Diary of a benefit claimant.

Excellent news, both for the WCA and PIP.

Thank you, cabby.
The wca was only the day before yesterday!

So pleased for you Miss A. Hopefully you can begin to take care of yourself without all the stress that you’ve been under.
Take your time and relax.

Do let us know the details of your award. It is so great to hear some good news!

> It seems as if there might be some long German word that encapsulates that meaning all in one word.

I have made one up!

sehrgutermüll

Amazingly translate.google.com/ translates it!

Thank you all,
everyone, for your help and general 'boosting'.
These things are hard to do alone, and it had all been much appreciated.

I can't work that translate thingy, stardreamer

Clicking the following link should give the result automatically.

LINK > translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=sehrguterm%C3%BCll&op=translate

More good news MissA brilliant. It's horrible when people don't believe you are ill especially when your GP and consultants all know you are ill but governmental departments don't believe you unless you are on their list they can tick.

It's like when I was first widowed all paperwork had married ,divorced or single. So I used to write widow and cross out the other 3. Took years before they put widow/widower on forms.

Had call from PIP department today to tell me the name of the person who is going to phone me. So at least I know they haven't changed their mind about the assessment.

Well, thank you very much.
It is, indeed.

Though you may need to click on Detect Language that is over at the left side.

That's good, Whiff.
Have a cuppa or something for during the assessment.
Mine took an hour and a half.
I'll be interested to see what my lady wrote about socks, because she seemed determined to discuss my not wearing them in some detail.

Whiff

More good news MissA brilliant. It's horrible when people don't believe you are ill especially when your GP and consultants all know you are ill but governmental departments don't believe you unless you are on their list they can tick.

It's like when I was first widowed all paperwork had married ,divorced or single. So I used to write widow and cross out the other 3. Took years before they put widow/widower on forms.

Had call from PIP department today to tell me the name of the person who is going to phone me. So at least I know they haven't changed their mind about the assessment.

I am glad that they have fixed that.

Good for you for crossing it out. Did they react, such as saying you had not filled it in correctly or did they just accept it?

Whilst recognising that legally a person is married or single for purposes such as whether one is allowed to get married, and benefit rates for a widow or a widower might be exactly the same as for a single person, I always felt that as some widows and widowers consider themselves still married that officialdom trying to force them to declare themselves as single was a very inconsiderate way of acting.

Also, they try to conflate married and partner together.

Why should someone who is married be deemed, and expected to tick a box, as having a partner.

And sometimes, though I don't know whether DWP does it, a widow with a child, or a divorced woman with a child being regarded as a single parent.

StarDreamer

Clicking the following link should give the result automatically.

LINK > translate.google.com/?sl=auto&tl=en&text=sehrguterm%C3%BCll&op=translate

It translates as

very good garbage

Yes, that's how it translated for me.

StarDreamer they accepted it. I was 45 when I was widowed . Only thing I got was £2,000 which was to go towards the funeral. But we always knew my husband wouldn't live 5 years so we had our the money aside. If I had been 60 I would have had lots of things. This was in 2004. Don't think it's got any better if you are widowed on your 40's today.

Please accept my condolences.

StarDreamer thank you. But life is what it is. Only 2 certainties in life we are born we die. Everything in between we just have to live the best life we can. And treat people how we want to be treated. Politeness and good manners don't cost anything. Seems a lot of the old values are being lost in this I want it now society. It's through hard work,saving and sacrifice that you can get what you would like . But money can not buy health or happiness. Sometimes I think people forget that. Otherwise no millionaires would die.

It's early and have been awake for a hour and my thoughts tend to wander??.

That is brilliant news MissA. Now that you get PIP and UC, you will also get extra payment to help with the rising cost of living.
As they say, every little helps.

Thank you.
I am hoping to gain some independence back, when I feel up to it.
I will be able to get a taxi when I need to go somewhere.

I can shop online, without worrying that it costs more.

I can eat the food I have been advised to, to help my liver, too.
I can pay the people who have been looking after my grandson.

I can even buy a hat to cover my bald patches!

MissA it's brilliant you are sounding so positive and looking forward to the future. May you have a long and happy one you deserve it. ?

Well, it's a double edged sword, really.
Ideally, I would like to get better and forget all of this, and go back to my 'real' life.
I think it has finally sunk in that it's unlikely, but well... I live in hope.
Just this one chink of light may be a starting point.

MissAdventure

Thank you.
I am hoping to gain some independence back, when I feel up to it.
I will be able to get a taxi when I need to go somewhere.

I can shop online, without worrying that it costs more.

I can eat the food I have been advised to, to help my liver, too.
I can pay the people who have been looking after my grandson.

I can even buy a hat to cover my bald patches!

In my experience, shopping online does not cost more, at least not from Tesco, in fact, for me it costs less, in recent years much less.

I get my grocery delivered by Tesco.

Each delivery is notionally £4.50.

However, I have a Delivery Saver Plan. That costs me, notionally, £72 per year, though looking just now it has gone up to just under £84. But there are 6 month plans.

LINK > www.tesco.com/deliverysaver/

However, I don't actually pay all that, because if you have a free Tesco clubcard, you get a point for each pound spent. And the points redeem at a face value of one penny each, YET there are some triple value offers and one is for paying for the Delivery Saver Plan. So for renewals in recent years I have paid £24 in Clubcard vouchers, so no money actually leaving my bank account to renew the plan.

LINK > secure.tesco.com/clubcard/vouchers/delivery-saver-plan/UK-009888.prd

Each order must be £40 or more when ordered, but if they have not got something or a substitute is cheaper and the bill is less than £40 then the small basket charge of £4 is not charged as it is the value when checked out not what is actually delivered that counts.

If the substitute costs more then they charge you the price of what you ordered, not the price of what you got delivered.

The Tesco system is very flexible, you can opt for substitution or not on an item type by item type basis and you can add a note to the personal shopper for each type of item.

You can even specify type of substitute and include NOT too.

So, example,

if sub, vanilla or dark choc please NOT caramel

when ordering chocolate soya dessert

or

Please send some green and some yellow if poss

when ordering bananas

Cramming information into the 55 characters is an art form.

These days, and for some years before COVID-19 too, so not because of that, if I did not get home delivery I would need to be paying Age UK or similar to do my shopping for me at quite a lot per hour.

I don't know much about other supermarkets though I did see somewhere that one of them always substitutes, no option to put don't substitute and if the substitute costs more then charges that increased price without consultation.

I have known people speculate that if you don't go and choose it yourself you might get poor quality sent. I have not had poor quality delivered. In my experience the personal shoppers do their best to do it well. On the very rare occasions when something has gone wrong, Tesco has always refunded promptly, accepting my word, just phone the free number and speak with someone.

I am reluctant to derail as this is about benefits but you write elsewhere about being a vegan. Recently, I wrote about soy and the serious damage it does to the environment and to children’s development.

The last place a vegan should be shopping is Tesco. They have THE worst record on animal welfare. Please look at this Open Cage report on cruelty to chickens.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7h9MiH2gsY

Also Grocery Gazette have reported on major meat and dairy suppliers who are keeping animals in conditions which create the ideal breeding ground for new diseases and a future pandemic including companies which supply Tesco.

www.grocerygazette.co.uk/2022/02/22/tesco-suppliers-pandemic/

As a vegan you won’t be eating chicken but by supporting Tesco you are supporting cruel practices.

If you care about animals please consider shopping elsewhere.

I avoid watching videos about cruelty.

As you imply, if we discuss this in this thread, it may derail the thread.

I am happy to discuss this in a specific thread on the issues. If you start a new thread then I think it would be reasonable to just add one post to this thread saying so and including a link to the new thread.

That would allow any reader here to pick up the thread if he or she so chooses, avoid derailing this thread, allow others to note the existence of the thread, and be fair to me.

I note your claim as to what I am supporting. Another thread will allow me a chance to repond. I am not going to respond to the claims in this thread as it would be off-topic and I am not willing to do anything that would dilute the effectiveness of this thread..

Written with kindness, not confrontationally.