Acceptable to go on the dole for 4 months to try and achieve my dream?

If you want to travel then travel and get a job there.

If you think you are going to build up a reputation in your room banging on a keyboard you have no idea friend.

Just go, you will find opportunities will open up when you are on the road.

To me it's simply fraud. The social welfare system is not there to give you the option not to work.

You are capable of working, and by the sounds of it well qualified. If you can't find a job, that's one thing, but to make a choice not to work and have other people fund you while you chase your dream, that is an entirely different thing.

6 grand in savings? You are looking to have your cake and eat it. Put your money where your mouth is and use that to fund you whilst you work things out.

Others have echoed my feelings on using the dole as a safety net while you set yourself up for the kind of life you want, so I won't repeat those.

What I will say is that you're fooling yourself on how much can be made by writing articles freelance online. I know qualified and experienced journalists who had to give up freelancing as it was bringing in next to nothing. The expectation that writers will work for nothing or for "exposure" is endemic. The blogosphere is saturated with talented writers working for little or nothing. Unless you have something very in demand and unique to offer, this just isn't a runner as far as I can see.

Just to add to what KP said, most of the work in online freelance writing is for content farms (you've seen the articles: 10 reasons why you shouldn't eat x, 5 reasons you should visit y) and the pay is awful.

To make a basic living, you need to be able to put down 5000+ reasonably well written and researched words a day (that's smallish novel every 2 weeks). This isn't going to happen in 3 hours.

Lux23 wrote: »

If you had a career in mind, then yea, I would say it was acceptable, but you have no idea what you want to do so I think you should work until you find that out.

Sorry, but under what circumstances is it acceptable for a person who is fit and able to work to make a conscious decision to live off the state instead of going out and finding a job?

Neyite wrote: »

If the way into that career was a jobbridge position or if Solas training was a springboard into a jobs market maybe? Unfortunately some entries to trades or professions or some courses are only made available to jobseekers, so in that instance, and if it was with a clear goal of upskilling in a certain area and temporary I don't think its too bad.

Ok that's fair and an angle I hadn't particularly considered.

In the ops case though this is not the case.

OK so the idea is essentially to go on the dole for max 4 months to establish yourself as a writer online, so you can make money writing online, to fund travelling the world?

That makes absolutely no logical sense. Others have mentioned you'd be waiting 9 weeks for job seeker's benefit, that it is technically fraud and that the dole is not a vehicle for making changes in your life but actually the plan itself makes no sense as you can work any job and save up the money needed to travel the world.

What do you plan to write about? Yourself? An area of expertise such as you studied in? Your life experiences? A novel? Historical items that require more than basic googling such as hours of research, trips to national archives, etc?

Have you any experience in writing? Have you ever had anything published? Have you ever engaged with amateur writing groups, or established, more focused literary groups? Do you know how online writing works, how you can - if you can - make money from it? What you may want to write about may already have a full audience eg celebrity stuff there is literally plenty of websites you can go to full of articles, most just copied and pasted verbatim from some other site. How if any genre would you make what you're writing about stand out differently from the thousands of other bloggers?

If you want an independent lifestyle, independent of your family, then just move out of home; if you want to travel the world, then travel the world but fund it yourself by saving and you can either work and save and go, or just work and take a few days holidays at a time and go. Look into work and travel visas, working holiday visas, see if you can apply for those. It doesn't have to be a work and take your annual leave scenario and that's that.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to travel. But I think you are being completely unrealistic in how you are hoping to go about it. The only money that is in writing is if you are a journalist and there's a steady income, you are a published author of books in fact or fiction ... and then there's ad and traffic dependent online writing, which is a common form I've come across, it's not going to be bread and butter money, and once interest wanes and the clicks no longer generate revenue - what then?

You might find yourself at the mercy of the Dept of Social Protection and paying those months you've been on the dole out of your savings if they decide that what you are doing is fraudulent on their terms. In addition, those fresh and new to the dole are actively more encouraged back off it quicker than those considered long term unemployed and you might find that rather than Dept of Social Protection giving you the time to go to the gym and write online for the day, they might insist (via assertions of cutting your dole off) you go to training courses or other things.

But I think you're shooting yourself in the foot. What could be 4 months on the dole could be 14 months just as easily and you could have started out with the whimsical idea of turning yourself into an online writer to fund travelling, only to find yourself at the mercy of the dole, at the mercy of bills and living expenses, the prospect of living on a heck of a lot less than you are used to, stress from delays in SW coming through, stress from the hoops of paperwork you have to go through, the risk of that rejection at any turn until you are granted it, eating at your savings to maintain a standard of living (such as paying for your gym membership, phone, internet, rent, food, personal hygiene stuff, going out, travel, etc) that you will have no choice but to cut because €188 (and less) depending on your situation isn't a lot compared to what you could earn working and you could be facing never making a dent in the online writing world, having wasted away 14 months trapped on the dole, your savings gone, a big gap on your CV, the opportunity to travel an impossibility because you've no money at all, and kicking yourself for not having stayed in a job, because in that 14 months you could have saved money and gone, or used your savings and gone, got a visa and gone.

Your latest post sheds a bit more light on things OP, but it more than ever makes me think you should be doing everything you can to spend as little time on the dole as possible. If you're suffering with anxiety and depression, address those now. If you don't your life will shrink down to what you can currently handle in your unhealthy state - gym, writing, a lonely and solitary life.

Get help with your anxiety issues and your life will open up. You won't have to choose the path that best suits your mental health issues, you will get the choose the life that you truly want.

There's nothing wrong with wanting an independent life where you're not tied to a 9-5 routine, it sounds great. But invest now in your mental health and it will set you up for a much happier life than the one you're currently and unrealistically aiming for.

duckcfc wrote: »

Its not fraud if you use loop holes to get on the job seekers. People do it at the top without anyone batting an eyelid so why can people at the bottom do it. Listen OP, you get one craic at life so do what it takes to get by and to make up happy. Who knows, you could blow your 6k in a matter of months and live a miserable life on the dole or it could turn out well for you. I know quite a few people in the dole and they live happy lives. No need to get out of bed on them cold winter mornings miserable going to make others money.I was even in it for 5 years and quite enjoyed it TBH. I was at the gym every day, had this freedom I never had before and could do what I wanted when I wanted without the need to go to work. I even had money to go out every wknd if I wanted. You need to balance everything and take the plundge and stop listening to the haters. I know one thing, no ones going to give a flying hoot in 100yrs when your dead.

pretty much the same opinion as me.

You'll be means tested for the dole too. Will you be living at home? Do your parents work?

I get €77 a week. You'll not be saving any money whatsoever on that. Trust me.