to ask all the skint and struggling people: what would help you the most?

[dreamingbohemian]

I think it's clear that a lot of people are struggling right now. I'm on the thread about parents going without food and it's terrible what some people are going through.

It's also clear that there are a lot of judgmental attitudes, and that the government is not all that interested in tackling the problem.

But you can also see a lot of people are sympathetic and want to help, and are horrified that we are returning to a situation where people have to go without food.

There have been a number of good ideas on that thread, but I thought it might be good to start a new thread to not just talk about the problem, but about how we can all try to do something about it -- whether it's signing petitions, putting pressure on the government, or volunteering or donating in our local communities.

So AIBU to start by asking people who are struggling right now to talk about the top one or two things that would help them out the most? So that we are not focusing our attention on things that might not be the most helpful?

Or, on the flip side, is anyone engaged in anything right now that seems to be helping a lot of people?

I don't want to just be horrified, I want to do something...

I don't know...but just want to say, how nice of you to be thinking like this :)

I am seriously, seriously struggling with my teenage son at the moment - although we're just about getting by.

Keep on keeping on CrockoDuck - I'm just about heading into the teenage years here with DD 13 in a week or two All the best with your DS. How are things ?

Boffin you have my sympathies on the nightmare tenants!

Can I ask a question though? Hope not too tangential, I'm just really interested in how we can promote more of a rental culture, and I've always wondered this:

Do you ask for references from prospective tenants?
Because I would think I could be wrong though! that nightmare tenants have sort of always been nightmares, so would not be able to get good references.

Here in France there is definitely more of a rental culture and tenants have an insane amount of rights -- but because of this, I think landlords are a lot more particular about who they rent to. So tenants have more of an incentive to keep in shape.

So I'm just wondering what would make it easier for you to find better tenants. I thought the Shelter campaign for London was interesting, it sounds like they want to basically have a list of somewhat vetted potential tenants and landlords.

Rhubarb Okay maybe a little extreme, but I share your confusion about why people aren't swarming over Westminster.

I mean, they announced today that the recession continues and will continue. Even if you agreed with Osborne ideologically which I don't clearly whatever they are doing is not working. So shouldn't they be trying something else, instead of clinging to the same old platitudes?

I feel like people are upset but not angry, I don't know why.

Yes I def do think its the chaotic lifestyle but I think it prob stems from the financial situation that perhaps leads to the chaos as when tines get hard everything seems to slide and get a little crazy. I agree on the nits thing as well. My dd goes into school hair combed and ties up tightly to within an inch of her life! However lots of girls with long hair go in with it down and tangled and uncombed leading to the spread of nits.

I'm obsessive about checking for nits and keeping my girls in clean clothes for school, but I do understand about the chaotic lifestyle!

I'm a full-time medical student, with no husband or family around to help out, so I rush around like a headless chicken most days. Today, we left the house at 7.30 am and didn't get home (following after school care, DD2's gym session, then a problem with lost keys) until after 9.30pm! Homework not done, so will have to get them up early tomorrow... Housework is reduced to the bare minimum these days :(

I only have time for laundry on Sundays right now. If my kids didn't have enough clothes to last the week, I can quite understand how they would be wearing dirty clothes to school by Friday! (Luckily friends have passed quite a few clothes on to us recently, so we have plenty!). But I'm sure I'm not the only busy single mum struggling to keep on top of everything :-/

Yes, Chundle, poverty does provoke chaos ime. I'm sure some people are better equipped for it psychologically, but I've been shocked at how much it changed me. Constantly, constantly worrying about unpaid bills - and making impossible choices between paying a bill and buying food or shampoo - causes a build-up of anxiety that fries your brain!

My thinking is all hopelessly short-term: everything hand to mouth, everything a matter of ekeing stuff out and counting the days to the next payment. I've lost sight of the value of money. When £5 feels like a good amount, a £300 windfall feels like a million ... and, since I owe so much all the time, can't be saved anyway.

Mistakes - like forgetting about a direct debit - and accidents, like something breaking down, cause an intense crisis and serious long-term repercussions. You become obsessed by small amounts of money.

You might not be able to do any laundry because your machine's broken and there's no hot water. You might not, actually, be capable of sponging down the uniform because your anxiety is at such a screaming pitch you can't cope with the smallest setback. There are more children than we like to admit, living in homes with NO FURNITURE outside of a few blankets, whose parent's can't get it together to find assistance and have become hopeless.

I've always been good at budgeting and, I guess, live okay for my circumstances. But the loss of control is horrendous. It affects everything in your life: everything. I live in fear, I'm sad to say.

Just one out of many fears: being put on a water limiter. I haven't paid my water rates and they won't give me a meter until the debt's cleared (no chance of that.) Likewise, my housing benefit's been cut and will be again - I fall foul of the 'bedroom tax'. My landlords reduced my rent, thank goodness, but they're free to change their mind at any time.

Fear. And these are rational fears, not "what ifs". It fucks with your head.

Blimey, I used a superfluous apostrophe Writing that post must have made me emotional!!

Dreamingbohemian, I use a reputable letting agent and I have always asked for references, but people are not very straightforward in what they say. You'd have to be a member of MI5 to get to the bottom of what some people have been up to in the past. The law is not really on our side.

I think the whole thing is always going to be very fraught, but it would be helpful if landlords were allowed to evict people for non payment of rent more quickly in certain circumstances, for example when tenants have clearly and obviously done a runner. At the moment we have to try to give notice that they will have to relinquish their tenancy without actually knowing where they are, and then we have to try to trace them for non-payment of rent and any damage costs without officially tracing them, IYSWIM, to try to get an attachment of earnings order, but people who have a habit of doing this are very slippery and the law actually allows them to wriggle out of their obligations. We are talking about people earning £50K+ a year, by the way - not people have housing benefit cashflow issues.

Thanks Boffin, that's interesting. The whole thing seems crazy.

I can't think of many landlords that would heartlessly turf people out with genuine HB problems, or who were made unexpectedly redundant, but who kept paying a bit when they could. The troublemakers generally stop paying altogether, and are unapologetic about it.

DH and I have been talking about this tonight and I will be contacting my local Sure Start Centre to see if we can help.

Another idea I had was about donating my Nectar Points. We've built up quite a bit this year and don't do anything with them. It would be an easy way to give a family a buffer - some points that they can use when things are tight. Maybe the supermarkets could set up a facility where I could donate my points. I can't think of a way an outside company could do it.

Boffin -- I think you're being a bit optimistic there.... at least in London, where rents are always going up and demand is high, landlords will look for any excuse to turf tenants and jack up the rent.

You sound like a really lovely landlord yourself but oh my word, the landlords I had in London! Nothing like signing a 6 month lease and then having the landlord raise the rent £500 a month...

I know there are nightmare tenants but as long as landlords can pull tricks like that, there are going to be serious obstacles to the rental culture.

That's why I like the Shelter campaign, it basically says there are nightmare tenants AND landlords, let's try to address both.

Evilberry -- that's a great idea! Is there really nothing you can do with Nectar points? or Boots points? I think Sainsburys and Boots could score a lot of good publicity if they came up with some way to donate these...

Nectar is an outside company! Put it to them :)

That is a fantastic idea. I rarely buy things in Boots but when I do I am always being given vouchers for make-up and usually try to find someone browsing the counters to pass them onto. Sometimes I find myself with money-off vouchers in Sainsbury's which I know I can't use before the expiry date and do the same thing.

I wouldn't hold your breath on Boots doing anything that doesn't profit them.

Our local Sainsburys lets you leave the schools vouchers at the till if you don't need them and passes them on to the next customer who does so they get used.

I was told by a friend who worked for Boots some years ago, they had an offer of collecting vouchers for soft toys, which lots of people didn't want and wanted to donate. Our local store put collection boxes out for those vouchers and donated the toys to a local childrens hospice. The hospice were delighted but when HO found out they stopped it as profiting from unused vouchers clearly was more important to them than a nice donation for sick children at Xmas

Christ almighty; that really is despicable.

Don't know if it's been mentioned but school uniform is ridiculous. When ds started secondary aged 11, his full uniform cost almost £200. We didn't know anyone with older kids at the school who may have been wanting to sell old uniform and the school has no kind of scheme for second hand.

Apparently, a plain black blazer costs around £10 in Matalan. Ds's blazer is over £30 and can only be bought from a certain school shop, the school logo is embroidered rather than sew on, same with PE kit. It wouldn't be so bad if there was a way to sell on/give away the bits he's outgrown but there isn't. I have a perfectly fine blazer sitting in my bedroom doing nothing. He's on his third now. That's nearly £100 worth of blazer alone in three years

Haven't read the whole thread because it's making me sad (have just had to throw myself on my mother's mercy and borrow a few hundred pounds to tide me over until my benefits kick in, which is still horrible but I know lots of people don't have that option) but just wanted to say thank you and to dreamingbohemian for starting such a kind and compassionate thread. I hope things pick up for everyone who's struggling - in the mean time, knowing that people like you exist really does help.

Ah that's sweet of you Boojum

I hope things get better for you soon!

I'm also really touched by how many people on this thread have offered to help.

froggy just want to say, I had no idea uniforms cost so much! that's ridiculous!

Has there ever been a push to do away with uniforms?

From reading MN, they sound like such a huge pain in the arse really

When i started high school in 1984 my mum and dad paid for my school uniform but didnt realise i needed a PE uniform too. First PE lesson the gym teacher had a go at me for not having the correct PE kit. I didnt want to bother my parents about it as they had just struggled to buy the main uniform and both had to work to pay the mortgage so i just stayed shtoom. For five years those stupid fuckin teachers with NO common sense whatsoever made my life hell every fukin pe lesson by having a go at me in front of the other kids a real shouting go as well. Not once did any of those fuckers attempt to speak to me in private about it. In the end i just started skiving the pe lessons (though the reason for skiving was cos the other kids picked on me for being crap at it) so there were more reasons to bunk off that lesson than to attend it.

I had forgotten that Nectar points were a bigger scheme beyond Sainsburys. My points are just sitting there, feel like they should be spent on something really special & never do it! Maybe people who do use their points could donate some if them rather than the whole lot. It's free money sat there, that could really help others.

It would help if schools didn't insist on white polo shirts, especially for the youngest children. I have spent a fortune on sixty-degree washes, bleach, stain-removers and crystals since September.

Good-quality, still-fitting shirts all un-salvageable. Now it's cheap from Asda and they are almost consumables / disposable. DS' uniform has a Royal Blue sweater. The P.E shirt is sky blue and would be so much more suitable for every day.

I did some searching on MN for laundry help and some poor woman had to cope with white P.E shorts. Someone didn't think that through.

There was also the problem last year of the new head teacher changing DD's secondary uniform and informing the parents on the last day of term in July when I had already bought five of everything and labelled it. I was furious

carer why are some so-called adults so bloody insensitive? I used to teach and wouldn't dream of telling a child off for something beyond their control.

This even used to extend to inadvertent swearing. Unless I was blatantly being sworn at, I was surprising deaf to the odd, "bollocks, this is fucking difficult" from an angelic-looking six yo. Not their fault that such language is part of their vocabulary is it? I would sometimes gently give them alternatives to use and explain about inappropriateness but the way my colleagues would lay into them was horrible.