Fuel Poverty

During July I took part in some films about Fuel Poverty which had been commissioned by The Centre for Sustainable Energy www.cse.org.uk

Here they are

Coping with cold

Enjoy.

Financial "Shell Shock" or "Post Traumatic Stress"

My great uncle, who recently passed away aged 92, served in the 1st Airborne Battalion during WW2, until the day he died, he still jumped at loud bangs due to the constant exposure to explosions during the war.

I feel like I am starting to understand this....

Since September 2011 I have been on a very low income, at this point my husband was made redundant, and I only had a part time job which paid £470 pcm, we had to claim housing benefit just to be able to pay the rent. My contract ended summer 2012, we were however both able to find 3 months temporary work during that summer. From September 2012 until now, we have both been unemployed and on JSA, receiving just £110 per week to live on, and housing benefit to pay our rent.

This has lead to a long exposure to financial hardship, a constant worry about being able to afford the rent, food, and other bills. I have been forced to rely on the council and the DWP to pay money into my account, money that they could stop at any point! Every Saturday, I check my account to make sure we have money and can get through the next week. This constant fear and stress has made me terrified of money and everything to do with it.

The moment something different happens, I get butterflies, I feel sick, dizzy, and short of breath, I end up getting a headache.

My husband has just started work :D, we were told that we are entitled to a 1 month housing benefit run on, and that it would be automatic. I was immediately suspicious, I don't trust automatic where money is concerned. Of course, nothing is ever that simple.

The council say yes we are entitled to it, but we wont get it until they have reassessed our claim, which will take up to 4 weeks after they receive some paper work from us (which my husbands employer has to sign).

BAM! PANIC! If it takes 4 weeks, we have no money for the rent until a week after it's due. It takes me all day to calm down and realise that if I just explain the situation to our landlord everything will be fine, things are getting better.

My husband takes the form to work as soon as we receive it. Turn out that his work need their payrole office to sign it, they are based in Newcastle, so there will be at least a 3 day turn around.

BAM! PANIC! Fuck My Life! So now we are going to be two week late with out rent. A day of tears and stress and a pounding headache. I 'know' in the sensible, rational part of my brain, that this will still be ok, but a primal part of me takes over, the adrenalin pumps, the stress builds and I panic. That was yesterday, stress levels are still high today, but I keep telling myself to calm down, it WILL be ok.

If this is not "Shell Shock" or "Post Traumatic Stress", then I don't know what is. I'm off to the doctors tomorrow because I have reached breaking point.

Both my husband and I agree, that if we hadn't had each other, we would not have survived this winter, we would be statistics, people who had killed themselves because of the hardships imposed by this government, and the hatred fuelled by the press. We are the poor, the work-shy, the scum of the earth!

For me there is one other reason why I am still alive, I will not let the government win! I will survive! I will hold them accountable for the murders of so many people who have not had the strength to continue! They will not beat me!

UPDATE 16/6/13: A month ago I went to my doctors because as you can see from the above post I was no longer able to cope. My doctor was brilliant, and very understanding. He gave me the option of going on some low dose anti depressants, I read all the info about them and decided yes, these might help me. Four weeks on, and yes they do help. I'm so relaxed that if I saw IDS I would probably just punch him instead of exploding with rage. The only down side it that I am so relaxed that I could take a nap at any time of the day. I am pretty sure that the last few months would not have been so horrific if I had spoken to my doctor sooner. My advice is if you are struggling mentally with the stress of unemployment, speak to your doctor, they can help.  

How difficult do they make it to get back into employment?

Joyous news, my husband has found a full-time permanent job, which he started the other day, brilliant.

My thoughts were, excellent, now we will be more financially secure and not so reliant on benefits.

But now I am beginning to think that the time between him starting his job, and when he gets paid will break us. I don't know how we will survive financially.

He is on monthly pay, but doesn't know what the pay date is, he thinks it might be the 20th, and is going to check today.

Our JSA got stopped the day before he started work, and it could take them up to 4 weeks to decide if I am still entitled to any, I think I am, but we get no more money from them until they reach their decision. I still have to go to the Job Centre each week to sign on until the decision is reached.

We are entitled to a Housing Benefit run on for 1 month after starting employment because we've been out of work for over 6 months. We thought this would help us survive the first month of employment, and were told this payment would be automatic. But, and there is always a but, they have suspended our Housing Benefit claim and have to do a recalculation based on my husbands income, which could take up to 4 weeks, after which we will get paid the run on.

So basically, we are left with no income until either the council recalculate our housing benefit, even thought they have already confirmed that we are entitled to the run on, or until my husband gets paid which will only be a partial months pay, not a full month. Luckily we have just had our tax rebates from last year, but that will only cover food and electricity for a few weeks.

I don't know how we are going to pay the rent at the end of the month, unless the housing benefit it sorted out. We are basically financially fucked until my husbands second pay cheque. These first few weeks because we have no income, then the following month because we have to live a whole month on part of a month pay.

I'm so worried that I feel sick. It's like they want to make it as difficult as possible to get back to work. The tiny bit of money we do have wont cover food, electricity, travel to and from work, or rent, let alone other bills.

Here is a poem for anyone taking part in the "Fun with ATOS" event

I love my illness, I love the pain!
I love it more and more each day.
I love my assessor, she is the best!
I love ATOS and IDS.

I love my condition and its medication,
I'd hate for it to go away.
I love my mobility, pain and fear,
And piles of pills that grow each day!

I think disability is really swell,
There's nothing else I love so well.
I love to scrounge from my peers,
I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers.

I love ATOS and its helpful staff;
I hug them often though they won't care.
I love each letter and every invitation.
I'd love them more if they believed.

I'm happy to be here.  I am.  I am.
I'm the happiest scrounger in the land, I am.
I love this illness, I love these pills.
I love the stigma that it brings.

I love disability - I'll say it again -
I even love those friendly men.
Those friendly men who've come today,
Without qualification to say my disability has gone away!

I love unemployment poem

I love unemployment, I love the JSA!
I love it more and more each day.
I love my advisor, she is the best!
I love her boss and IDS.

I love my sitting room and its location,
I'd hate to have to go to work.
I love my furniture, worn and frayed,
And piles of bills that grow each day!

I think unemployment is really swell,
There's nothing else I love so well.
I love to scrounge from my peers,
I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers.

I love my job centre and its helpful staff;
I hug them often though they won't care.
I love each sign on and every job application.
I'd love them more if they replied once in a while.

I'm happy to be here.  I am.  I am.
I'm the happiest scrounger in the land, I am.
I love this unemployment, I love these bills.
I love the sign ons with my helpful advisor.

I love unemployment - I'll say it again -
I even love those friendly men.
Those friendly men who've come today,
In clean white vans to take my last possessions away!

A Poem about unemployment written by my hubby

What else can one do but sit and stare
No job, no prospects, but full of despair
Same old shit, day after day
Draining each ounce of life away

Lose your interests, lose your mind
Enjoyment of life, becomes hard to find
There are loads of jobs, so they say
Lying shits, peddling shite each day

At the job centre, advisor calls your name
To the desk you go, each the time the same.
You show them your evidence, bit by bit
But upon you they look, as if you’re a piece of shit

Then like clockwork, propaganda they spout
Ask for their opinion, but not a brain cell about
Sign on the dotted line, and then it’s time to leave
A fake smile and wave they give, who are they trying to deceive

Two weeks till sign on, please job please appear
Free me from this cycle, this depressing sphere
Release me please, from the job advisor's pit
So I may not be looked upon, like a piece of shit

Onwards in the search, never giving in
This next application, please let it be a win
Suit Clean and ready, interviews I need
I need a Job, in order to succeed

Unemployment is not forever, the job centre will see
Maybe they lose their jobs, and their job advisor is me
Because you reap what you sow, and in the kindness you lack
If I’m ever your advisor, maybe that is the attitude I give back.

Eating well with next to no money: Chicken

This week I managed to create 14 servings from 1 medium sized chicken, and a friend of mine suggested I add it to this blog as it might help other low income people.

My husband and I had a roast chicken dinner (2 servings), 2 different casseroles which lasted 4 meals in total (8 servings) and a bacon and potato soup (4 servings).

Ingredients

1 medium Chicken (often in a 3 for £10 offer at the supermarket or around £4 each)
1 large bag of carrots
1 bag of potatoes
3 parsnips
1 swede
5 onions
dried herbs like thyme, parsley, rosemary
garlic (I use the Lazy Garlic as I find it works out cheaper than fresh)
100g suet
Self raising flour (about 300g)
Chicken gravy granules
2 rashers of Bacon

Day 1 - Roast Chicken

Prepare the chicken for roasting by sprinkling some seasoning on the skin, what ever flavours your prefer. Roast in the oven at 180C for around 2 hours (check the packaging of your chicken, as this depends on the weight).

Prepare potatoes, carrots, and 1 parsnip for roasting. I don't peel the potatoes as there are lots of nutrients in the skins. I also don't bother peeling the carrots unless they look a bit manky.

Put these veg in a roasting tin that has some oil in the bottom.

Peel and quarter 1 onion and add this to the roasting tin as well, roasted onion is lovely. Roll the veg around so that they are all coated in the oil.

45 minute before the chicken is cooked put the veg into the oven, this means they should be cooked at the same time.

Make any other bits you want for your roast dinner i.e. stuffing, yorkshire puddings etc.

When the chicken is cooked, check if the potatoes are fully cooked by stabbing them with a fork. If they aren't, leave them in the over for another 15-30 min. You can cover the chicken with foil to keep it warm, this is also supposed to make the chicken juicier. Just before you are ready to serve up, make the gravy.

If two people are eating this meal, you get one chicken breast each, if you eat more, you wont have enough left for the other meals, but the amount of veg you've done should make this into a filling meal.

Day 2 - Prepare stock and then casseroles and soup.

Stock

Peel and quarter 1 onion and put it into a large (the largest you have) pan, this is for the stock.

Now you need to remove the meat from the chicken carcase, this is a bit messy, but very easy. First pull the legs off, remove the skin and put this in the pan for stock, remove the meat from the legs using your fingers, knives are useless for this job. Put the chicken meat onto a plate, and the bones and stuff into the pan. Next move onto the wings, there isn't much meat on these, but there is some, get as much of it as you can. Now you are left with the body of the chicken, there will probably be some meat left in the breast area, there are also bits and pieces on the back, again pick off and set aside as much as you can. Break the body in half, this helps it fit into the pan.

You should have a plate of chicken meat, and a pan with all the bones and skin. Cover the contents of the pan with boiling water, and put a lid on it. Simmer gently, I use number 2 on my electric hob, for about 2 - 3 hours. Then turn the heat of and leave it to cool.

Once it's cool, drain the stock into another large pan or dish. Once it is fully drained, bin the chicken bones. You now have home-made chicken stock. This will be used in the 2 casseroles and the soup, you could prepare them all today if you wanted to, or prepare one today and refrigerate the stock, and half the chicken for up to 4 days (rough estimate here), or freeze them for longer storage.

Casseroles x 2

If you have 2 large casserole dishes you can make them both at the same time which will save electricity, if not save half the chicken and a third of the stock, in the fridge/freezer and make the second casserole another day.

For each casserole, put half the chicken into a casserole dish, add diced potatoes, carrots, parsnip, onion and swede (if you make sure the veg is all roughly the same size it will all cook at the same speed). Add some herbs and seasoning, what ever you want. Then add a third of the stock to the casserole dish, if this doesn't cover the meat and veg, just add some water. 

Cook the casserole in the over for 45 min at 200C.

Then use the suet and flour to make dumplings, tasty, filling, and cheap. Follow the directions on the box of suet, this is very easy. Put the dumplings on top of the casserole and cook for another 20 - 25 minutes at 180C.

Each casserole should provide 4 servings, if you want more food just cook some extra veg to go on the side, I'd recommend some cabbage, lightly stir-fried for about 5 min.

The left overs can be refrigerated or frozen.

Soup

Chop up two rashers of bacon, and dice 1 onion, put these and the crushed garlic into a large pan and fry for a few minutes, if they start to stick add a spoonful of stock to the pan.

Dice potatoes, carrots, and any parsnip/swede you have left into small ~1cm cubes and add to the pan. You can also add any other veg you have like leeks or cabbage, but wait until the last 15 minutes of cooking time for this.

Add the stock (a third of the total amount you made) to the pan, if this doesn't cover the veg, add some water. Add any seasoning you want, I added a few chili flakes to mine. Bring to the boil, them simmer gently for about 30 min until the veg is tender.

This should make at least 4 servings, it can make more if you add a bit more bacon, and more veg. Leftovers of this can also be refrigerated or frozen.


In total this cost me less than £10, for a family of 4 you will have less chicken left after the roast dinner, so will only be able to make 1 casserole, but you will still be able to make the stock and soup, perhaps add more bacon and veg to the soup and use two thirds of the stock for the soup, so that it makes 8 servings.

Enjoy.

What is there to celebrate?

Yesterday, an old lady suffering from dementia died, she was a mother and grandmother, her friends and relatives will be saddened by this loss.

This lady's name is Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, and according to some people, the most hated and vile person to have lived. I feel they exaggerate slightly. Yes the poor suffered under the government which she led, yes unemployment rates grew, and I know about the miners and all that other evil stuff she (on her own, nothing to do with the rest of the government) did to this country.

You can probably see already that I do not believe that one person can be held responsible for everything that happened during her time as Prime Minister.

As for the cries of "Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher!" she is not entirely to blame, the Labour (yes Labour, those champions of the working classes) government withdrew free milk for 11-18 year olds in 1968. Then the Conservative government of Edward Heath withdrew it for 7-11 year olds. So who really snatched the milk? Also, having spoke to many people who remember and hated, I mean hated with a passion, the warm, slightly off, school milk which they were forced to drink, was it such a bad thing to remove?

I am not saying that I agree with the policies of the Conservative government led by Thatcher, but I really don't believe that she should be held solely accountable for those policies. In the 23 years since her term as Prime Minister ended, why haven't the actions of her government been reversed? Not even the Labour government of the the late 1990's and 2000's changed things back to the way they used to be in the good old days.

The worst thing I've seen (mostly on facebook) since Thatchers death, is the people who criticise her for being totally lacking in human compassion and feeling, demonstrating that they too are lacking in these qualities. I also saw someone comparing her to Hitler, really? Really? Read some history, she was nothing like Hitler.

Seriously, is now the time to throw a party? Guys? Are you forgetting the massive cuts that the current government are making? Are you forgetting that they are privatising our most precious asset, the NHS? How is throwing a party and pissing on an old ladies grave going to change anything?

If you actually hate the policies that Thatcher's Conservatives put in place, then you probably hate what Cameron's ConDems are doing now. If that is the case, stop your partying, stop pissing on graves, and change the things that can be changed!

"And when they seek to oppress you
And when they try to destroy you,
Rise and Rise again and again
Like The Phoenix from the ashes
Until the Lambs have become Lions
and the Rule of Darkness is no more "

"Living" on £53 a week

So the generous and kind-hearted Ian Duncan Smith believes that he could easily live on £53 per week, what a load of bullshit.

My husband and I are both on Job Seekers Allowance which means as we are over 25 years old and a couple we get £110 per week to live on. When I say live, I mean survive. So that's £55 per week each. We have been like this for just over 6 months now, so things are starting to wear out.

I thought I would provide IDS with an example of what his £53 would need to cover based on my own experience.

I will work with monthly figures (per person) and assume that a month is 4.5 weeks.

Income - 4.5 x £55 = £247.50

Out goings excluding food/toiletries etc -

Electricity - Winter £45 / Summer £22.50 / Average £33.75
Water - £15
Internet/Telephone - £20 (required to complete job searches)
Mobile phone - £13
Credit Cards/Catalogues - £30

TOTAL - £111.75

Remaining money to spend on food/toiletries/travel/etc - £135.75 (per month)

Which is £30.16 per week for food and travel etc, all those other things that are needed.

OK with £30 you can feed one person for a week, if you are sensible, but it has to be well thought out and planned in advance.

If I need to get a bus in Bristol it will cost me £4 per day, so walking it is unless absolutely necessary.

Or what if my jeans wear out, even in a charity shop you are looking at a fiver for a new pair.

Gods forbid that my washing machine breaks or something like that.

Also the electricity figures, they are spending the bare minimum on electricity, I don't have the water heater on, too expensive, and we had next to no heating on during the winter, and none on since the 1st March, it's been freezing. My house has been roughly 10C throughout the winter. To stay properly warm I would probably need to spend £60 per month on electricity during the winter, pushing the average up to £41.25.

We don't have TV, so there is no TV licence needed, that saves us about £20 per month (I think, not had a telly for years), so £10 per person.

Also if IDS has a spare room or two he would need to find 15-25% of the rent, so for my house I would need to find £37.50 - £62.50.

So if I included these extra expenses in the calculations my monthly outgoings would be between £166.75 and £191.75, leaving me with £55.75 to £80.75 per month (£12.39 to £17.94 per week to live on). I doubt that anyone could buy enough food, toilet paper, toothpaste with that pittance to live or even survive on.

Please IDS try it and see for yourself, TWAT.

One of the lucky ones.....

As the 1st April swiftly approaches, many people are living in fear and uncertainty because of the up and coming changes to the benefits system. Will they have enough money to pay the rent, probably not, thanks to the 'bedroom tax'.? Will they have enough money to survive on once the move from DLA to PIP starts? How much money will they have to find to cover the shortfall caused by the reduction to council tax benefit?

I have been worrying about these things over the last few months, and thankfully, I am one of the lucky ones.

I rent a from a private landlord, so although I do have a spare room, I will not be penalised for it yet. My flat isn't a great place and it isn't in a great location, so the two bedroom place costs per month only £2 more that the Bristol Housing Benefit allowance for a 1 bed place, which is what me and hubby are entitled to.

I live in Bristol, and thankfully Bristol City Council have decided to cover the Council Tax Benefit shortfall, which means I wont have to find money towards council tax from the £110 pittance that me and hubby survive on.

I really don't know what I would do if I had to pay towards my rent and council tax, there is no spare money, I would due to no fault of my own be unable to pay. Would this give me a criminal record? Would I end up in jail? I don't know. A criminal record would damage my chances of getting a job, my latest plan is to train to be a Science Teacher, I don't think you can teach will a criminal record. How many people will end up stuck on benefits for longer because they can't pay these new charges and end up with a criminal record?

After nearly 6 months on the dole I finally have a job

I finally have a job, YAY, and my husband has a job interview next week, keeping everything crossed that he gets it.

My new job is not ideal, so I am still job hunting, but it is a job which is much better than being unemployed.

I am going to keep updating this blog because there are so many issues facing unemployed, underemployed, sick, and disabled people, and the lowest earner in the UK at the minute that I feel the need to continue raising issues and campaigning for the fair treatment of everyone. I hate what the UK government and popular press are doing to the poorest and most vulnerable people in this country.

Good luck to everyone still searching for a job, or fighting against the corrupt and unfair systems that stigmatise poor and vulnerable people. We can succeed, we can change things, and we can ensure that everyone in this country can have a reasonable standard of living no matter what their economic situation is.

Laters xxx 

UPDATE - I don't have a job, I failed the trial, so only did 1.5 days. I found that I was unable to harass people on the street to convince them to sign up for a direct debit to a charity. Despite the charity being a really good and deserving one, I could not detach myself from how the people I was begging for money would feel. It was raining, and cold, they obviously had places they needed to go, etc. I am not cut out to be a chugger (charity mugger), but at least I gave it a go.

UPDATE 2 - I now have an interview in mid April. If I pass this interview, in September I will be training to be a Secondary School Science teacher. :D I'm still looking for other work in the meantime.

Drowning in the sea of hopelessness

Most days I manage to cling desperately to the hope that I will find a job soon, and that I will not be stuck in this hopeless hell that it unemployment and poverty for much longer.

Then on the occasional day, I just feel like I am drowning, sinking deeper into a sea of hopelessness.

The crushing (perceived) reality that I will never find a job, that I will never escape from this hell, that I will always be stuck in a cycle of poverty and hopelessness overwhelms me.

The only time in my life that I have felt this lack of hope, this level of helplessness and loneliness was when I was bullied at school.

I hate the lack of control that I have over my life.

I hate the constant worry about being able to afford to pay the bills, buy food and electric.

I hate the isolation and loneliness, for the first time in my life, I crave human contact, conversations with work colleagues about random shit, the smile from another commuter on their way to work.

I know these feeling will pass, I know deep down that I will get a job, I know that this is not forever, but right now it feels like I will be stuck here in this hell forever. I start to wonder what I did to deserve this, am I being punished for something I did?

Sometimes it feels like people, friends and family avoid me, so as to avoid catching the leprosy that is unemployment. I know this isn't true, but when you don't have to money to meet up for a drink, and when every you invite people to your house for a get together, they are busy with work or other social engagements, it starts to feel like it.

I don't know how much longer I can cope with unemployment, these waves of melancholy are becoming more frequent, and are lasting longer every time they hit. I dread the day when it is no longer waves but a permanent state of hopelessness and depressing. I worry that if I am unemployed for much longer, that I will need to be that spaced out on anti-depressants just to cope with day to day life, that I will be in no fit state to hold down a full time job.

Bus For Jobs: A Review

On the final day of the Bus for Jobs scheme which ran nationwide through January, providing free bus travel for unemployed people, I will review my experience of the scheme. I will cover advertisement of the scheme, both through the bus companies, the press,  the DWP and the Job Centre; the ease of access to the scheme; travelling by bus using the card; and how effective I think it was. All of the information on this post will be based on my personal experience of the scheme.

Over the Christmas period, I was looking at the First Bristol website to find out New Years bus times, and I noticed the following:

Needless to say, I was intrigued and clicked on the link to find out more. This is where I first heard about the Bus for Jobs scheme organised by Bus for Us.

From the Bus for Jobs website I found out that the scheme was open to people over 18 years old, who had been unemployed for between 3 and 12 months, and were holders of the Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card and would give me free bus travel during January. I met the first two requirements, so I decided to find out how to get a Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card, which at this point I had never heard of nor seen.

Advertisement of the scheme:

1) The bus companies (to be more precise First Buses Bristol) - brilliant so far, a nice clear link on the home page of their website.I did not however see any advertisements on the actual buses, so for people who did not look at the bus companies website there was no information provided. 6/10

2) The press - I don't tend to read news papers or watch much TV, so prior to seeing the advert on the First website I hadn't heard about the scheme through the press, this however is my fault not theirs. Once I googled the scheme, I found pages of results from local and national papers telling their readers about the scheme. I am not going to give a mark out of ten for the press because I don't know how clear the message was offline.

3) The DWP - There was not one mention of either the Bus for Jobs scheme or the Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card on their website. 0/10

4) The Job Centre (website and Bedminster Job Centre) - As with the DWP no information online at all, no leaflets of advertisements within Bedminster Job Centre, and neither my husbands or my advisers let us know about the scheme or the card. 0/10

So on the whole I feel that although there was advertisement within the press, online (facebook, twitter etc) and on bus company websites, the information was not available were most job seekers would be likely to see it, in the JOB CENTRE!!! It felt like the DWP and Job Centre did not want us to know about this scheme or the discount travel card.

Ease of Access:


Without the good fortune of looking at the First Bristol website, followed by a very thorough internet search to find out how to get the travel card, it would have been impossible to actually get the discount card.

When I phoned up to book an appointment to get a card, the person I spoke to told me that I probably wouldn't get one because they could only give 20 out (bulls**t, I had found through intensive searching that it is open to all income based JSA claimants who are over 18 yrs old and have been claiming for 3 months or more) and advised me that I could just print out passport sized photos for the card instead of paying to get proper ones (lies, I found this out at the appointment). Once I got to the appointment to get the card, then went off to get proper passport photos taken, it was a very quick and easy process to get the card. 

Basically, this was not an easy task, and it probably took me well over an hours research online to find the information I needed. 1/10

Using the Job Centre Plus Discount Travel Card to travel by bus around Bristol:

I got my card on the 3rd January, I first tried to use it on the 4th January, and this failed spectacularly. The bus driver had never heard of the scheme, or the card, and was very rude to me in front of about 10 other passengers waiting to board the bus, and I was not allowed to board the bus. If you want to read more about this experience, please read this blog post "Public humiliation is all part of living the high life".

I made a complaint, and the customer services person I spoke to hadn't heard of the scheme either, however the "twitter" person that I also complained to informed me that all staff had been informed of the scheme via a "staff memo", obviously First staff don't read staff memos.

The second day I tried to use the bus, again the bus driver hadn't heard of the card or scheme, but he was lovely, he looked though his ticket machine and found the correct button, let me know which one it was for future reference, and I was able to travel. The return journey was much the same, but I was able to let the driver know which button he needed to press.

I have used the bus regularly over the last month and during this time only one driver recognised the card and that it would normally entitle me to half price fares, but he hadn't heard of the bus for jobs scheme, and was very reluctant to let me travel for free, he did in the end thankfully. Yesterday, on the penultimate day of the scheme, I finally met a bus driver who recognised the card, had heard of the scheme, knew which buttons to press and just waved me on to the bus with no problems.

As much as it has been nice being able to get a bus if I need to without having to consider the cost/affordability, it has also been stressful, not knowing if I will be able to use the bus or if I will get kicked off or humiliated in front of other passengers has not been fun.

How effective was this scheme?

For the people who were able to get a card and use it successfully, I think this scheme was brilliant, it saved me £4 every day that I used it, awesome!

However, the vast majority of unemployed people did not hear about this scheme or were prevented from getting cards by their Job Centres. I spent two weeks during January on an employability course and spoke to other job seekers about the card, not one had heard of it, and I know of one who tried to get the card from their Job Centre and were told by their adviser that they had never heard of the card.

Bus drivers were not actively informed about the scheme, a staff memo is just not good enough, it is a well known fact that most staff do not read the weekly/monthly staff memo emails, because they are usually overly wordy and boring.

I also noticed that a lot of bus drivers didn't bother pressing the button on their ticket machine to log that I was using the Bus for Jobs scheme, therefore any usage statistics gathered from ticket machines will be very inaccurate.

If uptake and usage data for this scheme is collected and analysed, it will undoubtedly show that very few people were interested in taking up this offer, that very few cards were issued, and that very few free bus journeys were made.

Without the active support for and advertisement of this scheme by all local Job Centres and the advisers working in them, this scheme was doomed to fail. I really hope that this scheme runs again it the future, but it needs to learn from the mistakes made this time.

Employability Courses... what are they good for?

I've just completed my second two week long employability course (my first one was in October 2012) which is why this blog has been silent for a couple of weeks.

My main questions about Employability courses are

- Does the Job Centre publicise them enough?

- Does the Job Centre actively discourage people from attending?

- Do employers value the qualifications that you gain on these courses?

- Are they of equal value to everyone regardless of previous employment history and academic achievement?

- What are the benefits of employability courses? 

- Where can I find out more information about the courses that are available to me?

Both of the courses I've attended were run by South Gloucestershire and Stroud College and both were 9 days long (over 2 weeks). The first course "Suited, Booted and Recruited" is advertised by my local Job Centre, they sent my husband on it back in April 2012, and because of this, I knew about the course and signed up for it myself. My husband had his travel costs (bus fares) refunded by the Job Centre, but when I asked about getting mine back (nearly £40 over the two weeks) I was informed because I had referred myself onto the course that I was not entitled to any support.

We found out about the second course "Hired and Inspired" from the college, it was a course designed for people who had already attended the first course and were still unemployed. We were invited to attend the first run of this course. It is not yet advertised in my local Job Centre, not sure if it will be. This course was within walking distance, so no travel costs.

Our Job Centre were quite helpful about the courses, informing us that we didn't have to take time away from the course to sign on, so instead of a fortnightly sign on, we had 4 weeks between sign ons because of the course. All we had to do was bring in the confirmation letter before the course started so that they could excuse us from a sign on. 

Other people on the course were told by their Job Centres that either they had to sign on as normal, missing a few hours of the course, sign on later in day after the course had finished, sign on via telephone, not sign on but post their job search forms through the Job Centre door on their sign on day. Some people attending the same Job Centre with different advisers were told they had to do different things. There is no consistent message, it was the same situation with travel expenses, some people got them back, some didn't.

So to answer the first two questions

- Does the Job Centre publicise them enough?

I don't think so, most of the courses I know about I have found details of myself online or though word of mouth. The Job Centre has not told me about any employability courses.

 

- Does the Job Centre actively discourage people from attending?

Yes, I think they often do discourage people from attending, either by ensuring that you will fail the course by missing vital parts to go sign on, by giving false information, and by making it expensive and sometimes financially impossible for people to attend. Then if you are on the course, speaking to other people who have been treated differently by their Job Centre or adviser is just totally disheartening.

Now on to the big questions

- Do employers value the qualifications that you gain on these courses?

The qualifications I got during the two courses were all Entry level and very very basic, what I would call common sense stuff. I now know how to shake hands, that I need to be polite and turn up on time to work, that I need to dress appropriately, be helpful to customers, etc etc.  

I now to add to my degree have :

- CIEH    Emergency First Aid at Work

-  NCFE

Exploring Employability Skills (Entry Level and Level 1)      

Exploring and Demonstrating Business and Enterprise Skills (Entry Level)                                              

- NOCN Introduction to Undertaking an Enterprise Project (Entry Level)

- City and Guilds Customer Service (Entry Level)

Other than the Emergency First Aid at Work, which I know is useful and I have always ensured that I have a

current certificate, are any of the others actually useful for getting a job?

Are there any employers reading this that would consider these qualifications useful when choosing who to

employ?

- Are they of equal value to everyone regardless of previous employment history and academic achievement?

I can understand that either someone straight out of school, or someone who has been out of work for a long time may find these qualifications useful.

But, and it's a big BUT, I have many year of experience working in customer facing roles, and I have also got a science degree, to me, these courses were boring, and useless. It was like learning to suck eggs, I wasn't taught anything I didn't already know, the courses didn't challenge me, was there much point in me doing them? I doubt it.

- What are the benefits of employability courses?

For me the benefits of these courses were

1) Getting out of the house on a daily basic and having a normal working routine, oh how I've missed it.

2) Free lunch each day, saved loads on the food bills

3) A warm place to spend each day, my house is very cold because of the cost of heating it properly being totally beyond the scope for someone on JSA. I got to spend the majority of each day in a nice warm building, and I didn't have to heat my own home quite as much, so I might have saved a fiver over the fortnight :D

4) Interacting with other humans, unemployment is a lonely isolated place, I feel better for having spent time with people.

But I don't think that these benefits were the intended benefits of the employability courses.


- Where can I find out more information about the courses that are available to me?

If after reading this, you want to find out more about what's available in your area, have a look online, check with local colleges, speak to the Job Centre (you never know, one day they might be helpful :/ ).

Here are some links of things I've found:

Suited, Booted and Recruited (Bristol, S. Gloucestershire, and Gloucestershire)  (Hired and Inspired follows on from this course, so there is some information about it here as well)

Coursera provides free online courses taught by University lecturers, I'm really enjoying these, not really employability, but interesting, fun and free.

Vision to Learn provide some free courses for unemployed people.

If you have found anything else that might help other people, please post a comment with a link to it.

Christmas on the Dole

I know that Christmas is done and over with for another year, thank the gods, but I figured that I would write about how people on JSA manage this festival of conspicuous consumption. As I don't have any children, so don't face the pressure that parents do at this time of year, I asked some of my friends to tell me how they managed over the holidays with little or no money.

For Christmas 2012, I knew that I would not be able to buy presents for anyone other than my husband, and that I would be able to spend no more than about £30 on his present. I also knew that I could not spend more than £5 a week extra on food shopping.

In the lead up to Christmas, I decided that because I had time, but no money, that I would make peoples presents. I made Christmas tree decorations for family and close friends. The materials for these cost me less than £10 and I was able to make gifts for 30 people. If I had spend the usual £5 per person, I would have spend £150 easily. I hope that the gifts I made were appreciated more than if I'd just got something in a random shop.

My husbands gift was fairly easy to sort out, he collects retro games consoles, so I just looked in places like Cash Converters and found him a PS2, some games for it, and an N64. I spend a total of £35, and was able to pay for the consoles weekly over about 6 weeks.

To manage a Christmas dinner for me and my husband, over the two months before Christmas, I spend a little extra each week to buy stuff like ingredients for mince pies, Christmas pudding, and Christmas cake, cheese, crackers, a bottle of wine etc. Instead of buying a whole turkey, I got one of those turkey joints in a foil tray that costs about £5. On Christmas day, we had a Christmas dinner, with starter, some smoked salmon that was on offer, the main course, turkey with roasted potatoes, veg and gravy, but none of the other trimmings, and desert, homemade Christmas pudding, and a couple glasses of wine. There weren't any left overs because I knew when I was preparing the food that I couldn't afford to have any waste. This was actually one of the nicest Christmas dinners I have ever had.

So far it seems that I had a wonderful Christmas, there was food, there were presents, awesome.

But what else is Christmas about?

- visiting family?
- meeting up with friends?
- going out for drinks with work colleagues?
- lights on the tree?
- being warm and safe inside when it's dark and cold outside?

We couldn't afford to visit family, and my family either live too far away or are too old to visit us, and my husbands family were invited over, but decided not to come because we don't have a TV. So neither of us saw any of our family this Christmas.

I budgeted for one night out with friends, and had £20-£30 to spend on that night, not much when you are going for drinks and dinner. So I had to turn down all but one of the invites, which is a horrible feeling. I hope that my friends that I turned down don't think I was snubbing them. I chose which night out to go on based on who asked first. The night out I did have was good fun, but I would loved to have been able to meet up with more of my friends.

Drinks with work colleagues? I wish I had some...

Lights on the tree? The only reason we had a tree this year is because a good friend of mine gave me her spare one. This is my husband and mines first year in our own place, last Christmas we were in a shared house. So we didn't have any of our own Christmas decorations other that the tree ornaments I had collected over my childhood. We decorated the tree with lights and everything, but we didn't dare waste the electricity on switching on the lights, even on Christmas day.

Warm and safe inside? Our house was cold, almost as cold as outside all through the holidays, just like it has been since winter started.

This Christmas has been a total mixture for me, brilliant because it was mine and my husbands first Christmas in our own place, and we did have a wonderful day together. But it has also been the loneliest and most depressing Christmas I have ever had. I missed seeing my friends and family, I missed the social aspects of Christmas, and the parties that usually happen around this time of year.

We managed Christmas without racking up any more debt, not many people manage that, and I think it is nearly impossible if you have children. Here are some of my friends stories....

This family have 3 children, my friend is trying to start her own business as a Doula, she has had next to no help in this from the Job Centre, her partner has severe back problems and suffers from mental health problems that make it hard for him to find a job. 

"They [the DWP] stopped my partners ESA a month before Xmas,  so all we get at the minute £75 a week between us, [two adults, one teenager and two young kids] as I get working tax credit...

Xmas...the kids ALL had second hand stuff that had been passed our way for them and we treated ourselves to a few comedy DVDs. 

We are hoping JSA will back date to end November... and as for my partner finding a job that he can physically do, let alone mentally, or even get to work in first place... 

Thanks ATOS merry fucking Xmas!! I worked 43.5 hrs in 3 days as part of my apprenticeship ... I am going to fight tooth and nail if they say I'm not allowed to be self employed! At least I've been telling them for 4 years what i was going to do and have funded training myself. 

We tried to appeal but had to be in on 28th December ... They are assholes!!!"


Another friend of mine has four children, her and her husband live on a very low income and rely on income support.

"Well, I'm not exactly on the dole, but I am poor with limited support (Low income self-employed with no top-up).

Um, well, I can't afford to buy that much so I make the majority of the presents, and this year a lot of people went without a gift because we just couldn't afford it. We bought for the kids and that's it, no immediate or extended family, no friends. Just the kids.

The dread three weeks to Christmas is the worst. You sit there with your diary, frantically trying to balance out what little available money you have. You finally think you've got it, and then you remember that a turkey alone is over twenty quid. With all the trimmings and treats, you're looking at forty quid for one meal. And, you know, I'd like to say we got a week's worth of food from that meal, but we didn't. We got one lot of bubble & squeak out of it and it was gone.

Our Christmas treats this year consisted of a box of Roses and two tubes of Pringles. That's it. I made a few mince pies but couldn't afford the luxurious, expensive ingredients to make more.

I started my Christmas shopping in October and it was still shit. Toys are so incredibly expensive and twenty quid gets you fuck all these days."

Another friend, has written this account.

"Christmas on the dole as a parent...It means that you attempt to keep Christmas as low key as possible. If you're lucky enough, like we were, to have a grandparent who is a very keen shopper when it comes to shopping, then your child might get what they have asked for from Santa. But if you are not as lucky and are on Income Support, it means that you save little bits of money through the year, maybe even buy bits that are a really good deal in January that you think your child might be in to almost a year later, and hope that November or December might be a three payment month for housing benefit or Income Support or your child is just going to end up with essential clothing because they've grown out of what you were able to get the year before. You buy everything a size larger for them from the cheapest places possible in the hopes that it will last. You only buy for your child, not for any other friends or family, and some of them will think that you're forgetting them on purpose. Christmas dinner, you might splurge on a Value chicken rather than a turkey from somewhere, and it just ends up as a standard roast dinner."


Finally, this friend has survived cancer, but still has major health issues relating to it, she has a young son and is a single parent.

"Christmas with kids on Benefits.

Every parent wants their kids to wake up Christmas morning and have big shiny eyes and see that Santa's been. How on earth do you manage that on benefits, well, to even come close is a military style operation of saving up all year, a few pounds here and there, buying at boot sales for a quid a time, spending hours on eBay waiting for a bargain, watching as time and again things slip out of your price range (max a fiver in most cases) and relying on family.

Next year i think my son will have outgrown Santa, and will know that i cant afford all the flash things he wants. yay for me. not, still want to give him a nice time, as most of the year we cant afford to do much at all, cant afford swimming or lazer quest or flash birthday parties at kidszone or whatever,just not possible, he knows these things are not available to us. Most of the time he's pretty cool about it for an 8 year old,and then I'm so proud and sad all at the same time, but not always, sometimes it hurts and frustrates him, and i get pretty tired of having to say no, no, no, no, I'm sorry, but no. I'm not a materialistic person on the whole, and i try to teach him to think similarly, but he's still just a kid, and he wants things.

I make Christmas the best I can by saving up tiny bits all year. my nan puts any two pound coins she gets through the year in a little pot, and gives them to me in early December so if there is one a bit more expensive present he wants i can still get it for him. I have learnt to become a bargain queen, buy it when its stupidly cheap and hide it and hope he still likes it by Christmas.

I'm hugely thankful for my family, my parents, brother, partner, they all make Christmas magic for him in a way i couldn't do alone. That feels very hard at times, but he's whats important, I'd rather he had things i cant provide than go without cos i feel bad and can't match up. His favourite presents this year all came from other people really, apart from the second hand game boy i found on eBay for 15 quid. shame the charger broke yesterday. Don't i feel like the best mum ever."

Christmas is a hard and lonely time of year for many people, who for various reasons are stuck outside the social norms. I hope that I never have to face another Christmas like this one. 

Buses for Jobs scheme and the Job Centre Plus Travel Discount Card

Just before New Year, I was looking on my local bus companies website to find out the holiday bus schedule and I noticed an advert for free bus travel for job seekers. Of course I was intrigued, this would mean that I could get into the centre of Bristol really easily to sign up with/pester recruitment agencies, look in shop windows for job adverts, all the things the Job Centre says I have to do each week. I could also travel to areas on the outskirts of Bristol and to other nearby locations to try and find a job. I did wonder why the Job Centre hadn't mentioned it before Christmas, but nothing from them really surprises me any more (unless they are actually helpful, then confusion abounds).

I looked into the offer and it is:

Free travel on buses during January for holders of the Job Centre Plus Travel Discount Card.
More information is available on the Bus For Us website.

Well what I hear you ask is this mythical Job Centre Plus Travel Discount Card?

I'd never heard of it, never seen an advert in the Job Centre, on the DWP or Direct.gov websites. My "adviser" had never mentioned it.

Well 30 minutes and a couple of google searches later I had the information I needed.

It is a card that initially was just available in London, but is now available nationwide, that you can get from the Job Centre.

To qualify for the card, you need to be on Income based JSA and have been unemployed for over 3 months. There might be other factors that I don't know about, so look into it for yourself if you think this will help you.

You also need 2 passport photos for the application, mine cost me £5 at the local post office, but considering that a day ticket on the bus is £4, it's a bargain.

I phoned the Job Centre to make an appointment to get a card asap (my first sign on in January was not due until the 9th and I didn't want to miss 8 days of free travel). The person I spoke to, as usual was an unhelpful tit, he made the appointment for me on the 3rd January.  He informed me that I probably wouldn't get a card because they "can only issue 20 cards",  which is rubbish, they can issue cards to everyone that qualifies for it. Of course I told him he was talking rubbish and informed him of the correct information, which is by the way my usual response to people at the Job Centre when they talk shite.

On the 3rd January I got my card, it took about 30 minutes, mostly because the Job Centre in inefficient, all I had to do was hand over the photos, sign the back of one, and sign some paper work in two places and read some Ts&Cs.

This first time I tried to use the card was a disaster as can be read about here http://livingituponthedole.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/public-humiliation-is-all-part-of.html

But the second time I tried, it was ok and I was able to travel for free. I am going to do weekly updates about this, because so far I have not found one First Bristol and Bath bus driver that has heard of the scheme or knows what to do with the card.

BTW if you are travelling on First buses with this card, the ticket is under F5 and it's the bottom left hand option, no ticket prints out.

The Confusion and Terror when an unexpected benefit payment appears in your bank account

For anyone that doesn't know how benefit payments work here is a brief overview of how the seem to work (no idea if this is the whole truth but it's what I've deduced over the last few months).

I sign on at the Job Centre fortnightly on a Wednesday, the Saturday directly after that the Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) appears in my bank account, two weeks worth at a time, roughly £220.

Housing Benefit (HB) is also paid into my bank account every two weeks on a Saturday, two weeks worth at a time, also roughly £220.

This is kinda nice because it means I only have to wait one week between payments. I save just over half of each weeks JSA/HB to pay the rent, and the rest is for food, electric, other bills.

Yesterday I checked my bank account to make sure that when today's HB came in that I would have enough in the account to pay the rent. I did, but only just, spent slightly more than usual over Christmas, I will do another blog soon about Christmas on the dole. So I knew that for this coming week I would have about £10 to last the whole week, but that's ok. I topped up the electric and did a food shop last week, so we wont run out of anything, except maybe toothpaste because that's running low (I'll just have to halve the amount of toothpaste I put on my brush for the next week).

I logged into my bank account this morning to pay the rent and to my horror and confusion an extra £110 has appeared in my account, labelled JSA. I got my last JSA payment of £220 last Saturday, and I'm not expecting another until next Saturday. Confusion abounds, my brain goes into panic mode, my thoughts race....

Why have I been paid one weeks worth of JSA now????

Do I need to tell someone they have made a mistake????

Will they take it back without telling me????

Will I get any JSA next Saturday on the day it's normally due?????

If I get any then will it be 1 weeks worth or 2?????

Why is a hundred quid making me so nervous????

I am due to sign on this Wednesday, I will ask my adviser, who probably wont have an answer, about this payment. Until then I will try not to touch it .... who am I kidding, I have a bill that needs paid :/ ... I will try not to touch any of it not used to pay that bill.

Now I will go have a cup of tea, without milk because we don't have any in the house, to try and calm my nerves. I hope I get a job soon or I will be popping the happy pills and twitching uncontrollably because of the stress. I swear 3 months unemployment has shortened my expect life span by at least 3 years just because of the stress.

Public humiliation is all part of living the high life

Well today I got publicly humiliated and wasn't allowed to board a bus because the bus driver was a rude ignorant git that didn't know about the Bus for Jobs scheme that is currently running nationwide.

About a week ago, when looking up the Christmas bus time tables on the First Bristol and Bath website, I noticed an advert for free bus travel for job seekers. Of course I was interested, because using the bus is expensive.

I found out that the offer was for free bus travel on 70% of mainland UK services between the 1st and 31st January for anyone with a Job Centre Plus Travel Discount Card.

Well I'd never heard of this card, but thank you google, I did some research and found out that it is available to job seekers nationwide who have been unemployed for more than 3 months. Of course the job centre hadn't advertised it, there is nothing about it on the DWP website or anywhere that an unemployed person would look for this sort of info., but I digress...

Anyways, yesterday, after paying £5 for some passport photos, I got the card. I was looking forward to the freedom this would give me, I would be able to go see my grandparents, get to job interviews (if I get any), look for jobs further from where I live, etc etc

Today I tried to use the card for the first time on a number 76 bus from Bedminster to Hengrove. I showed the card to the bus driver and asked for the ticket I needed, expecting this to be an easy process.

The bus drive replied in a very rude manner "Well what am I supposed to do with this? Well what is it?"

I explained about the free travel, what the card was, where I'd found out about the offer. I even showed him the First website on my phone.

He just had a go at me and made me get off the bus. I have never been so humiliated in front of so many people in my whole life.

I can only hope that this is not a daily occurrence.

Heating or Eating? A 21st Century dilema

I never believed that people living in a first world country in the 21st Century would have to choose between heating and eating.

For many (probably the majority) of unemployed people this is the stark reality of winter in the UK.

In my house we never bother putting the water heater on, we have an electric shower and the only other thing we would need hot water for is washing dishes, which it's just as easy to boil the kettle for, so heating a whole tank of water is a waste of money.

During the summer our electricity cost roughly £8 per week, from the start of November this rocketed to over £20 per week when we had to put some heating on in the house to stop the walls going mouldy from the cold. At the minute we heat our bedroom for a about 90 minutes per day as this was the worst affected room. We only heat the living room when it gets that cold that we can't handle it any more. We usually use tea light candles to provide some warmth, wear lots of layers of clothing and hide under duvets to keep warm.

I have a Galileo's thermometer in the sitting room and it shows that the temperature of our living room is pretty much always under 17C, I don't know how far under because that is the lowest temperature is records.

Update: At the end of March I got a proper room thermometer, by then my house was much warmer than it had been between November and February, and the thermometer was only just reading 15C. I therefore estimate that for most of the winter my house was between 9C and 12C.

The information on the thermometer states that at 12C there is a risk of heart attack and stroke, and, at 9C, hypothermia. I didn't realise at the time how much I was putting our health at risk, it is very fortunate that both of us are young, healthy adults, or we may not have survived the winter. even knowing about the health risks, there was nothing I could afford to do to make our house warmer :(

I would love to be able to heat the house properly instead of freezing half to death while filling out job applications, but if we spend more on electricity, we have to cut back else where, and the only place that could be is on food.

I spend less than £50 per week on food for two people and cook 90% of stuff from scratch, no fast food or ready meals for us. It's a struggle to afford fresh vegetables and fruit especially now that the prices have gone up so much over the last few months. We mostly have stews and soups made from cheap cuts of meat and bulked out with lentils and stuff like that.

I could probably reduce the food bill if we cut down to just eating beans on toast and super noodles, but who wants to eat shit like that? So it's the heating that doesn't get put on.

The single most depressing aspect of unemployment is the constant cold, try it someday, turn your heating off for a couple of days during the winter, this is the reality of unemployment in the UK today.