Money for what, can't spend it when we go (Money)

Member Name: chele2002

Product:	Money
Date:	07/01/02 (112 review reads)
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Have you ever heard the saying, what you haven't got you don't miss. Well I have on quite a few occasions, more often than not saying it to myself in times of hardship or to my husband when we are finacially at an all time low. Very often we remind ourselves when we feel the need, back to the days when we had to coped with £132 a fortnight for the duration of 3 months. It was hard I can tell you but some how we managed. You may be wondering to yourselves, why just £132 a fortnight? Well that was down to circumstances and an example of how wrong the benefit system really is. It seems to me that the genuine people who need money usually end out getting a raw deal, while those who cheat their way through the system get what they want, but still plead they are so hard done by and then find other ways to fiddle the sytem to suit their own greed.

Well back in the beginging of September I lefted my ex due to a build up of emotional abuse and eventually physical abuse, after 6 years of being treated like I was a child, when in fact I was a responsible adult bringing up 2 children and working a full time job, it was time to leave with Charlottte and Liam (my 2 children), it was quite simply a bad choice to stay there not only for my sanity but for the sake of Charlotte and Liam mental developement. I went to what I thought would be a safe house (my brothers) only to return back from work in the morning to find he had rang up my ex asking him to take the children back to his because they were being a little naughty (to this day I have never and will never forgive my brother for the way he did it,no contacting me at work or anything he just went behind my back). A few weeks later I managed to start some form of contact with the children, but it was clear in their reactions that they were not happy to go back to their father, so it was inevitable that I decided to give up work and not take them back. Before you say what a bad mother I am for not retur
ning them, I can assure you it was done with the interest of the children in mind and lets not forget that when I left with the children he was fully aware I was taking them. It was not something I did lightly, I had thought it through, had taken legal advice and discussed it with social services to see if I was well with in the right's to do so, the bottom line was I had every right to, if it was for the welfare of the children, and trust me it was.

Now with my new partner, who I met where I used to work our finacial world was to take a turn for the worse. He got laid off, due to the company having to cut their expenses, so it was time to look to the benefit system for some help with the cost of living. Having gone to the correct benefit office for our area, filled in all the nescessary forms it was time to wait, and wait, and wait, until eventually our giro came. A whole whopping £132 for 2 adults and 2 children, that was meant to last for 2 weeks. What the benefit office decided to do was to pay for me and my husband but not the children, this was down to the fact that my ex was still collecting child benefit despite the fact that for the best part of a month they have been living with me and my husband. It was a complete mess, we were entitled to child benefit and to an extra £60 on our benefit every 2 weeks but no, the system is messed up and yet again the genuine people have to do with out. It took 3 months, several calls to the benefit fraud office and a home visit to sort this mess out, just because someone had not sent the benefit book back that they were not entitled to.

You see all my life I have had to make do with what I have, that money simply doesn't mean anything to me, it is something that helps us get by each day and helps us to provide the basics in life.

I am glad to say now that life is a little easier because we have both learned to budget and take control of our finances and not let money control us.

>It will be nice from time to time to have a little extra, to be able to afford the odd holiday, or to be able to have transport and not rely on public services such as buses. We have faced reality that money will never fall in our lap, and that if we need it that bad we will have to work hard at making sacrifices, cut on what we spend here and there, and when possible spead the cost of birthdays and Christmas through out the year, so that each day we live we are comfortable in what we have and what we spend, with out having to struggle.

I don't feel money is the key to being happy, it can make life a little easier but as for real happiness that is something we all have to find in our own way.



After all, when we are gone from here there is no where to spend it or no need to have it.

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