Poor Kids

[NearlySpring]

Documentary on BBC1 now.

Sat here in tears watching this show following children living in poverty.

One woman, with 3 young girls all under 8. Her partner left her alone and she is struggling with money. The girls were given a sausage roll each for dinner. They are let out to play on a building site and derelict houses- where the he'll is the mother? Mother comes on saying how she can't cope financially- kids saying they have to miss meals as mummy can't always afford food. Next scene, mother has acrylic nails and a massive dog!

AIBU to ask if she can't afford to feed her kids basic cheap meals how the he'll does she feed a massive dog that is bigger than her 3 kids put together!

It must be terrible to be in that situation but surely you get your priorities straight. Who has a pet if they have no money?!!

Do you know what going to really hit people on benefits hard this year, food shopping. I shop at Tesco every week online. Things i bought in the winter are no longer available. I usually buy my daughter Value tuna and sweetcorn sandwich filler. She is a fussy eater and tends to eat the same thing. They were 52p last week. They have now doubled the size and are charging £2. I cant get this as it will go out of date before i use it. I now have to buy the normal Tesco one at £1.50 for the same size. This has happened loads over the past month. Things i normal buy every week are no longer available or have doubled in price. My shoppig bill is increasing dramatically.

That's what a base rate of 0.5% gives you.

Bankers make loads of money. The middle classes mortgage payments shrink. Poor people can't afford to eat.

It;s poor.

Fifi - can you not buy a tin of tuna and make your own?

Mrs Bethel- do only the middle classes own homes now then?

Tesco value tuna is 48p than you have to buy sweetcorn and mayo as well so it is more expensive.

Mortgage payments shrink? Brilliant - when is that going to happen exactly?

sweetcorn 32p Mayo 38p

Lots of food is going up. Tesco value butter went from 98p to £1.10 in a week. Thats way more than inflation and anyhow, many have pay freezes.

Yes of course i can if the dd would eat the value mayo which taste weird. There is vary little she eats and i can feed her very cheaply. I was using this as an example. There are not many things she likes but she likes this. The value range at tesco has completely changed and has pract illy doubled. The tesco normal brand doesnt seem to have increaed much nor have the sizes of the items doubled in size or in price

Yes lots of things have actually doubled in price some in just a couple of weeks.

lovecorrie the interest rates have been so low that anyone nt on a fixed deal has found themselves with extremely low repayments.

of course not only the middle classes own their owm homes but mrs bethel made a good point.

"The middle class mortgage payments shrink"-pmsl.

It's very hard to get good deals.You need a huge deposit,huge loan to value(unlikely given prices are dropping).They wack on huge fees too.DP is currently looking as it's our time to re-mortgage and there is nothing better than we already have.

A lot of people paying mortgages live on the same or less on a weekly basis than people who get help with their rent and are on benefits so enough with the bitchy comments. I have friends seriously struggling paying a tiny mortgage.

A lot of people are having houses repossessed you might want to remember that.

Thanks MilaMae - and lets not forget that you don't get any hb if you suddenly find yourself out of work - which has happened to us. Don't want to start a debate on this as it's really irrelevant to the topic, but I do wish peoplw ouldn't assume that being a 'homeowner' = immunity to struggle.

I thought you could get HB toward a mortgage due to loss of work. May be wrong

It would have to kick in pdq to stall huge debts. Can you get it if a partner is working? Would you get it for the whole lot?If you've lost a job which pays the mortgage a couple of hundred aint going to cut much ice with the bank if your repayments are 1k a month.If said partners wages is a fraction of the mortgage their job will be pretty meaningless if the main breadwinner goes tits up.

And when families are repossessed they go to the bottom of all queues as they're not in the system.If families don't keep up with their mortgage payments they end up homeless.

These are tough times for a lot of families not just those on benefits in public housing.

Can't get it, or any other DWP benefits if partner is working, which mine is - part time. I was the main earner. If we both were out of work we would be a lot better off! madness.

only the interest on hb.
but private landlords get buy to let mortgages if they can show market rent is 20% (I think) higher than mortgage repayments. The hb is then restricted to the local market rent (they plan to reduce this to 90%?) It would obviously be 20% cheaper for the council to buy to let, not pay hb public money to private landlords. My disability assistant has been evicted twice when private landlords sell up or get repo'd; she's always paid her rent, still ends up homeless with 2 kids. council won't even put her on the list, there are no houses.

I know i had my house repossessed and lived in homeless accomodation for 8 months. One of my friends used to get her interest paid on her mortgage but i think she had to change her mortgage

Penalties for doing that can be as high as 3K.

Shes working again now but it meant she didint loose her house and have to got through the homeless system. I dont know much about it TBH

Got to catch up on the thread later, think I got to about page 14. I have watched it now. I really can't believe the judginess now. I was expecting the false nails mum to be some glammed up tart by the way some posters were talking earlier. I wouldn't have even noticed the nails if I hadn't read the threads FFS, I am astounded that people were picking up on that. She didn't exactly look like she was spending loads of money on herself. Jeez.

Such a sad film. We are in poverty ourselves but nothing like that thank goodness. I think a lot of that is down to luck. We could've ended up in a much worse area, if we hadn't borrowed a bit from my parents we would've ended up on a key for electric and be paying over the odds... Etc. There but for the grace of God go we.

I recognised my DH in Sam, so similar, he looked just like that as a boy and had similar issues with clothes, hair etc. He wasn't called mopatop or girly names though, everyone called him Stig of the Dump.

smashing I don't think that only middle classes own their houses now. I am quite proud to be 'working class' and own my house but I'm aware that I have been lucky and worked hard, as do many other people.
Anyway how are we quantifying working class anyway these days as it seems to be a bit all encompassing?
Poor social housing can effect anyone whether they are middle class, working class et al. Sometimes things happen of their own volition and we never know where we may end up!

Oh I've just realised that there's another bethel about... sorry smashing and hello fellow bethel!

Yes you can get the interest paid on your mortgage after being on a means tested benefit for 3 months. However, most people who have been working will be entitled to 6 months of unemployment benefit when they first lose their jobs. This 6 months of money is not means tested.

This means thus that you often have to be unemployed for 9 months before you get any help with the interest in your mortgage. Lots of people couldn't manage for 9 months and they will lose theire homes.

I think you should get help with the interest on a mortgage much much sooner.