To be really upset to read on MN

[shootingstarz]

That parents are going without food because they can?t afford to feed their kids.

i am not sneering at anyone - but i know a number of people very well who live on benefits & dont experience anything like what is described here:

1. 2 X relatives, single males on IB
2. A family of three, parents unemployed for 9 months (i hired on the them)
3. A family living on in work benefits

so if i read something very different than i see in RL, its not being nasty to think why the difference?

Laundrettes are really expensive anyway. I used one when our machine was broken and I spent about £20 in a week! And it wasn't clean.

I expect a lot of people think that the poor should go back to the dark ages and wash by hand. And on that note do the poor actually need food from the supermarket? there are plenty of foxes and rats around. Perhaps hunting skills should be part of the national curriculum. Some people won't be happy until we are back in Victorian Britain.

I started c&p your posts to respond and then decided that there is little point. You are feeling attacked by me when in actual fact I was responding to your posts which refer to "personal choice" in buying a lottery ticket as opposed to a box of weetabix, loaf of bread or magical bloody unicorn.

I agree that this is a pointless argument.

why the difference?

surely it isn't beyond your comprehension that different people have different circumstances and that while your friends may be comfortable on their incomes other people, for any number of reasons are struggling so much that they can't afford to eat 3 times a day. why is that so hard for people to get?

BTW if you asked my family or anyone that knows me (apart from best friend) they would all tell you i was coping well and was the happiest person they know. people tend not to tell all in sundry when they are struggling (based on some response in thsi thread it isn't hard to imagine why)

WasabiTillyMinto I'll share a weight loss story,just for you ;)

A while back, I had 2 young children and there was no work about where I lived, none at all (quite rural area). So we took a risk and moved cross country to where ExP grew up as there was some work going there. It swallowed what ottos savings we had to move, but we had to go where the work was, so did it. There was no subsidised housing (thanks for that, Maggie) and HB didn't cover all our rent. For 6 months,we got by and did ok, albeit on a payday to payday basis, then ExP lost his job due to the company folding. It took over a year before he found anything else. During that year on benefits, after paying bills (metered gas and electric and rent top up) we had £23 a week to feed 2 adults, 2 toddlers and a dog. We got some help with the odd delivery of dog food from a local charity but couldn't rehome her as we had rescued her when the RSPCA were unwilling unable to step in, and she had some issues. She would have been put down if she had gone to a shelter.

During that time, I often went without or just ate the kids leftovers. My weight went down to just over 6 stone. I am average height. At one point I had a living room of coppers who were trying to raid the junkie next door but due to some admin snafu had a warrant with our address on it, so I had them in to sit down for a cuppa while they tried to get a new warrant sorted. One of them saw a family photo on the wall of me with DS2 just after he was born, so carrying the baby weight still, and commented on the weight loss. He suggested that maybe the snafu wasn't a waste of time after all as they could just have a look round my house for whatever had caused me to lose so much weight. So not only did I look like Skeletor's ashen faced sister, apparently I also looked like a junkie

Now consider that this was almost 10 years ago. Benefits have risen slightly in that time but food costs have spiralled. Back then I could get a loaf of bread, 3 tins of beans, pack of pasta and 3 tins of tomatoes for less than a quid. At a push, that is 6 meals. Now it is more than 30p just for one tin of tomatoes.

I don't recall the exact numbers, but I read something recently that said that 15 years ago a weeks JSA would buy you 187 loaves of bread. Today it would buy you 45 loaves. So no, I don't find it hard to believe that people are struggling to find money to eat at all, let alone well. If that is a long term situation for someone then of course they are going to lose weight. The longer it goes on, the more they will lose until they reach the Skeletor stage.

There are so many factors that affect how people live on benefits- but the three key ones are:

How much debt they have (bear in mind this can be acrued debt when working before illness / redundancy etc)

Whether they have a council house or have to top up private rent- if we ended up on our arses tomorrow for example the lease is signed until December and we wouldn;t be able to just move

Whether they have family to help

We are still OK but have significantly cut food expenditure and a Tax Credit overpayment means we are losing most income ebtween now and the new financial year. If Dh didn;t work at all- say was sick or whatever- we'd be stuffed. As it is next eyar will be ahrd; I am tryoing to get some consultancy work and register with an agency but despite almost having my MA most agencies are saying no becuase I have not worked for 2 years (been studying and a carer) but they need a work reference less than 2 years old.

\as for people going without food it ahppens; a friend used to have a zero hour contract and every time she had a 0 hour week she would need to start claims again, meaning she would go a few weeks sometimes with zero income.

I started to read this and then gt to page 7 and had to post.

we are in the same position. we have no money and living off benefits.

5 months ago we were living a very nice life abroad etc etc. saved.did all that. and then dh stopped paying him.but we were mid east and you can get in serious trouble for non payment of rent, car loans etc. no pay for 4 month and years rent=total wipeout for us.

so we came home and slowly slowly we are getting there. but we budget like no tomorrow , i cook from scratch, we have no treats,and still we have to cutback on meals so ds has food.

heck i am rambling -but what I am trying to say is you never know until it happens to you.

you never realise tthe desperation you will feel when applying for a job and hope you will get it but you hear nothing back. the guilt you feel when your ds loses his first tooth and you make a lovely little tooth fairy bag and put in the pennies that actually later that day you are gonna have to use those pennies to buy milk..

It is not just about budgeting its about self esteem andpride and on the outside of my four walls no one would even have a clue. because we would be judged wouldnt we????

More on the weightloss - I remember a long-ago thread where a poster talked about her abusive ex leaving her with dcs and (his) debts, so that what she lived on were 10p packets of biscuits. It wasn't till much later when she was in a much better financial situation that she managed to lose all the weight.

It is very, very possible to be overweight and malnourished.

meant dh's company stooped paying him.

LMAO at launderette

The closest one to me requires a car to access it!

I remember parents not havingg a machine for years, it broke and Dad decided Mum was lazy and didn;t need one; with 3 kids and Dad in manual work she used to do a bath load of washing every other day, with no hot water. We never looked properly clean, and Mum's life as I remember it was bloody awful- chapped hands from cold water and soap, and hours a day scrubbing. No ta. I dread my machine going, I really do, would be horrid- ds3 can easily get through sheets and 2 changes of clothes a day.

'It is not just about budgeting its about self esteem andpride and on the outside of my four walls no one would even have a clue. because we would be judged wouldnt we????

Us too, with the exception of my GP

MN is oen thing, the mums over the schoolyard another entirely

I can believe this - we are far frompoor but hardly loaded. I have to really think and plan some weeks what we will eat so we can afford other stuff like new tyres on the car etc. 2 years ago I didnt have this worry.

if us as a comfortable family have had to adjust ourlifestyle and food shopping like this then those poorer families with less leeway in their overall income must be finding it really bloody hard.

I think it is sad in genuine cases of poverty.

my experience in the 80's (mum was a single parent on benefits and we all went without food/shoes/heating) and then our recent experience means that while we are still skint (but managing) I have turned into a food hoarder.
If I see a bargain like 50kg lentils for 10p or somesuch I buy it. I now have enough dried pulses to feed the city but I cant hep it. I'm so afraid of being without again.
Drives dh mad.

Thank you sancti:

1. 2 X relatives, single males on IB

one lives in own home, mortgage paid by benefits, no family help. one with his mother, probably does get money from her.

1. A family of three, parents unemployed for 9 months (i hired on the them)

own home, mortgage paid by benefits, no family help.

1. A family living on in work benefits

own home, interest only mortage, small amount of family help, some debts

i can definitely see the family help making a difference. its interesting you mentioned debt. its a pity benefits money cannot be ringfinced so it cannot be used to pay debts. it would force better lending practices by banks etc.

You're right Haziedoll. And you haven't thought it through HintofBream. Being without the internet contributes to the Poverty Premium.

In fact the first item mentioned in this report is Lack of access to the best online prices.

It's expensive to be poor.

Wouldn't that drive people into the arms of illegal moneylenders, wasabi?

I really wish people would stop justifying themselves because there is no fucking need. Why can nothing ever be taken at face value? Relative poverty is still poverty.

I tell you this, I find it very easy to be understanding of bed-wetting, etc, because yI have a washing-machine!

My mother was positively Victorian about it, and I completely understand why.

plomino

"its a pity benefits money cannot be ringfinced so it cannot be used to pay debts"

How would debts get paid off then if people lost their jobs?

What makes me so mad about those that say anyone in Britain claiming poverty must be in that position because of choices they made is that it is an excuse to ignore the situation or justify not making things better for people.

How easy it is for someone with enough money to think they would be able to manage on much less without missing meals because they can budget better or shop more wisely or cook more frugally.

dp & I were discussing how lucky we were to never reach our potential earnings before buying (cheapish) house and then me becoming disabled. If we'd had a big mortgage, then lost job dueto disability, we'd be bolloxed

I think the fact that we have rickets and TB coming back says it all about the way we treat the poorest in society. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime, I really didn't. And I hugely resent people insinuating that fecklessness is effectively at the root of all this. If you have major public health issues and decreased longevity for some members of the population, then it is everyone's fault and everyone's problem, and we bloody well need to sort it out instead of bleating about how some people spend the money on things we don't approve of. It's not rocket science.

FFS.