The whole point of payee is to make sure bills are paid and you do not buy things you can not afford. The payee is the one making the decisions. In some cases the person receiving benefits will have more bills than income. The bills come before spending money. Once bills are paid down then spending money could increase. It is still up to payee to control the purse strings on how much you would be able to have though. I a joint account was opened it would be "both signatures required "not one or the other so this usually does not happen.