Active discussions

Help end medical misogyny. Sign our petition.

Help end medical misogyny.
Sign our petition.

Sign the petition

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Original poster

How often do you buy a Big Issue?

79 replies

Chilliandrice24 · 12/06/2024 16:55

I read that Big Issue sellers buy the magazines for £2 and sell them for £4. It made me think that they probably make very little per day as I never see anyone stopping to buy one. I occasionally buy one but not often. I wouldn’t think they make the minimum wage per hour at that rate.

We have one Big Issue seller in my town who is popular as people stop and chat to her and she has been in her spot for years. The other three I never see people buying. I feel bad to pass them now I realise they make so little.

Do you ever buy one, do you pay the exact price and do you see other people buying them?

OP posts:
FluffyJellyCat · 07/06/2026 17:22

None of the sellers near me are registered as sellers. Also one definitely gets the £45 a day train ticket from London and changes into her 'uniform' to sell in the very posh town. So on that basis that anyone can buy and resell.... no

RaraRachael · 07/06/2026 17:29

Tbh I've never seen anyone selling it.

Griever · 07/06/2026 17:34

This thread is two years old

Joycomesinthemorn · 08/06/2026 10:45

ComtesseDeSpair · 13/06/2024 10:23

What happened to the demographic of homeless people who used to sell the BI? Is that it? They’ve been pushed out?

Several things happened to them - some of them good. Firstly, we significantly reduced the rough sleeping problem: there are now far fewer rough sleepers and long term homeless people than there were in the early years of the Big Issue’s formation. Secondly, there was a lot of investment in the support sector from the late nineties onwards and it did a lot of excellent work, including developing programmes and initiatives which enabled homeless people to become socially and financially included - such as work with the DWP and with a couple of high street banks, enabling them to set up basic bank accounts using the address of e.g. a night shelter or day service so they could claim benefits. Many of the “traditional” Big Issue sellers simply didn’t need to sell it anymore, they’d taken a step out of their former life.

Also (and partially as a result of the above) the profile of the average rough sleeper is now quite different to the stereotypical British man with various comorbid issues: when I stopped working in the homelessness sector some years ago the majority of our service users were actually from the newly ascended EU countries and weren’t eligible for benefits: they’d typically travelled to the U.K. seeking work but having few skills and poor English weren’t able to find any; weren’t able to claim benefits; and ended up on the streets. There is still a core of “traditional” street homeless vendor - men who have drifted for decades, sometimes housed for a while then losing the housing due to not keeping up with rent or ASB, battling addiction interspersed with periods of recovery, time spent in prison etc but they no longer make up the majority of those experiencing homelessness.

What do you mean by traditional homeless vendor? And if the BI has no expanded and able to include homeless people & other vulnerable people why would that be a problem?

New posts on this thread. Refresh page