JSA once the kid hits 7

[eFestivals]

Default requirement, along with breathing...

Unless you are Neil of course, then its an optional luxury

If you don't have the money to pay for a well heated house, then it IS a luxury, an unaffordable - and so not optional - luxury.

You're really of the belief that everyone on benefits has everything you do, aren't you?

[eFestivals]

I think there are very few people with a family income of £25k that managed to get such an arrangement...

While what you say might be the case (but isn't for many, all the same), not everyone stays in the same (perhaps well-paid) job for all time. So they'll be people who got their mortgage in better times, who are now trying to get by with much less.

It's called 'normal life' for very many people.

One day soon I hope you get to find out what it is.

So your whole "solution" is to put myself on the verge of bankruptcy

Your 'solution' is putting others into that place - why is it only wrong in your eyes when it's you put in that position?

But anyway, at no point have I even inferred that my solution to anything id to put you or anyone else onto the verge of bankruptcy. We got to here in this discussion because you said you couldn't live on £20k, yet I've proven that you can just as many people have to.

f**king genius you are

Genius enough not to make up bollocks statements as you have done, above. :roilleyes:

Genius enough to prove to you the 'impossible'.

Genius enough to point out that you think cuts to benefits is fine, while you think it's impossible for anyone to live on the level of income you say they should have.

Genius enough to show you up as nothing better than the stereotypical "I'm alright Jack".

[ampersand]

I steal my mum and dads. Not by next winter tho.

I'd rather just wear a jumper, ken?

[eFestivals]

Take aways ?

Buy a f**king microwave or something Or something that doesn't need cooking like bread, butter and meat

Brilliant - so your answer for someone on the (in your eyes) "impossible" breadline* is for them to go out and spend £40+ pounds that they don't have on a microwave.

(*not what I'm claiming for myself, just to be clear)

You have no f**king idea of what the real world is like for many people.

[eFestivals]

When I was on such incomes I had a more modest house... Simples dim wit, simples

yet if your income was cut down to the £20k in my hypothetical, you've made clear your house stays.

But in your eyes, anyone else who did that must be simple minded.

You really are a smart cookie aren't you?

[eFestivals]

So I asked for your grand solution and it is for me and others to live without luxury like heat... and on a shopping budget of £20 a week for three people...

While still doing our 40 hour a week jobs and everything to goes with it... and it still results in a massive monthly loss...

I can't see you getting elected Neil... I think you need a better plan

You've got so few brain cells you can't even follow a simple convo, as these words get to prove.

No wonder the over-riding opinion of you hear is that you're thick as pigshit about every subject you get involved in.

[eFestivals]

If you are on the breadline it is clearly because you can't do simple maths... Microwave plus food for said microwave is going to cost dramatically less than £140+ take-away bill.. Specially with you imposed £20 a week shopping bill I am sure you never exceed yourself...

£60 vs £140+ ... Do the maths Neil, do the maths

So please do tell me how even that £40 is afforded when all the money has been (hypothetically) spent on food to be cooked that can't be cooked because the cooker has died.

These are the real choices that real people are facing every day - how do I not starve.

The problem is that you have no idea what real people go thru, so are of the belief that their welfare payments can be cut without consequence.

[ampersand]

how in the holy f**k do you need to spend £140 on takeaways for a fortnight?

as oaf says, stuff that doesn't need cooked, and i'm sure you've got a camping stove kicking about neil. what with you going to festivals quite a lot...

and you go on about people and luxuries...

[eFestivals]

For your example to be true I would have to shut off the heating for the majority of the week, have £0 shopping bill and never buy clothes...

I worry for you...

For many people, those are the only options they have.

Heating at the bare minimum, clothes from jumble sales, £20 a week or less per person for shopping.

But they can afford their benefits to be cut in your eyes, because they're just lazy.

[eFestivals]

how in the holy f**k do you need to spend £140 on takeaways for a fortnight?

as oaf says, stuff that doesn't need cooked, and i'm sure you've got a camping stove kicking about neil. what with you going to festivals quite a lot...

and you go on about people and luxuries...

It was a hypothetical .... if I have no way of cooking (and someone on the breadline wouldn't have the backup of a camping stove, that will have been sold for peanuts to help pay for the kids xmas pressies) then the only options are cold/uncooked food or takeaways.

£10 a day on takeaways for all meals for 2 people is hardly excessive, and very probably not even do-able - it would probably need more than that spent.

Oaf was saying "what do I do if my boiler breaks?" (like that's a question no one on benefits has ever had to deal with ), so I simply laid out a scenario that I'm in right now of the cooker having broken, and what the options would be for someone in that situation who is already on the breadline.

It's obviously passed you and oaf by, but some people are on that breadline.

And oaf thinks they can afford their benefits cut.

[ampersand]

if you're on the breadline, eat f**king bread. don't go throwing about £140 takeaway bills that not even myself, living with parents, would fork out for.

[eFestivals]

Real people ? When did I stop being "real"

You keep making your examples more and more extreme to try and prove a point that slipped away along time ago

I made my point. You can live on £20k without giving up your house.

The fact that you believe you can't gets to show how detached you are from the real world, and what many people have to cope with daily.

You said you was going to spend £140 on take aways... Not doing that anymore ?

I said that was one of the options. Learn to f**king read you moron.

[eFestivals]

You see... No one has mentioned cutting anything in this thread... Just asking people to look for work for exactly the same payment... You can't follow simple debates...

You've said elsewhere that benefits can be cut, and that benefit claimants would still get by. Yet by your own thinking, it's "impossible". Yet you've not withdrawn your statements that they can afford the cut you believe they should have.

This very thread - a thread you started - is about cutting welfare payments you moron.

From the article you quoted: "But the charity Gingerbread says up to 111,000 families risk losing benefits."

FFS.

[eFestivals]

if you're on the breadline, eat f**king bread. don't go throwing about £140 takeaway bills that not even myself, living with parents, would fork out for.

So how does someone on the breadline buy bread when they've spent their food money - the only money they can afford to spend on food, and all other money spent on rent & bills - on stuff to be cooked, but now have no way of cooking what they've bought?

It's a very simple scenario, and hardly a scenario that won't ever happen. If I lived on benefits, then it would be the situation I was in today.

[eFestivals]

You really are a prat... People in this sort of poverty will be on benefits and almost certainly in some form of social housing. There boiler would be fixed by the land lord. Maybe not next day, but it will be fixed...

And in the meantime?

I've already shown how it might well be impossible for them to eat.

People not on benefits and owning their own homes need to have a surplus to pay for such things.

They need to have a surplus to pay for things like this, but many don't have that surplus.

As I'm trying to get thru to you, not everyone is in the privileged position you are and which you laughingly like to think everyone is.

Some people are utter plebs and over stretch themselves financially, taking on houses they could never afford in reality, but that is another story altogether...

and other people took on a house they could afford, but then the already-hugely rich stole £880Bn and then those people found they had no job, no money, no equity in their house and only benefits.

"But those people have been utter plebes, while the bankers shouldn't lose their child benefit" Oaf, Oct 2010

Its you who dosen't live in the real world thinking ANYONE on the "breadline" would spend so much on takeaways... Werido...

what part of the word "options" are you finding so hard to understand?

[ampersand]

So how does someone on the breadline buy bread when they've spent their food money - the only money they can afford to spend on food, and all other money spent on rent & bills - on stuff to be cooked, but now have no way of cooking what they've bought?

It's a very simple scenario, and hardly a scenario that won't ever happen. If I lived on benefits, then it would be the situation I was in today.

[eFestivals]

Well open up that thread and lets talk about that cut in that context. Here we are talking about people being asked to "look" for work and receiving the same payment...

no we're f**king not you complete moron.

Read the f**king article that YOU linked to.

FFS.

This very thread - a thread you started - is about cutting welfare payments you moron.

It is impossible to pay a £12k a year mortgage with £15724 (£15,274 if they have a student loan) and maintain and live in the house. It isn't even possible just to live in it. Unless you take away heat and the shopping bill, and more... I have shown you this...

Complete bollocks. It's do-able.

Being do-able is not the same thing as being what you want to do. But you're too f**king thick to distinguish between those two different things.

You could eat and have a full belly at less than a tenner a week. If you don't believe me, I invite you to my house and I'll demonstrate it to you.

As for heat, put on a f**king jumper.

These are the things that many normal people have to do to get thru every single week.

Why would they lose benefits ? Unless of course they had no interest in looking for work... Unlike so many other families...

Why not go and find out for yourself? I suggest reading the article you started this thread in relation to will be a good start.

But you prefer to be completely ignorant, and pronounce on things you now admit to knowing nothing about.

[eFestivals]

So some one did a weekly shop and didn't buy bread, milk, cereal and such like

Deary me Neil, deary me...

All you're doing is showing that you have no idea of how a person can get by - as many do - on a tenner a week for food.

[sifi]

Oh this is nice. Neil has invited Oaf round for dinner. A little music, home made wine, dancing, who knows where it could lead .....

[eFestivals]

I can't be the only one who is thinking this has gone to the most stupid degree now

So we have someone who went out and bought nothing but froozen ready meals (despite having a baby if we are using me as an example) who's cooker has blown up...

Yes ok, I accept, they would be f**ked

The person who went out and spent their limited food money on frozen ready meals would of course be stupid - but not as stupid as the person who thinks that what such people would do in reality.

Care to tell me how you cook rice and pasta - two of the cheaper foods used an awful lot by those on a tight food budget - with no cooker?

[eFestivals]

so all these people are hermits with no friends, family or neighbours to help them out?

all i'm saying is that your £140 takeaway bill was a ludicrous thing to post.

It was extremely stupid of me to mention the takeaway thing.

Cos the likes of far more stupid you are unable to read and understand what I actually have said.

[ampersand]

oh, you mean like in my rented house where the cooker has just gone, and the landlord has said he'll get someone out within 2 weeks, and in the meantime I have no way of cooking? .... which means I have the choice of a £140+ take-away bill, paying for a sparky myself, or doing the work myself?

[eFestivals]

so what, you posted 3 options. but infact you knew there were other options. and who's the stupid one?

You, same as ever.

[ampersand]

You, same as ever.

[eFestivals]

how? cos you think that the only way to work round a broken cooker is to fix it yourself, pay someone else to or spend £140 on takeaways. or did you just post that for dramatic retarded effect?

care to show me where i said the options i gave were the only options?

The point of me saying it was to demonstrate that situations happen outside of a person's control where that person has no workable option outside of spending money that they don't have - so aren't workable options.

But I guess it was all too confusing for you. Never mind.