Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

554 replies

crocodilesarevicious · 24/11/2014 16:09

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.

OP posts:
Imgoingdeeperunderground · 26/11/2014 15:51

Let them eat... fruit.

ClawHandsIfYouBelieveInFreaks · 26/11/2014 16:01

Yeah. And lentils.

mausmaus · 26/11/2014 16:13

yep. and eating lots of beans and lentils also solves the (lack of) heating problem.
:o

unlucky83 · 26/11/2014 16:13

written I did survive - just said it was tight - but if you just got a student loan (no grant) like bambamb you would have really struggled - you needed to earn £600 just to pay your rent. (And no minimum wage then - earning £2 ph)
And even if I did get the loan and grant (but no work) after rent and travel (£50+pm) I would have had £23 pw for all bills (and shared so limited how much I could keep them down), food, books (£30+ each - I know first year cost me £120). I think that's tight....maybe I'm wrong? (JSA/Income support at the time was around £50 pw)

crocodilesarevicious · 26/11/2014 16:30

Comparing student life to the life of someone trapped in a low income is an unrealistic comparison.

Can you imagine living off a fried onion, a carrot and garlic herbs for a decade - two decades, three?

Poverty isn't a game.

OP posts:
SoonToBeSix · 26/11/2014 16:44

Unlucky not taking a student load wasn't a sensible decision though it was pretty foolish.

cakedup · 26/11/2014 16:45

I agree croc, very unrealistic. I had no idea how 'rich' I would be when I became a full time student (albeit as a parent - so have also received a parent support grant). Compared to the life I was living before, as a unemployed, lone parent, I feel like i'm living a life of luxury. I can afford to buy a cup of coffee! I can afford to pay tube/bus fares to visit family/friends, I can PAY ALL MY BILLS ON TIME. I am on my third and final year now, and I honestly can't see myself being this rich ever again.

unlucky83 · 26/11/2014 17:20

croc I was explaining why someone else may have dropped out of their degree...
I got mine...I said it was tight but doable...and no where near as bad as when I was a teen/early 20s, by 23 things were looking up (although I did lose everything in a house fire, no insurance at the age of 21-22 - set me back a bit) - I would have been ok but then I got seriously ill, nearly died at 24 and was crippled for a while, couldn't work -in fact told I'd never work on my feet again - as well as getting suicidally depressed...set me back a bit again ...(apparently should have been eligible for DLA but didn't know) - had to retrain - I spent 2 yrs getting A levels and working 4 jobs to be able to start my degree - again financially a bit tight...before I started being a university student - the life experience that helped me as a student.
And soon I think it would have been a massive mistake to get myself into £9k's worth of debt by the age of 32 - to have that hanging over me...would have limited my choices - guess we are all different...

Darkesteyes · 26/11/2014 17:46

unlucky83 It always irritates me when ppl go on about the boom in the mid to late 90s. It wasnt like that for everyone. As you have quite rightly pointed out there was no minimum wage then. I remember seeing full time jobs advertised in the Job Centre for £50 a week and even 50p an hour.
A lot of people were unemployed then because they couldnt afford to work.

CalamitouslyWrong · 26/11/2014 19:03

I see we're back to lentils. I told you that lentil bolognaise (or at least bloody lentils) were the MN answer to everything.

Bogeyface · 26/11/2014 19:04

How to survive on the breadline by MN

1 bag lentils
1 small chicken
Herbs and spices

Invite Jesus for dinner

The End

MrsHathaway · 26/11/2014 19:09

Given that SLC loans don't behave like other debt (if your income drops your repayments drop or stop, so it isn't counted as a debt by mortgage lenders, for example) I agree it's nearly always worth taking.

DH has paid his off; I probably never will, so it will simply expire at some point. It really isn't something to worry about.

ssd · 26/11/2014 19:11

oh yeah, and get a cleaner

Isabeller · 26/11/2014 19:21

I'm glad you started this thread OP, I haven't been able to read it all but I have similar life experience to you and what you say makes a great deal of sense. Flowers

LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 26/11/2014 20:46

Have we established if the bargain mango tip was a joke yet?

I really hope so. If not it has just made the ops point in a stunning fashion.

happybubblebrain · 26/11/2014 21:09

All of life's little problems can be solved with a nice cheap mango, don't you know.

Half the population of this country and most of the world is poor. Can we please not assume they're all lazy, stupid, crap with money and crap at buying lentils; but good at buying flat screens. It's lazy, crap and stupid to think that they are. The problem is the system, not the individuals.

writtenguarantee · 26/11/2014 21:12

Comparing student life to the life of someone trapped in a low income is an unrealistic comparison.

of course. you can't compare a relatively free, young, energetic, probably educated person to someone who's 40 with kids and struggling. You can take a lot of poverty at 20 that I imagine you can't at 40. I know that what I went through at 20 (standard student poverty with little financial help from well meaning parents of limited means) would be crushing now.

Back to the OP's point, it's a little hard to discuss well. For one thing, it doesn't point to a specific example or set of examples. So the OP is making a claim about many/most/all such threads, and that's rather difficult to scrutinize.

BuffytheReasonableFeminist · 26/11/2014 21:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

motherofmonster · 26/11/2014 21:42

There is skint .. Oh i really shouldn't buy that new coat.
Then there is really skint .. Walking round with your foot in a carrier bag inside your boot as there was a hole in it.
Ive been both. I used to be quite ignorant of what proper skint was. And it is soul destroying, and exhausting to have to over think everything.
if i cut down the electric by £2 a week then i can afford to do X.
I better not meet that mate for a coffee as then it will cost me the £2 Ive just managed to save.
i remember doing a weekly shop on £9. And standing waiting / hoping my little one wouldn't finish his dinner as what was left i was having along with porrige made with water from the kettle as didn't have any gas.
The sudden and horrific realisation that i had no back up and no one to ask for help. Being terrified that o would loose my child and starting to think that i deserved to (this was while my benefit claim was being processed after husband threw me and ds 22months out on the street).
being given a room in tempory housing that had a small fridge, no freezer and a couple of rings to cook on. Any money i had was spent on a second hand cot for ds as he could open the door to the room and i slept on the floor in a second hand sleeping bag with my back against the front door with a knife besides me as the other tenants were kicking the door in at 3am looking to borrow tin foil (put it this way,they wernt cooking bacon).
i will never forget those times, in certainly not well off now. But we have somewhere safe to live, i earn ok money and have been lucky enough to find the jackpot term time only within school working hours and make the excess up at home. But during those worst times it would have tipped me over the edge with some of these suggestions of 'just move, get a child minder, go to college, become a child minder ect

WaltzingWithBares · 26/11/2014 21:54

Sporadic internet connection today but have read most of the thread I think. I definitely see what your saying in your OP, but I do think the kind of threads you are talking about are like brainstorming meetings - just throw in as many ideas as possible and occasionally one idea strikes a cord with the op as being doable or at least a possibility.

I remember op who was feeling dismal because her and her DP were living with dp's parents, they (not the parents) were hugely skint but wanted to save a deposit for a house or flat, hence living with the dp's parents. She thought it wasn't going to work out, they'd have to move out and pay sky-high rents etc. Posters made suggestions and advice including what about a static caravan in the parents (huge) garden for a couple of years. The OP thought this was a fab idea and was going to look into it.

So I don't think it's fair to generalise and say these threads are always a pile of crap and of no help to the OPs of them. They're just brainstorming surely - throwing ideas around, however outlandish they are? Just because someone suggests childminding, it doesn't mean they think the OP has to do it or else.

Christina22xx · 26/11/2014 21:59

people come here for advice not to be judged or abused but you know internet cowards lurk everywhere so....
i just couldnt be one of those people who try belittle people on the internet, thats so sad like that mccan troll

clutchpearl · 26/11/2014 22:02

Sorry yes turnpike lane is in harringay, but there are no Asian shops in Islington - I just ment it was nearby.

Inspired by this thread I made a darl with brown rice, dh had a bit of a laugh at me trying to make a meal for as cheap as possible. But it ended up pretty well. Cost about 20p a porton but I did cheat with tomatoes from the greenhouse. Used a pressure cooker so used hardly any energy and could of made days worth of the stuff. It is reassuring knowing you can eat tasty food for pennies if needs be.

motherofmonster · 26/11/2014 22:10
Hmm
LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 26/11/2014 22:11

What fun! Playing at being poor!

Screenclean · 26/11/2014 22:13

Ok clutch pearl but you have a husband, and a greenhouse.... Can you see that having a lark around in the kitchen may seem disingenuous to a single parent on the bare bones of their arse with no money for the leccy to use the pressure cooker...

Assuming they have a cooker, know how to use it, have the time etc?

You're demonstrating the op's point again that it's not helpful to say "well I've just done this so everyone could try the same".