I considered prostitution before realising how much I could claim on benefits, now I go on 5-star trips & save thousands

UNPACKING her suitcase from her recent trip to Morrocco, Erica Cartier, 44, was already dreaming up her next luxury holiday.

Erica has written for Flying Eze on several occasions about her love of lavish holidays, designer make-up and Champagne, despite being on benefits.

Here she explains why she's nobody's ‘poverty porn'…

Imagine my dismay when some bleeding heart boffin trolled me online in a series of tweets for being able to afford nice holidays.

The academic assumed that because I have a disability I couldn't possibly speak for myself in a national newspaper – she even suggested I'd been ‘stitched up' by Flying Eze.

It’s hardly the case.

I spent my late teens to early twenties cutting my teeth on the fashion desk of a broadsheet and went on to gain a degree in journalism from the London College of Printing.

I've since written for most national, and quality international, newspapers. More recently, I graduated with a master's degree in creative writing.

It's only what I've heard from trolls before when writing publicly about going on holiday while in receipt of Universal Credit and PIP – £1,100 a month combined at the moment.

Despite what my trolls say, I’m not a benefits cheat or a fraudster and I deserve every penny I get.

My benefits are broken into categories. I get £600 for living with a disability of my own, schizophrenia, £198 for caring for my wheelchair-using partner a month and £270 housing element to pay rent.

PIP is a benefit for all people with disabilities regardless of whether they can work or not – I have still received my £290 monthly, while employed. But it's a super help while being an unpaid carer full-time.

Having that extra money allows me some of life’s little luxuries such as my new Kashmiri-imported home furnishings and matching gold cutlery set.

But it seems that my trolls are of the opinion that if you’re on benefits you ought to be living the life of a pauper.

I’ve been harangued and harassed after I dared to write publicly about taking five holidays a year.

Well I say to these trolls – why not? Why can't I be a jet-setter or globe trotter? Why not five holidays a year?

Just because I take the handouts I deserve, why can't we also enjoy nice holidays like the middle classes do?

I'm nobody's “poverty porn”;!

My case in point is my recent week in Morocco staying at a 5-star beach resort in the fishing village of Taghazout.

Yes, I'm on benefits and not a £50k salary, but return flights to Morocco were only £45 on a budget airline.

I used my journalistic connections to blag us a complimentary stay and breakfast at the esteemed 5-star Hilton Hotel and SPA in Taghazout – the whole jaunt only cost £300 which I earned writing about being on benefits for this newspaper.

Some people deemed the work I did as ‘f***ing repugnant' and ‘a vile joke'. I can't win – reprimanded for not working and then again when I do work.

While sunbathing by the pool under the 23C heat, ice gently clinking in my orange juice, I had to wonder – when will we benefit claimants be allowed to speak for ourselves?

And why do middle class people feel we need them to speak on our behalf?

Rich, wealthy, jet-setter – they're all just states of mind, and don't require middle class salaries these days

Erica Cartier

There are times I've been so cripplingly impoverished, I've considered prostitution.

But turns out I was only a dole claim away from affording my food and rent without pimping myself out.

I do rely on benefits but also work a little. Just because I'm not full-time and only take home around £16K a year (work and benefits combined) doesn't make me any more impoverished than the trolls.

I like to think of myself as rich, I handle the little I have well and keep a few thousand spare in case our boiler breaks down.

Rich, wealthy, jet-setter – they're all just states of mind, and don't require middle class salaries these days.

This year alone I've been to the Czech Republic for £33 return flights in January, and Morocco this month for £45 return flights.

I hope discovering cheap travel is my passport around the world – or at least Europe and North Africa where the budget airlines travel to.

Over the next 24 months alone, I also hope to visit Estonia, Romania and Lithuania.

Once there, meals can be a lot cheaper than here in the UK. In Morocco I ate out every night from as little as £18 a night for two plus a soft drink each.

Out of respect for the locals, on my trip during Ramadam, I decided not to drink alcohol which also saved me money.

On the return drive to the airport, I took in the sandy landscape of Morocco on this jet-setter jaunt of mine.

I discovered that many locals there are ‘poor' and whole families live in tiny concrete flats.

But I can also recognise that locals are spiritually and culturally rich – do these wealths not count in middle class circles?

Poverty porn to me is corporate charities showing personal despair of African babies on TV, then asking for donations to the cause, playing on our emotions. Not me.

On returning to my council estate this weekend, I felt richer than ever having spent time in Morocco – we've big, well-built houses with gardens and woodland surroundings on our Stoke-on-Trent estate.

We have food and shelter even the odd holiday, bottle of champers and second-hand cashmere jumpers.

So no, I'm not poor, or your poverty porn – I'm a spiritually and culturally rich jet-setter fashionista and deserve all the nice things the middle classes enjoy too.