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What a provocative question this has turned out to be!
The conversation we had in the Main St was started by the couple. They asked me first what benefit I was on. They knew I was on one as I was on crutches with a broken leg.
I had been working full time until I broke my leg. I have minimal savings, and the interest I make from those savings is charged as income against the benefit I receive. Certainly not dollar for dollar, something like 20c - 30c in the dollar. So I'm on a slightly reduced benefit, which is fair enough. But I'm not living a miserable existence. It's a rather financially reduced & therefore restricting lifestyle, (broken leg notwithstanding) - but a comfortable one. I'm living within the limits of the benefit I receive.
Yes of course there is a lot of gossip, rumour, (right, wrong, fabricated or inflated) as there is in any community. Perhaps I am a tattle tale, a snoop, a communist. Maybe I should be burned at the stake. My assumptions may be wrong. All I know & feel is I see what appears to be an injustice. I neither made the law nor have the authority to enforce it. So I passed my concerns to the proper authorities. They will now investigate surreptitiously - if any wrong doing is detected, they will, I expect, contact the couple for an explanation & it will go from there. If none is found, well great. I was wrong.
But like the adage by Publilus Syrus in my previous post:
I often regret that I have spoken;
Never that I have been silent.
The whole point of my question is......................
How can people, who have been on a benefit for years, afford multiple plane trips around the country, drive 3 miles to the nearest city very often, take overseas holidays every year, do extensive renovations on their house, buy another house, buy & sell extensively on EBay like sites, etc, etc?