To be really upset to read on MN

[shootingstarz]

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

In the UK? I don't believe it.

There is a lot more poverty in the UK than you would believe. Hence there being so many foodbanks

sunshine i actually mentioned that scenario further down the thread (about having food vouchers not much good if you got no fuel to cook it with) but everyone ignoed me

I can well believe this as I know of several families that have been in my position, none of whom were 'feckless' (by which I expect people mean spending money on frivolous/non essential stuff). They were forced into this hardship through no fault of their own. They had to rely on foodbanks.

A lot of people just don't want to believe it happens. Its a combination of callousness, ignorance and fear.

NB I don't mean 'my' position, I mean 'their' position. Despite being one of the working poor I'm lucky enough to have never had to use one myself.

I know this happens, my family and I (me, DH and both DD's) are lucky in that we have not experienced it ourselves. We have come close a couple of times, but I keep a well stocked kitchen, because we can afford to. I also know that if the worst were to happen DH and I can ask either my parents or MIL and Step-FIL for help and we know that it will be given. We are very lucky as I can imagine not a lot of people have that kind of support.

My SIL (DH's step sister) on the other hand struggles to afford enough food to see them through most weeks. Her parents wont help (DH's step-Mum and Dad)
DH and I help her as much as possible as she has no one else who gives a crap about her. We usually buy an extra bag of pasta/rice, some extra tins of tomatoes, extra cereals and longlife milk when we do out shopping for her. I wish we could do more for her TBH, but we don't lend money unless we can afford to loose it, which is never
I often invite her and the kids round for lunch or dinner so that she has a couple of less meals to worry about a week.

I see SIL struggle from one week to the next and do the best she can for my Dnieces and Dnephews and I feel so for her. She is a lovely person, who would have been fine if her partner and father of her children hadn't walked away and left her on her own. She would have been able to work, she says she cannot wait for the kids to be at school so she can get back to work.

Some of the stories on here are just heartbreaking :(.

As I said before, I'm 'working poor' but compared to some on here I'm living the life of riley.

we should be trying to emulate France and not the US by the sounds of it. The poverty in the US is shocking.

I see the proposals I put forward as being eminently affordable - reduced healthcare and benefit costs in the medium term, greater societal stability in the long term. Which is why many of these things were pioneered in the 1950s. If we could afford it them, we can afford it now.

I think a big part of the problem is the cumbersome nature of the benefit system, and how disconnected it seems to be from the realities of life and work today, SchoolsNightmare.

Boffin I respectfully disagree! I don't think reducing healthcare is the way forward. My parents currently live in the UK and my mother waited 15 months, with very dangerous consequences, for an operation she would have had within a couple of weeks had she been back in France!

For those 15 months, she was off work sick for roughly 25% of the time, losing money, creating problems for her employer and costing the state money in sick pay!

Would it not have been better for her to have the operation quickly and be back at work, fully recovered within a month?

Luckily my dad retires soon and they will be retiring to France! I can't imagine how worried I would be to have elderly parents in the UK :(

whatme I find your posts incredibly offensive. While there are some children in poverty due to their parents irresponsibility the vast majority have hard working honest parents who are doing their best trying to cope with whatever difficulty that they are facing. Lets face it parents spending their food budget on drugs for example are highly unlikely to be the same parents who do without for the sake of their dc.

I admit I haven't spent 100% of our money on food. I have selfishly spent some on such fripperies as rent, CT, nappies, gas and electricity.

Sadly disbelief and the denial of something's existance does not make it disappear. If only it were that simple. Sadly there are a lot of parents in the UK doing without the basics for the sake of their DC. The vast majority are hard working, honest and loving parents who have fallen on hard times be it through redundancy, illness, death of a partner or relationship breakdown.

Plomino, What a lovely thing to do. I hope one day we all get back to helping those around us instead of judging them!

Sadly shooting judging is regarded as more fun and kicking someone while they are down is easy.

The world would be a better place if people could be nicer to each other. By nice I just mean stop insulting each other. Unfortunately human nature being what it is it isn't going to happen.

Many real life stories on this thread are heartbreaking and inspire the phrase ' but for the grace of God, I go'.
However having worked in stints as part of charitable projects in the developing world on several occasions and having witnessed heart wrenching conditions parents and children live through everyday, my humble opinion is not to use the word poverty lightly.
The choices made by families everyday there made me realise how generous the benefits system in the uk is and people in the UK do not realise how fortunate we are!

reduced healthcare costs!!!!
Not reduced healthcare!!!

Yes the UK could be a lot worse. It is offensive though when people suggest 'you aren't struggling' or worse 'you must be irresponsible with money'

i believe this as i do it alot! i have three kiddies and like a lot of others have said, by the end of the month, we are broke

i will usually have breakfast and skip lunch and have a bag of crisps at work for tea. i will always make sure my kids are fed. they need it more than me! we shop at aldi as it is, which is really cheap anyway so i cant change my shopping habits.

it used to break my heart but im used to it now :) its normal everday life for us! i dnt feel poor either. i have a warm house and a car to go places! plus my kids are amazing and have a great lil life! no worries, stress or abuse! ! things could b sooo much worse couldnt they??????

Sunshine and Sheepgomeep: about having food vouchers not much good if you got no fuel to cook it with

Surely it would be better to have cold, cheap food rather than no food at all?

I currently get £3.10 per week in food vouchers, if it was £20 (and could be spent on a wider variety of food) I would know every night when I worry about everything that me and my family would not go seriously hungry. £20 is not enough for a great diet for 4 people each week, but would be enough to be a food safety net for when the money runs out. It obviously wouldn't solve all problems - such as electricity, fuel to cook food, but not all food needs to be cooked.

If everyone who receives child tax credit received some of it in food vouchers this would remove the stigma of the food vouchers - they wouldn't just be for the extremely poor.

Parents might still go without on bad weeks, but at least there would never be a week when no food could be bought at all.

yeah great.. ham sandwiches everyday, salad in the cold winter months.

No thanks. Id rather my family ate at least one hot meal everyday

Ah but the poor don't deserve to eat sheep they need to be punished, being poor is not punishment enough. That's the impression some people give me anyway.

I am deeply offended by the 'poverty contest' posts on this thread, claiming that UK poverty isn't poverty because it's not as bad as some other places. We have families relying on charity for food. We have increasing poverty-related suicides, increasing pensioner deaths from hypothermia, increasing incidence of malnutrition and poverty-related sicknesses, rickets and TB, have returned.

Saying "it's not so bad" is invalidating and insulting. If deaths and sickness aren't bad enough for you, how bad would you like it to be? Would you prefer UK parents to be putting young children on buses to the capital - knowing they will be exploited, but might not starve? Perhaps you want rural British parents to sell their girls into prostitution, so as to afford food for the rest of the family? Will it be bad enough for you when our 7-year-olds are working factory jobs with toxic chemicals, too?

The UK welfare system is failing to the extent that it causes avoidable death and sickness. This is your country. How do you feel about that, really?

There are foodbanks in the UK in many places now which can help.

I have recently been out of work but because there is only me and DS we haven't had to face this thankfully.

I am also able to manage food on a budget by doing things like fried egg on toast with baked beans etc - very cheap and nutritious meal. DS and I have this at least twice a week.

Dried pasta is cheap and can be mixed with a variety of things to make a meal - it doesn't have to be mince. I sometimes serve it with veggies and a bit of ham.

Because I am a carer to DS he gets free school meals at the moment but I am about to do some ad-hoc work for my old employer so this might change (I hope).

I absolutely KNOW some families struggle financially and this leads to adults going hungry to feed the children....and please nobody tell me it's rubbish because I HAVE SEEN IT!

We also have a whole load of young people who have never been taught to cook or how to make the most of a budget for nutrition....our childrens centre was tackling this but sadly "call me Dave" has shut them down! Hey ho!

I'm a pensioner and I have salad for lunch every day. Basically, lettuce, tomato and cucumber with a quarter of a tin of salmon or a piece of cheese or hard boiled egg. A bit of vinegar to moisten it.

My breakfast is 50g muesli with skimmed milk and my supper tonight was potato, carrot and onion mashed together, frozen sprouts and frozen cauliflower. I've given up buying meat except for reduced price lambs' liver and and reduced lamb kidney. I also buy apples and clementines.

I'm lucky in that I lived during the War and know how to prioritise what I eat. I don't buy crisps or cake or fizzy drinks. Apart from black tea, I have only Asda Smartprice orange juice to drink.