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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:
ArsenicSoup · 26/11/2014 22:14

Do fuck off clutch, there's a love Smile

ssd · 26/11/2014 22:19

clutchpearl, take it from your nickname your post was made in irony..

happybubblebrain · 26/11/2014 22:20

Brown rice costs about 5 times as much as white rice. You didn't try hard enough.

LegoAdventCalendar · 26/11/2014 22:20
Hmm
ArsenicSoup · 26/11/2014 22:22

She just wants some light-hearted,bracing banter surely? Nobody is that much of a rhino-hided twat Grin

clutchpearl · 26/11/2014 22:23

Gosh all I did was try to cook a cheap as meal. And my brown rice I do buy in bulk so its still cheap.

Did anyone manage to cook a meal for dinner cheaper than mine?

motherofmonster · 26/11/2014 22:27

Jesus wept. Confused

ArsenicSoup · 26/11/2014 22:27

And the pressure cooker was from your wedding list? And the greenhouse came free with the house?

Aha. Hilarious and helpful Hmm

Screenclean · 26/11/2014 22:28

Yes! The people who went to a food bank.

LovleyRitaMeterMaid · 26/11/2014 22:32

Do not engage.

She's just being facetious.

magimedi · 26/11/2014 22:32

ODFOD, Clutch.

You obv have a cooker, a pressure cooker and a greenhouse which assumes a decent place to live with a garden.

And you have the spare cash to buy your brown 'raice' (rhymes with naice) in bulk.

Either you are being very ironic or you have totally missed the pint.

unlucky83 · 26/11/2014 22:34

Ahhhhh - a student loan is a debt - one of the nicest kinds -but still a debt. Later loans might be different but in the late 90s at least student loans accrued interest ... yes you only have to pay it back if you earn over £26kish now (threshold was lower then) etc but you do have to pay it back - plus interest. Interest free I may well have snatched their hand off.
Later loans might be different - but I remember reading the info that came with it and working out that £9k after 20yrs would be something like double to pay back - and I knew I was likely to be going to do a Phd so if everything went to plan (didn't DD1 came along by accident) by the time I started being in any kind of situation to repay it would be more like £12k...I would have to pay £3k more back.
£3k - that's a lot of money...I'd rather have that in my pocket.
(these are the loans that were sold a year or so ago - a private company thinks they can make money on them -that says a lot...)
To be fair though I did know if I really couldn't cope I could take one out although I think you only do so at the start of the term or something...

LouiseBrooks · 26/11/2014 22:35

She's just being facetious

Christ I hope so because the thought that she really means this is actually worse.

ClawHandsIfYouBelieveInFreaks · 26/11/2014 22:40

Oh yes Pearls I just got the Nanny to nip out and do some wild food foraging....that's free you know and why can't poor people enjoy that too? It's exercise AND food for free!

brokenhearted55a · 26/11/2014 22:41

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LouiseBrooks · 26/11/2014 22:46

3K? FFS. No doubt their idea of poverty is not being able to buy a Mulberry handbag. No wonder some people on here haven't got a clue.

magimedi · 26/11/2014 22:51

Missed the point - not the pint, but you may have missed both as I suspect you only drink bubbles!

brokenhearted55a · 26/11/2014 22:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ArgyMargy · 26/11/2014 23:05

Happybubblebrain where did you get that statistic about half the country earning less than £16k? I really do not believe this. I was earning that much in 1988. I genuinely think that is nonsense.

ArsenicSoup · 26/11/2014 23:15

Argy FT minimum wage gives an annual wage of approx £11.5k GROSS

Do you have any idea how many jobs are paid at that level or a shade over? A majority of retail and service industry jobs, for starters. Millions of people. Only a minority can 'progress' to management roles.

GarlicNovember · 26/11/2014 23:26

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.

Not at all, written, there are ample instances on this very thread - including posts by your very self, though you've some way to go before attaining the astronomical standard set by pearl Grin

writtenguarantee · 26/11/2014 23:38

Not at all, written, there are ample instances on this very thread - including posts by your very self, though you've some way to go before attaining the astronomical standard set by pearl

the OP wasn't in the same position as a genuine poster, so I wasn't answering as if he/she was.

GarlicNovember · 26/11/2014 23:44

Argy, here are the govt's earnings figures (2013).
Guardian article here
Treasury analysis here
ONS datasheets here

To think many mumsnetters have little or no understanding of life on a low income
Apatite1 · 26/11/2014 23:49

Clutchpearl: the most appropriate username ever!

I make no pretence of being a low earner. I'm not. But I come from a third world country and I have no illusions about grinding poverty, with no way out. It's relentless and saps all energy and hope. The ignorance of people like clutchpearl is truly astounding, their lives are so blinkered they will never, ever understand. I hope this thread at least sheds a little light.

GarlicNovember · 26/11/2014 23:49

I don't quite understand, written. Are you saying you would not offer, directly to one of us poor people, the advice which you have said on this thread you would offer poor people?

You just said you would because OP claims she isn't particularly poor?

Confused
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