To think many mumsnetters have little or no understanding of life on a low income

[crocodilesarevicious]

It's going to be hard to know how to phrase this as I don't want to cause offence.

I've been hanging around for a while. One thing I've noticed is that benefit threads become angry very quickly because so many are quite loud and fixed in their view that the UK is full of starving children reliant on value baked beans from food banks to fill their hungry tummies.

However, if someone who is on benefits or a low income is searching specific advice! they are often given quite short shrift. I've noticed this a few times - they are told, often brusquely, to retrain as something at university - usually a teacher or a nurse. These are graduate professions yet they are chucked out as something anyone can do. Not everyone can go to college or university due to financial restraints but also, some people don't have the academic ability. This is dismissed and shrugged off - if people aren't on much money then they need to find a way to make more money, even if this isn't possible.

Childminding, or starting a business is also suggested. People who rent may not be able to do this. Again, this takes a certain amount of financial and business savvy not to mention starting up costs.

Cooking is another area people seem to have little understanding of. It's so easy to cook healthy, cheap nutritious meals if your kitchen is large and a pleasure to cook in and you can whiz in the car to sainsburys or Tesco. If you have a small, grubby, dark kitchen and the local Spar or premier shop it's a bit different.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that when talking about people in general terms, Mumsnet likes to be left wing and PC. Yet when it's someone specific, irrelevant and often patronising advice is given to them and then they are flamed when they can't act on it.

My own position, while I'm a graduate and employed in a professional capacity, is perhaps between the two. I've never been reliant in benefits but was homeless for a time in my 20s and am able to see how things that look simple often aren't.

I'm not sure why this has become a 'how to cook healthy food on a low budget' thread. Most of the rich people I know eat plenty of cakes and junk food. Eating fruit and veg doesn't make you richer.

What we should be addressing is the root causes of poverty, the ones the system causes, and what we can all do about it.

Written

No to housing benefit. Max student loan (which I took and still owe) at the time was £1645 per year. Try living on that for a year!
I'm not saying it can't be done, but at 18 with no 'know how' and no idea where to turn for advice, I crumbled halfway through my second year. In hindsight I should never have gone in the first place.
My plan was always to go back, but then tuition fees kicked in, and graduates these days don't exactly have vast work opportunities to choose from, so I'm not sure what the best plan is at the moment.

are you talking about no hob to cook on? I am sure there are desperate people out there with no hob, but my guess is this is not the norm.

No. I am talking about no gas to use it with and that is far more common that you seem to realise.

Its very easy to say what you think people should or could do when you have never had to live that life yourself. But the fact is that poverty isnt just a state of being, its a state of mind and it is very destructive. The stress of never quite having enough, of robbing from Peter to pay Paul, of adding everything up and still coming up short, of being cold, hungry and tired all the time, it all takes it toll. You are far more likely to suffer depression if you are poor, so the advice "Just get to your library and borrow a cook book and enrol at college!", however well intentioned, is not much use to someone who needs to use what little energy they have just surviving.

As for considering moving to within the M25, that has got to be one of the most ridiculous pieces of "advice" I have ever heard and can only have come from an ivory tower.

It's horrible to hear about people still living in real poverty in the UK. The system obviously isn't working (and is maybe no longer designed to work. But I think that some at least of the advice is useful for that second group of people - those who are badly off, but not penniless.

happy um... hello... was agreeing that it was an unrealistic suggestion. maybe relax a bit?

Why else can I get well paying jobs and others can't?

I'd love to know! What do you do and how did you get into it?

Things I can do because I am not poor:

Buy a £50 a month bus pass - the alterenative is spending £4.85 on a day saver.

Pay my electric and gas bill by direct debit - no over priced card meters here no having to go to the shops to top them up

Buy the big packet of food in the shops - almost always costs less on a weight basis

Pay a fixed monthly price for ALL my landline phone calls - if I'm left hanging on at call centres I'm not worrying because I've already paid

Buy a chest freezer meaning I can pick up those reduced items of meat etc. as and when I see them knowing I've got plenty of storage at home

Buy the expensive washing machine which will then last for years - maybe more upfront but this one is now 10 years old and I've spent less than £100 getting it fixed in taht time.

I'm sure I could come up with plenty more examples. As someone said up thread its expensive being poor and I know I'm lucky not to be.

These threads always go the same way.

'It's hard out there. A lot of people even in teh UK are poor.'

'No, they have generous benefits. They can go to a laundrette, eat lentils. Everywhere in the UK is near Aldi, many supermarkets, plentiful jobs. They are just lazy and made poor life choices. They need to work harder. They are lucky they are not in Africa.'

I think it is a world of difference if your not educated and poor. Someone educated and poor can work out basic maths, claim everything they are entitled to, not take on a stupid amount of debt and can feed their family for pennies a head on a healthy meal that is far better for you than what 90% of people here eat.

It also takes up more time if you have to top up your food supplies almost every day. Limited storage means you can't do a mssive shop every week or fortnight. I have to top up almost every day because we only have a small fridge freezer and a couple of cupboards. I could be doing something a lot more productive than shopping.

Lists Point about buying in bulk - I always do when I can -but it isn't always cheaper. Value rice and pasta in small (1kg?) packets in both Lidl & Tescos is considerable cheaper per 100g than buying the 3kg(?) not 'value' big bags...same with things like eg cornflakes...(not value) tescos own label 750g boxes were cheaper per 100g than 1kg ones (although I get the values ones anyway...and I don't really go to Tescos)

happy it's turned into a how to cook cheaply thread because as if to prove the OP's point, lots of posters piled in with advice on how to do so, despite other posters explains the barriers that exist for people on low incomes.

Explaining, stupid autocorrect

No to housing benefit. Max student loan (which I took and still owe) at the time was £1645 per year. Try living on that for a year!

the NUS website says that students are eligible for HB. you may not have been. I don't know.

As for considering moving to within the M25, that has got to be one of the most ridiculous pieces of "advice" I have ever heard and can only have come from an ivory tower.

the odd thing is that the unemployed in much of the EU seem to be trying that exact same tactic.

It of course doesn't have to be in London. Any place that has jobs. We know that parts of this country have lots of jobs and parts have massive unemployment.

Not all of these suggestions are going to work for everyone. What seems odd to me is the simple act of suggesting some of these things is somehow bad or patronising. No one is claiming that buying a bag of lentils is going to turn you into the biggest landlord in Kensington. But it's a suggestion and a start.

Also, people are right that some haven't experienced deep poverty. I have never been so poor that I didn't have a hob, fridge, access to student loans (that allowed me to study), access to loans for vocational school, or bus fare to go to the library (I'll be the first to say transportation is bloody is expensive here). and can't cook. But how many people does that describe? Also, does that invalidate any and all advice?

Asian shops are great for cheap bulk supplies. If your in Islington I suggest poping over to turnpike lane shops. I got a box of 14 alsonsa mangos for 8 pounds! Waitrose sell 2 for 3 pounds.

isn't turnpike lane in harringay?

written I was a student late 90s in London. As a mature student I got a maintenance grant of £2400 pa. Other students (and I) could get a maximum of £3000pa student loan. (I didn't take it - think I've made my stance on borrowing money clear up thread).
I lived in a shared house - bit of a dodgy area, crap landlady but (ignoring the leaking/collapsing ceilings, boiler never serviced etc) was ok - and dirt cheap rent - £300 pm. So rent £3600pa not inc bills. Then needed to find travel, food, books etc on top ....
(I tried to get books out of the library rather than buy but didn't work out - even though it was 'good' university. I was on the waiting list for 6 months for the text book for one module before I treated myself to a copy)
Anyway I wasn't eligible for HB either - think you might have been during the summer holidays but not for most of the year. (And where I was it would have taken you more than 6 months to get your claim dealt with!)

I was lucky that I had a career before -a chef - and had contacts so could get casual work quite easily at a reasonable rate (best one was £10ph -but I didn't get that often). I also worked full time over Christmas and the summer holidays, had weekend jobs etc. Money was tight and eg I had to ask for an extension on an essay set over Christmas, couldn't do work experience over the summer...but did get my degree. However without that work I just wouldn't have made it. And I doubt I would have managed in a cheaper area - a lot of the work I got was because I knew a lot of people in the business and also there was plenty of work. And without my previous life experience I doubt I could have managed on the money I got.

clutchpearl I do hope you're being ironic...

@unlucky

if you don't like loans, that's one thing. but you can't insist you can't survive on the available money if you aren't willing to take one. 5400 pounds was more than I had when I went to uni. It's tight. and I had shitty landlords with dirt cheap rent too.

Also, I could never find christmas holidays work. I always worked every summer.

I think that it's difficult to understand the crushing effect of poverty on people. The idea that someone is constantly counting nappies and working out how many that averages a day versus when they can next afford to buy another pack can be utterly consuming. The same goes with working out food in the fridge/ meals needed/ money on the electricity/ gas meter to next time you can top up and so forth. It is incredibly grinding.

I grew up poor and I've been there. Happily better off now but I get it's also fustrating when op's seem to be whinging/ don't accept the suggestions offered. I think it's incredibly difficult to see a way out of a cycle of poverty without some sort of external intervention.

I've considered setting up a small not for profit that'd offer residential weekends that'd look at benefit entitlements, budgeting, basic cooking skills etc. Pregnant with twins now so will have to put off the idea for a few years .

sian shops are great for cheap bulk supplies. If your in Islington I suggest poping over to turnpike lane shops. I got a box of 14 alsonsa mangos for 8 pounds! Waitrose sell 2 for 3 pounds

I do hope that was posted in irony?

Yay, all the poor shoukd go over to isslington to bulk buy fresh mangos. Huzzah!

OP you are so spot on. I have been on MN for a few years now under different names and know exactly what you are talking about. As a child I lived under the poverty line for a period of time and was homeless for a period of time as a teenager. Many MN are utterly clueless and come across as typical champagne socialists when they talk about people who live on low incomes. Od course it isn't everyone, but I do feel that it is the majority. I take it as par for the course and ignore it. But then MN is also a place where many people who claim to be educated, liberal or left, will defend their right to call a Chinese takeaway a 'chinky'. Its a place of peculiar outlooks on life and a somewhat narrow field of experience. That's my honest opinion.

'I'm not sure why this has become a 'how to cook healthy food on a low budget' thread. Most of the rich people I know eat plenty of cakes and junk food. Eating fruit and veg doesn't make you richer.'

These threads ALWAYS do, so the posters can convince themselves that people are poor through their own shortcomings, in all cases, and that if they just ate better and more cheaply, they would not be poor.

I think the thread and some of the posts have demonstrated very well exactly what the OP was trying to say. Which, to me, demonstrates a complete lack of awareness and empathy on the part of the people who post such fucking drivel.