to think an income of under £17k is not "living in poverty" as stated by Save the Children?

[Wigglewoo]

Ok I guess it does depend where you live etc. And how much your mortgage / housing costs are doesn't it?

But I really don't see how anyone can call an income of say the higher end of under 17k to be living in poverty.... My dh earns 14k and with tax creditsn child benefit etc we manage fine. We certainly don't struggle to eat or heat the house.. Dd has new shoes for school (one of the things cited as an indication of poverty was lack of new shoes) and we even have enough for a very small break away....

Am I being unreasonable? I appreciate tax credits do make a difference but even without these we could manage.

Post- not quite; official definitions are between absolute (so a homeless bloke with nothing) and relative (in comparison to what others have)- to me the key factor is that even in the second group life chances for children in that family are significantly reduced, as is health outcome.

This was shared with me earlier There are some important points made.

And yes, moving at will is hard: many poorer families are dependent on family to help with shift work, leases can be fixed term with hard penalties for leaving earlier than agreed, people can be reliant on special schools or carers or whatever; indeed a family I know moved to where I am for cheaper housing- LEA can't find child a school place so they face sanctions for not being available for work. Spiralling nightmare.

Exactly what Laquitar said. The electric/gas meters charge a huge premium compared to having a direct debit, they were always an absolute killer in the winter, and you never had the opportunity to pay a fixed amount per year to build up extra credit to keep it constant in the winter. The laundrette cost a fortune, especially in winter when the sickness bugs went round.

If anything broke, there were no reserves to fix it and everything seemed to balloon very easily. Robbing Peter to pay Paul was the only way to manage sometimes but long-term that obviously just made everything worse. There were a few schemes that helped, but even then it was mainly short-term help, a crisis loan that you could only get once a year, a food basket once a year etc. It's still hard if you have to do it even short-term, I know it is, but the helplessness of doing it long-term is a totally different thing and everything gets so out of hand relatively quickly.

Well said Expat! Glad to see that there are some on this thread that live in the real world!

Slight tangent, but I hate the fact that the poorest in society are compelled to have electricity meters, maybe gas too, that cost way more than just getting a regular bill. How can that be justified by the companies? It should be illegal.

I agree night. it should be illegal.

I hated the thing with passion when i had it and now every time i read about them i feel sad.

Oh and i had to pay bus fare to go and charge the bloody key. You are penalised from left and right when you are poor.

Sorry OP - but you ARE smug. You have what? Around £80k in equity? - and a small mortgage because you live in a cheap part of the country. I can't believe you weren't aware that those factors were exceptional before you started this thread!

And if you can get credit it's those scum bag places like bright house that Ron you a million times over with interest so you have to bankrupt yourself to buy a washing machine because you can't pay cash to a 2nd hand dealer for a fair price :-(

I know this would never happen now but it would be better in social housing to offer inclusive tenancies where you just pay a bit more each month for utilities as part of the rent do you couldn't get in debt etc. or have a fixed few taken at source from benefits to cover utilities - there's plenty of better ways than the key meters.

Plus if you like or are partly reliant on benefits the fact they are paid randomly across the month makes it really hard to budget too.

The more resources you have the easier it is to live cheaply. Having a computer and an Internet connection and the juice to run them can help enormously but is out of reach for many

have a fixed few taken at source from benefits to cover utilities

I agree with this, when you're on benefits you can pay your water bill this way (or at least, you can with Thames Water, because I used to do it) so why can't other utilities be paid the same? It would make life infinitely easier for people to budget and less likely to run into bank charges because direct debits bounce.

Pre payment meters are apparantly justified by companies because the poorest are the most likely to not pay bills that they owe. It's the only way companies can guarantee that they are going to paid for the service that they provide. Meters cost more money to maintain, and that's why people who have them are charged more.

I'm not 100% certain about this btw, but I'm sure I heard some interview somewhere once where this was said.

It would never happen though removing the ability to have HB go direct to landlords was a shit idea that makes it harder to budget too

And I reckon the fuel companies do payment meters because they can

17k in the south is tricky. 17k some where very cheap might be OK? Not sure?

How much do you pay in rent? Mortgage? It's often about 1k where we are for a basic house

here in SE Wales £17k woudl still be shite.

It would leave us with under £10k a year after rent- even the bridge toll for Dh to get to work was £1200 PA! Petrol £2.5k

It's very true that housing costs are significant but it's also true that cheaper areas are that way for a reason- chances of finding work, and also distance you would have to travel to do so- it adds up

I thought I'd just mention there are not-for-profit energy companies, or at least there is one I know of (Ebico) who don't charge more for those on pre-payment meters on principle.

Pre payment meters are apparantly justified by companies because the poorest are the most likely to not pay bills that they owe. It's the only way companies can guarantee that they are going to paid for the service that they provide

Can you tell me why, i, who has paid bills for 27 years, has been refused a change of meter from a prepayment?

To be a member of the GSCC (which i am), debt is looked at, it is more than passing a CRB check, so i don't agree that it is based only on justification.

well the govt own figures "j/s allowance £67 per wk, minimum nec. to live on times 52 =£3484 plus my own rent /rates 4 one person bedsit last year 12 times £260 =£3120 so , that wos my lot for the year £6604 , and not a penny more, take it from there?

£17k would pay my mortgage and basic amenities but nothing else and I live very far up north which from the sounds of things is a bargain.
I agree with night about the meters, my mum was disabled yet would still sit in the cold if the shops were closed and it couldn't be topped up.

£17k is around £1100 a month after tax. The cheapest rental property around here is about £800 pcm leaving £300 for travel
costs, food and bills. That is poverty by most people's standards.

Pre payment meters are awful.

We used to put £20 a week on ours and it never lasted. The house was so cold even when we had heating on for a couple of hours you could see your breath and i had to sleep in a hat and scarf. All of my shoes and clothes ended up covered in mould too.

Compare that to now (I rent a 1 bed flat by myself but even so) my total electric/gas was £30 a MONTH and ive never been cold ! Newer builging better insulated with double glazing and no pre payment. Makes so much difference.

My wage is 26k and I have no disposable income. I shop at Lidls and budget hard so that we can but clothes and kids can do some activities. I don't have savings, we can't afford holidays. If I earned 17k I couldn't afford the essentials. I do run a car though

Describing such households as living in "poverty" is ridiculous and insulting to those elsewhere in the world who really are in such a position.

I haven't read all the thread (so sorry if I am repeating) but I agree that the financial level of poverty (in this country) is entirely subjective.

You could be living in (maybe not the actual 'official' meaning) poverty on £40k if you are paying of debts, rediculous mortgages etc whilst someone can comfortable live on £9k (plus rent paid at £4k a year- so effectively £13k per annum) with no debt, and very financially savvy.

I have done the later, whilst I was in college I lived off (with my ds) child tax, income support, and child ben, plus housing benefits- it equated to around £220 a week I think (its a while since). We lived in a clean, warm house, ds never went without, he had a healthy balanced diet etc, but that was because we started (living independantly) with everything, where as I have a friend who was in an almost identical position financially (she was getting slightly more due to child maintenance), but started with nothing and everything always costs her more as a result- many things she buys she had to buy on credit costing her more in the long term, was on meters etc.

So yeah, back to the question. 17k- poverty- all completely subjective.

YANBU! £17k is seen as a decent wage in the north west. I know of many people who earn far less.

Something really needs to be done about the price of housing. Let's say that around £800 pcm is the going rent for a modest 3 bed house in the south east and a you have a single parent taking home around £900 per month. Their wages basically get eaten up by rent and council house. WTC basically allows them to eat and pay bills.

That's a really shocking state of affairs considering that we supposedly live in the developed world. It makes you wonder wtf things have come to.