I agree that a large payment before Xmas is a temptation to some to go out and splurge - when do we get a chance like that? I have heard quite a few single pensioners however say that it will finish off paying the shire and water rates, which we are paying in installments. They always quote about single pensioners and the rising rents, but it is really tough keeping a house going on your own despite the miserly pensioner concessions we get from shires and services. My home is over 30yrs old and needs things like the roof seeing to and a new back door to name two. I would like solar powered hot water and a rain tank, but have bucklies of getting any of those things done. Just to have the branches trimmed - not cut - back from my power lines costs $250.00 a year and rises every year etc. etc. I do not have a car and live quite a way from town, as I get older I am not so mobile and to afford to still run a car would have been really good.

This I know is supposed to carry us over until after the budget next year and I have heard on TV the amount $40.00 per week for single pensioners brandied about after that, very good news if true.

Thanks for your campaigning for our plight

Ann w