How the heck

I find this very unfair. I am a full time carer to my ill father. So I am paid benefits.

Owning my own horse and spending time with it is the only "me" time I have to save my sanity. I don't drink, smoke or have any friends. I know the benefit types you mean but you cannot put us all in one group as it makes me feel ashamed spending "other people's taxes" but I cannot work as that would mean sending my father into a care home which I could not ever do.

An hour a day with my horse is the only time away I have. Then I spend a whole Saturday as my father has a support worker here to help. So please don't judge me as society already makes me feel small for not working but I can assure you, I probably work a lot harder and a lot longer hours with a lot smaller wage than you.

He is my father and I love him to death. But emotionally and physically it is very hard.
 
In the UK the extra benefits given to disabled and sick people are partly provided so they can have as normal a life as possible. This includes, if they want, taking part in social activities and hobbies that healthy working people can take part in. So yes, its perfectly acceptable in the eyes of the government for benefit money to be spent on nicer housing than is affordable on housing benefit alone, horses, alcohol, cigarettes, cars and anything else a person may wish to spend their time doing. Benefits are not only for housing, feeding and clothing people. Ill and disabled people are not supposed to be a separate sector of society existing on the minimum amount with no quality of life, although that's often exactly what happens.
 
Oh dear, one of these. Just a few points:

- Arizahn, I feel your pain
- If a person is disabled and unable to work full time, would you really like to live in a society that wouldn't afford that person the best life possible?
- As stated above in the post, the "scroungers" and those with 15 kids determined not to work are in such a minute minority as to be negligible - that's the only reason they end up in the news.
- Since the reforms to benefits (now-defunct ASOS), do people have ANY idea how hard it is to get benefits??
- How much do people think benefits are worth?? You do not live a life of luxury, I can assure you. In those cases where there is fraud going on then that is quite different and theft. However not all benefit claimants, regardless of how they chose to spend their own money, are thieves.
- As an aside, I can't work due to severe mental health issues. I've been hospitalized several times and can only be active for around 3 hours a day before acute fatigue sets in. Some days I can't get out of bed. Try selling that to an employer. I'm not on benefits, as I'm lucky enough to have a very small dependent's pension granted because of my illness (from my Dad's pension fund, not the public purse). My income is well below the national average, but I've made choices. I NEVER go on holiday, eat out about once a year on my birthday, NEVER buy clothes, very rarely socialise, buy offers at the supermarket etc. This allows me to keep my hardy cob at a yard for £15 a week, which with the insurance and horsebox, I can just stretch to. I expect to those who don't know me I seem like some kind of country lady with her horse and her life of leisure. *******s. I'm ill, I can't work, I spend my money only on my horse and dog, which are the two things that keep me going. I repeat, I receive (and have applied for) no benefits, but I would hate to live in a society that didn't care for its more vulnerable members. I pay tax on my pension and I'm more than happy for that to go towards funding the "welfare state."
 
Surely one can accept that there are people on benefits who desperately would like to be off them, and there are some who take the system for all it has......just as there are some people earning vast amounts who pay their taxes without evasion and with pride (if not with pleasure) and there are some who are willing to go pretty low to avoid tax....

Let''s just hate (and hopefully stop) the rogues and love the good 'uns!
 
MerrySherryRider said:
Yawn. Another benefit bashing thread.

Unless you have inside information to their financial affairs, you do not know where their income comes from or how they budget.

I don't work but I do have a private income which I'm sure my fellow liveries don't know about because they have never been rude enough to ask. Perhaps I should pin my bank statements in the tack room in case someone like you thinks I'm on benefits ?
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this-its none of anyone else's business and I'll bet you don't know the ins and outs of it.
 
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