AIBU to not understand luxerys these days and poverty.

[milton2591]

what do you class as luxury's ?
what do you class as living under the breadline?

NCISaddict Check out the detailed budget lists!Here's one for a couple with a toddler (my family!)

There's nothing on there which is wildly extravagant. All the furniture is from IKEA, the household items from ARGOS and the clothes from TESCO.
I think the weekly entertainment budget includes the cost of a UK holiday per year.

According to the Joseph Rowntree standards I think a large minority (majority even?) of the population is living below the minimum standard. And yet, the standard was reached by surveying ordinary people on what basic goods people should have. But then, so many people have said they live under the line, but don't feel poor. Its very thought provoking.

Poverty is eating no more than twice a day, never having had new or decent quality second hand clothes for at least a year, putting the heating on for only an hour or two a day, being unable to buy anything other than bills and basic food.

Luxuries are children's activities, cinema, take aways, wine, tobacco, food that is not the cheapest version, toiletries that are anything other than the cheapest version, holidays, pets.

Being on full benefits does not mean living in poverty. Lots of people I know of full benefits live very very well, and there are people that work who have a significantly lower income than those on benefits.

Foxeym Bit off topic, but I take it you've looked into Tax Credits?

If you've still got a job to go back to, you will count as being in employment for Working Tax Credit and yet the income from SMP is not taken into account in the calculation.

It was a lifesaver when I was in the same situation

"there are people that work who have a significantly lower income than those on benefits."

This is defiantly true in London, with the crazy rents! I think you have to be well into the middle class before you are living much better than benefits level. This is, of course, a disgrace! Bring back rent controls!

there are two kinds of poverty. Absolute and relative.

You are in absolute poverty if you cannot meet the basics required - food, shelter, etc. You are in relative poverty if your standard of living is significantly below those around you.

I think some people dismiss poverty in the UK because we rarely if ever have people starving to death (I don't have figures for this, but never see headlines about people starving to death so this is just an assumption on my part) so you hear them say that we don't know 'real' poverty aka global poverty, living on a dollar a day, no access to clean water, etc, but this I think is unhelpful because relative poverty is felt so keenly and how people in a situation feel about it, how it affects them, matters and you can't say that it doesn't because someone else has it worse (general you not you you). You may have a life that includes internet access, or a car, or a tv, or a million things that someone living in a shack on the other side of the world, fetching water from a well 10 miles away would only dream of, but you are still living in relative poverty when you are worrying yourself sick because you don't know how you're going to make a fiver stretch to feed two kids for 4 days.

I don't think a car is a luxury.

Anywhere outside of London a car may be a necessity to access work or job oppotunities. The public transport in my city is dire. I work weekends and wouldn't be able to get to work on time if I used public transport. If lack of a car stops a person from being able improve their circumstances, that's an example of the poverty trap.

No car is relative poverty IMO.

Cars are a very subjective thing. I don't see my car as a luxury because I work in the middle of nowhere and genuinely need it to be able to work and get my children to school.

But I have a car that eats a lot of petrol, and it's not an old banger, so in that sense, it is very much a luxury.

It might not be a luxury if it were a shitheap of a car, but as it isn't, it's a luxury despite the fact that it is an essential.

According to a lot of people's definitions of poverty and luxury, we are simultaneously living in poverty for not having many basic needs properly met, and luxury because of what we've prioritised above them.
So we’re choosing so called ‘poverty’ in many ways.

If you could just about afford two meals a day, but not three, a couple of hours heating in one room only, but instead you choose to take one meal a day, don’t heat, and choose to put that money to education, qualification, opportunity, and invest in the future instead, are you richer or poorer than your continually warmer well-fed, but continually uneducated, no real future hope neighbour?

And are you now potentially competing with your luxury owning educated automatic future hope neighbour, and is that why such choices are so discouraged?

To me, being "rich" is being able to buy M&S fruit and veg without worrying. That was the absolute epitome of luxury to me for many years - those perfect identical nectarines / cox's apples...
I agree with whoever drew the distinction between absolute and relative poverty above. I've also read a lot of Orwell lately and that's given me a horrific view into what life was like in the recent past and what poverty meant until the welfare state came in - and what poverty still means in large swathes of the world today. Particularly struck by how much of The Road to Wigan Pier is absolutely relevant now, it could have been written yesterday - how small luxuries like white bread and sugar in tea are a palliative to poverty and while alternatives are cheaper and healthier, when you have no options and no way forward, you need something cheap to cling to as a treat.

I just did the rowntree minimum income calculator and wasnt overly surprised to find out we are in the 1 in 4 families in the uk living below minimum.

However, when I looked into the breakdown of outgoings it included allowance for £90 a week food, £7 alcohol, £80 social and cultural activities. That seems a bit excessive to me. Obv social activities nurture mental and physical well being and is essential, £80 is a lot of money. Ditto food. We could cut down food bill more but we are at a comfortable level that's significantly less than £90 ( around £50 ATM) and we don't drink, but that's a bottle of wine which I guess seems fair enough for families that do partake!

Btw, I don't think of myself as in poverty as such, but we do have to budget.

Our house is really cold; I wear only second hand clothes; I have never paid for a haircut for me, my daughter or my husband; I have never bought a handbag; we never eat out; our cars are ancient bangers; we reuse and do without all sorts of things; we buy lentils and rice in bulk, and eat them all the time.

Still, our kids have (very) expensive music lessons and two of them go to private schools, and I buy all the fancy fruit and veg I want. I think we are living in the lap of luxury, because I can do things I think are important. I would feel poor if we had to tell the children they couldn't do something which I think is meaningful to them, or if we were unable to buy enough basic healthy food.

according to that link upthread we are some way short of having an income to meet what is deemed acceptable. All that really tells me is that a lot of people have quite a different view to mine as to what is acceptable. We own our home (albeit mortgaged), we have a car and its fairly nice although not a luxury brand, we can afford to put our heat on if we're cold, buy groceries when we need them, our kids can go to music lessons, swimming lessons, dance classes, we have broadband, tablet, laptop, mobile phones, eat takeaways, occasionally go out for dinner. We can't always afford a holiday, but that's our choice really because I'm a sahm, so we've sacrificed income, and we choose to spend money in other places anyway. We live within our means, and don't borrow except for big items such as the car. We live in unimaginable luxury compared to large swathes of the world's population. Yet we're about 10k short of what 'people' consider acceptable. Makes me wonder what exactly is classed as acceptable?

Poverty is not having the luxury of choice.

For me, living in poverty is not being able to put the heating on when its cold, going to bed at 9 cos the leccie has run out and there's no money to put more on, dreading kids growing out of their school shoes, having to mend clothes because there's no money for more. Robbing Peter to pay Paul with the bills, putting £5 a week aside all year so you have enough money for Christmas presents and a nice christmas dinner. having to say no to kids party invitations because you can't afford a gift,
No car and no money for bus so its shanks pony everywhere even when its piesimg it down and your frozen because the only coat you have is you older brothers jacket he grew out of.
This is the reality of life under the bread line for many many families in the area I live in.
We used to be fairly skint, but I could always manage to scrape together enough money for clothes and shoes (albeit off eBay) we had a roof over our heads and we had enough food even if it was Asda smart price. We might not have been able to afford holidays and nice clothes but we had enough to get by and I considered my self comfortable. Our combined income was around )15k at that time.
With things the way they are now with 15kpa we would be very very skint indeed

^ Exactly.

Sorry ^ Exactly. was to ProfondoRosso
Poverty is not having the luxury of choice

According to the calculator I need £571 per week

That's actually about right based on my mortgage payments as I own my own home

However as I recently got made redundant I actually have an income of £210 per week

My mortgage works out at £170 per week so to keep a roof over our heads that gives me £40 per week for all the other bills, food and clothes for the 3 of us

If I sell my house the council won't house us as I will have voluntarily made myself homeless and I will struggle to rent privately as by the time legal fees etc are paid I will have less than 10k and that's if it sells for its full asking price

I've actually been advised to get behind on my mortgage payments and get it repossessed and then the council will house me -its ridiculous

I've got 3 months to find a job before my redundancy pay runs out and that's with me only eating an evening meal and the heating never being on if the dcs aren't here

I think that just how "poor" we are now (having things get a little bit worse each year for the past ten years or so) hit me this week when I had to ask my Mam to buy the DCs new pajamas for Xmas. Every other year I would toddle off to Primark when they got the winter stock in, and get my 3 youngest 2 pairs of jamas and a onesie/robe each, and my teen some "lounge wear" as they call it.
This year, I couldn't afford it
We just seem to fall that little bit further behind each month, and our outgoings on essentials (mortage, council tax, bills, fuel for the car for DH to get to work) are going up and up. The only thing we can "save" on is food, so we are paring it back and back.
That said, we aren't starving yet and we do still have internet, although when the contract period we are committed to ends, we will have to seriously consider if we can still afford it.
Luxury to us just now is a Happy Meal for the DCs, and something to give them on Xmas morning.

but do you think someone can claim poverty or living under the breadline whilst running a car
actually yes, atm approx 1/3 of my weekly income goes on the car, we live four miles from the nearest shop and 15 miles from town where my daughter goes to school and my son's college is approx 45 miles.

Pom we run on a PAYG dongle, so when we can afford internet we can have it, and if we can't, we can't, without all the service contracts etc.

Agree with Burberree - we have to have a car so DH can get to work. It's old, and a bit on the decrepit side, and costs us a fortune in fuel, but without it, he can't possibly get to work.
He got his current job after being out of work for months after being made redundant 7 years ago, and there just aren't that many jobs round here so we need this one, and he must drive to get there. If he had a job closer to home we'd be better off just from not having to spend so much on diesel, but so far he hasn't been able to find one :(

In a city with a subsidised, reliable public transport system, a car is usually a luxury, unless you have needs which make public transport untenable for transport to school or work.

In rural areas, where return busfare on the hourly (or even daily) bus to the nearest town might be a day's food budget for the whole family, or there might not be a bus (40 minute commute for DH by car - he'd have to catch the bus the night before to get there for the same time in the morning) then a car is often essential.

oooo will look into that Just although having said that, we use the net mostly for entertainment rather than anything "useful" - I would miss it terribly, in fact we all would but it's not truly essential I don't think.
If we had a thingy though, people might buy us net time on it for birthdays and such