Confused re attitude to benefits and work experience

To those that have more will be given. To those that have not it shall be taken away. Or some such thing. It holds true.

I'm not interested in competitive pooring. It is a travesty that utility companies get away with charging the poor more, that the poor can only get access to the exhorbitant interest rates of payday loans, that people living in remote, relatively deprived rural areas who are off grid pay up to 3 times as much to heat their homes as those in a town, that people who cannot afford to run a car are stuck shopping in expensive local convenience stores. Etc.

Forgive me if I feel little sympathy for the example you gave. Anyone who can even start to afford £2k a month for a central London ex-council flat has the ability, and the opportunity, to make a choice. If their choice is to waste that kind of money, more fool them in my book.

which is why we have a benefits system for working & non working claimants.

but where i live in Central London, you would have to have to be able to pay about £2k per month to rent a 3 bed ex council flat, so i think any family paying not able to claim benefits would say that their life was expensive too.

Not just the homeless. Life is far more expensive for the poor full stop.

that is an argument to pay those living in hostel or B&B accommodation more - that is 50,000 households www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN02110.pdf out of a told of 370,000 www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/01/workless-households-rise

I think there is little else to add following OnceHomeless's post. That is the reality for thousands of families. Life in this country is only cheap if you can afford it to be.

TheRealityTillyMinto - I wasn't referring to your eating habits when I referred to parsimony.

I found using washable nappies saved me loads but I was in a house (admittedly a cold house) with a washing machine. It would not be so simple if you were in a hostel for example. I did use the local launderette a few times when the washing machine gave up the ghost but it was pricey and didn't really do the job effectively - not helped by women from the local stables washing horse blankets in the machines (I mean heaven forbid she should use HER machine for it - far better to pollute the local launderette machines which those without her cash have to use).

Also having to live the way once describes makes finding a job more difficult . That's even before you take the stigma of your address into account.

If money becomes tight but you still have the basics of your former life then you have the prospect of pulling yourself back up again. When circumstances hit you so hard you are thrown on the scrap heap your chances of pulling yourself back up again diminish rapidly both in practical terms and in terms of the stigma which then taints the way potential employers now view you.

hecuba - that must be really tough. i work with really closely with someone who was unemployed for 9 months before i hired him. he did not have large savings or any family help but had a very different experience than you. i dont have any answer as to why.

Well said rabbit and once. I can't decide if people are in denial or are too blinded by living in a better off area.

We are struggling big time, about to lose everything including our DC but have good enough view of the bigger picture to realise there are people in an even worse state.

rabbitstew makes some very good points.
It is easy to be economical when you have all those resources. It is much more difficult to be economical when you live in hostel or B&B accommodation, for example, or crappy rentals with slot meters and poor insulation so that you're spending way more than people in conventional housing for things like heating and lighting.

Have name changed for this particular post. I was homeless for two years and would like to tell the people who refuse to believe there is poverty in the UK a few facts:

Living in a hostel - no washing machine. Had to use launderette, which used more than 15% of my total weekly income.
Slot meters for heating/lighting. Very, very expensive. Hostel room very poorly insulated. Single glazed with night storage heaters.
Poor public transport made shopping difficult and expensive. Had to use the corner shop for basics (expensive) or do a £4.50 round trip to 'proper' shops. £4.50 represented just under 5% of my total weekly income.
No home phone. No contract for mobile as 'no fixed aboide'. Standard PAYG rate - very expensive (although better deals may be had now).
Nappies - 20% of total weekly income.
No refrigerator and no proper cooking facilities (2 electric hobs (expensive) and a kettle) meant shopping on almost daily basis. See above re shopping...
People who say poverty doesn't exist in the UK and 'prove their point' by making comparisons to third world countries are misguided at best, callous at worst IMO.

For a family of 4 including nappies. You don't seem to be able to recognise the reality of life for many in the UK today. There are 100s of families living like this and many trying to cope with a lot worse. The numbers are growing daily.

hecuba - do you mean £25-30 for a couple or family?

someone mentioned up thread have you checked you are getting all the benefits you are entitled to?

its opting out of consumerism

rabbit - i had to double check what parsimony meant. i dont see what i do as 'Unusual or excessive frugality; extreme economy or stinginess', i do see it as:

1. the type of food we all need to eat to reduce global food costs so people in developing countries benefit.
2. a way of avoiding being sold a load of processed rubbish
3. a way of healthy eating

whats not to like?

£25-30, you cope by skipping meals.

We don't spend much on food, either. However, we do have a nice kitchen to prepare our food in (cooker and gas hob and microwave, double sink, work surfaces), a fridge and a freezer, and cupboards in which to store our staples and keep them away from vermin, rather than living in temporary accommodation without proper access to cooking facilities. We also have a car, so don't need to go shopping every day - we can fit going out to work and shopping and cooking into our day. And we have a garden in which we can grow our own vegetables (or keep our own chickens if we wanted to). And we understand enough about food and its preparation to ensure that we are getting a healthy, well balanced diet. And we have knives, chopping boards, saucepans, frying pans, etc. And my mother taught me an awful lot about kitchen hygiene, food preparation, budgeting, etc. It's all incredibly easy to eat cheaply and well on that basis. It's considerably harder work if some or all of those elements are missing. It would also be bad economic news for the companies that sell crisps, chocolate, alcohol, takeaways, etc, if everyone were very self sufficient. Capitalism doesn't like parsimony very much.

so how much would someone who thinks £25 per week per adult is a luxury, actually spend on food (& household goods like washing up liquid etc. thats included in the above figure)?

Don't you see though, to many people £50 per week for food would be a luxury.

DP & i spend about £50 per week on food (organic, high welfare, fairtrade).

(this week its £42.15, last week £47.64, sometimes it 50 something)

we make bread & eat a little fish, no meat, a few eggs, at little cheese, mainly global staples (rice, pasta, lentils, beans), seasonal veg. we eat really well.

my jaw falls off when i see what other people spend on food & it does tie into the OPs comment on relative poverty.

Yes in the good times people chose cheap food so they could go on holiday, buy luxury goods etc. However cheap food was always a necessity for a proportion of the population. With the current economic conditions more and more people are falling into that category.

They are faced with the choice of cheap food or no food. I'm sure we can at least agree that eating something is essential to staying alive long term. I don't want others to suffer but my family have to come first. I really don't think allowing myself and my family to starve is going to significantly help anyone, anywhere. The only possible benefit really is giving snobs the satisfaction of getting rid of some more poor scum.

i agree about the downturn decreasing choice - but cheap food is what the majority of people chose in the good times. they had money to buy lots of other things (e.g. the high street was really busy on Saturday) but thier choice was to buy cheap food...

...so we have large stores selling cheap food that have been consitently on the rise for decades.

rabbit i dont think large numbers of people care sufficiently to make any personal sacrifice or limit their choices, & IMO the ignorance and the incorrect assumptions are part of keeping the status quo. this belief is based on different campaigning i did when younger (womens rights, environmentalism, social justice). we are a free country - its very far from perfect just much better than the alternatives.

The downturn turns it into a necessity for more people.

No cheap food isn't due to the downturn but the downturn changes cheap food from a desire to a necessity for many people.

it's also very interesting how little certain people, such as catontheroof, understand what poverty actually is

Poverty is defined as an inability to participate in the social norms of a given culture/society.

So for example if you live in a tribe in the Amazon, you could well consider yourself wealthy if you have more vegetables than the family next door.

On the other hand if you live in a country where owning a laptop is the only way you can interact with the world beyond the four walls of your home, and the majority of people in your society own one, but you can't afford one, then this is poverty.
Or a telephone. Modern living requires that you own a telephone, preferably a mobile. You can'T even apply for a job without one. Again, if you can't afford one, when owning one is the social norm then you are poor.

You could reasonably say that in a developed country such as the UK, a person who can never afford to go to a restaurant, or who has trouble affording to run a car, is poor.

What nonsense it is to go on about water and vaccines in the third world... such ignorance.