also qualify for a loan to help with yhd interest part of yhd mortgage wormy of yhd part rent part by home they are in. Depends on circumstances.

I think this post is rage bait.just think about it. Someone who’s trapped on benefits might use that kind of money to replace appliances or keep it aside in case something breaks. It doesn’t make sense that someone has been able to accumulate this kind of money on benefits and then also spend years of savings that were very hard to save on Gucci and whatever else she mentioned.
I don’t think this is about spending it on what she wants, she could have got her daughter a token gift or something that would actually be useful and I hope she gets done for deprivation of assets if this is true but it’s probably not
op you are on mumsnet trolls on Reddit

And how exactly do you know how the op saved that money? For all you know the op could have already had that in savings before claiming UC.

There is a savings minimum threshold of 6k and a maximum of 16k. OP is perfectly within theif rights to spend the money however they like.

And no, it’s highly unlikely this would be considered a deprivation of assets.

This. I know someone who had to leave her job due to ill health. She had over £10k in savings and could still claim UC. She even spent some of it on a cruise, and it was fine. Her last holiday due to her failing health.

ive seen the government website. Holidays are fine. But some things are considered unreasonable spending and deprivation of assets.

you can consider buying luxuries with benefits?? Very shocked as I thought luxuries are meant for those who have loads of money that they don’t know where else to spend and benefits are meant for those who are struggling to make ends meet. It seems to me something does not really align here…

YOu can have savings with benefits and buy what you want.

Yeah, most deprivation of assists would be people moving money about, not so much spending it on things.

It doesn’t add up. It seems very contradictory that the savings which are partially funded by tax payers and meant to make ends meet for people who truly need it are spent on luxuries. If you have enough savings to buy luxuries why do you need to get benefits? Of course people can buy what they want but doesn’t it imply that the benefits are too generous?

Why are you assuming that the savings have been built up during time on UC?

You can claim UC if you have less than £16k in savings, and what you get is only affected from £6k - £16k anyway.
The government even have a saving scheme for people on UC.
And some people will have had savings before they claimed UC anyway.

i had a look at the government guidelines so I understand that you can have some savings. But to buy luxuries using tax payers money doesn’t sound right, does it? Effectively OP gets the payment from tax payers through government in order to keep their savings.

The savings could be her own money from before she was on UC, or she might work and gets UC top ups.
Either way, how she spends her money is up to her. She is not buying luxuries to keep her savings at a particular level so she can stay on benefits.

She’s using her savings.

shes doing nothing wrong.

The same rules apply to everyone. They would apply to you tomorrow if you found yourself having to claim UC.

tbh I don’t think this post is genuine.

It is genuine, I was asking because I am fairly new to uc as already stated .
I do not normally buy big purchases and saved for years and I wanted to treat dd who has had a tough few years with health conditions finishing gcse and 16th birthday .

it was genuine and thank you to all who have responded nicely and gave advice

I did not realise it was a subject to avoid on here .

As said i am buying the items as it’s from my savings account and if they ask I’ll tell them why etc I was told worse that will happen is they will still treat me as if I had that money so deductions would be the same .