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 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?

I am saying that it would have been a different discussion had the OP been asking a question like ones she stated. We are having a different discussion here than one that would have happened had she asked those questions genuinely as a poor person looking for advice.

But, while you're here. What is the appropriate response?

And the thread in telly addicts "10 years old and living in poverty illustrates this." Although I must admit I don't understand how there is not enough money to feed to children on benefits of £180 . I can only assume the programme must not show the mothers full circumstances.

Usually, if you have children, there is enough money. Not for luxuries and not for a life of Riley, no. But enough. I am fond of a friend of mine but it does jar a bit when she clearly lives a life that isn't dissimilar to mine in terms of income although I know mine is more enviable from the viewpoint of long term security (pension, home ownership etc.)

However, for most people whether on benefits or a low income - or both - it's possible to live day to day, to eat a cheap, if meagre and dull and unvaried diet, to clothe yourself in basics (clothes are cheap if you know where to go when all said and done.) Housing costs are astronomical and if you're not on housing benefit - if you have no choice but to house yourself yourself - that's another matter.

It's when it's 'backs against the wall' time. It's when 'my husband hit me' or when 'another child best the shit out of mine and the school won't do a thing.' It's when 'I'm severely depressed' kicks in, or 'I'm in agony from this weird pain that won't go away.'

All the above and numerous other examples can be solved with money. It opens up numerous possibilities and options and avenues. Lack of money does the opposite. Cooking with lentils won't sort that out. I'm not disputing for a moment that you can live on whatever a week, but mere survival is a paltry aim for a life.

exactly

money gives you choices

I am a north London girl and know the fruit stall that has inspired the mangos post. Its immediately outside turnpike lane station and sells big bowls of fruit for a quid each. However, it does not sell particularly good quality fruit, its the kind that you have to eat on the day of purchase as it will spoil immediately. Plus, it has always seemed a bit sketchy to me and so I have never bought any fruit from them. The fruit sits out there next to a very dirty main road with lots of pollution and pigeons flying around. I grew up bulk buying cheap foods from markets so I'm not someone who expects pristine looking produce wrapped in plastic, but that turnpike lane stall really puts me off. Its probably part of the reason it has been used in that post.

I have used fuit/veg stalls in the past but then i see the bloke smoking at the stall. put me of so dont use them now. now buy it from the super market but try for deals/ cheap makes.

I think unless been in the situation of being skint/poor/in poverty. its hard to understand or say the right thing without upsetting people. and what is skint to one person is not to the other.

sometimes its self inflicted. i know that for some it might have been the situation that got them to that stage but for others they are not prioritising. Some people might have bright house/ catalogues trying to pay them of. But food,gas,electric should come before bright house/catalogues.

My sister says that people on benefits gets more than her. shes a TA not sure what she earns. but i would not have thought someone on benefits would get more than her. she moans that she has no money but then buys a car. she moans about having a mortgage. so as i says she moans she skint but bases this on her own wage although her husband works as well so there are 2 wages not just the one.

just seen another thread where clutchpearl is saying Dianne Abbott would be a wonderful prime minister, yes DA, the woman who sent her kids to a private school whilst telling the rest of us to use state schools, fuck sake, clutchpearl is clearly a lobbyist/journo who has no idea what MN is about

dick

I think clutchpearl, given her baked bean and tomato soup thread, might have expensive taste in chocolate.

she/he's a new poster

still, it takes all sorts

Excellent thread. We were poor as kids but never in poverty. I remember adjusting my world view as a teen when my best friend remarked that our schoolfriends' proclamations of "I've got no money" meant something very different from hers. When she said it, it literally meant there was no money anywhere - not in the bank, not down the sofa, not in her kid sister's piggy bank, not in the catalogue repayment jar, not in the payphone they had installed in their house because they couldn't afford one you paid bills for.

My dad lived in poverty as a child, and it has left an indelible mark on him. I was really interested to read the point about poverty making it harder to delay gratification, as I see this very much in his attitude to money.

Nothing useful to add,but absolutely brilliant thread and so enlightening.

I have always had a vague sense of gratitude knowing that we as a family of three have often been bailed out by parents,have a lovely home,have transportation, the luxury of deciding to go very pt to spend time with my daughter etc.

My Dh often gets a little down about not owning our own home (we could of in a cheaper area but I love where we live) however that feeling of being glad "we are ok" after reading this thread has grown to a point where I feel completely humbled by the blessings we have and will be showing dh this in the hope it will open his eyes to what it is to be truly struggling.

garlic brilliant posts

Arsenic - I'm well aware what the minimum wage is, and I assume we are all talking gross figures. But no, I have no idea how many people are on minimum wage, which is why I questioned the statement "half the country is on less than £16k"
Garlic - the table is interesting but doesn't really answer the question.

Sorry Argy, citing your own 1988 salary as a yardstick gave me the impression you might not be aware of several things. Actually, the fact that you are struggling to believe the figures speaks volumes in itself.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25759780

According to the above;

The Low Pay Commission estimates that there are 1,386,000 minimum wage jobs.

Nearly half (46%) of all low-wage workers are employed in two sectors: wholesale and retail, and hotels and restaurants. About three-quarters of a million minimum-wage jobs are accounted for by hospitality, retail and cleaning.

I read somewhere that approx 3 times as many workers again earn within 20-30p per hour of the NMW, so that's about 5 million workes earning well under £7ph. I'll try to find the source.

Thanks, ispent :)

"mere survival is a paltry aim for a life" - This, this exactly!

As Caitlin Moran poetically said:
"You are standing still, heavy, in the dead centre of your life. You look around, and start to suspect you might not exist. After all, you appear not to be able to make an impression on the world – you can’t even change the colour of your front door. Twenty-six years, now; forty-two, and you’ve never even been to your neighbouring town – it’s too far away. And so you sit. You sit still. Because your limbs are so heavy."

It's why I spent my life on internet forums. I have no "life". This way, I can make a difference somehow - supporting and campaigning from the still, dead centre of my lifeless existence, I connect with others and can feel I matter at least a little.

I qualify as severely clinically depressed. Because I cannot, honestly, see that it matters whether I am alive or dead. My doctors point out that depression is a logical response to my circumstances. And my circumstances are unchangeable - except by the DWP, which shows no desire to improve them.

The table does answer your question, Argy.
~ Half of single people are on less than £17,600.
~ Half of single parents with one child are on less than £24,700.
~ Half of couples without are on less than £27,200.
~ Half of couples with one child are on less than £35,600.
~ Half of couples with 2+ children are on less than £44,200.
These are data for gross income, with benefits.

The answer depends on how you define 'half of all people'. Many of the recent headlines were actually based on mean household income, but reported as 'wages'.

Reading any of the links I posted with the table will give you more data, in ascending order of complexity.

Well posted, Arsenic. Both at 19:48 and 19:54!

I watched this on my commute home tonight

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01pvbp3/growing-up-poor-original-series-1-girls

Christ it was depressing. One girl did one of those work placement things where you still only get your benefit not actual wages and she was in effect getting less than £2 an hour for a 30 hour week. She obviously got some sort of HB but watching this 17 year trying to budget and living in a flat with barely any furniture was so sad.

TBH living in places like those shown in this documentary and having no money and minimal backup would be enough to make anyone despair.

I've just realised that while I can't remember what I was earning in 1988, by 1990 I was on £14.5K and at the end of that year I started a new job where I was on £16K. Admittedly I had to pay for absolutely everything myself but the idea of anyone earning that little now is appalling.

We both work full time, have 2 children each, and between us earn £38k. It just doesn't go anywhere, and we don't even pay for childcare! We have no savings, no cushion and no expectancy of it ever being better than this. Our old banger of a car (now deceased) cost us loads of money over the last 18 months, and it completely screwed us - we had to borrow money from people that we're paying back for ages, and never have any spare cash for anything. I have to be really careful with the gas and electric. I spend my whole life doing sums in my head, it's exhausting.

In 1988 I was earning £400 pm (before tax) - so £4800 per year .... 50+ hr week - about £1.90 ph iirc (can't be bothered to do the maths!) and I had to pay absolutely everything for myself too...

That was 26 years ago

I was earning about £40k in 1988. So what?

This is a very interesting thread. It's certainly highlighted to me some things I hadn't considered before. I think I may have been guilty of giving less than helpful advice, or at least thinking it.
I do agree with the OP, it isn't helpful for people who have been given advice that they just can't follow to be harangued for it.

I was earning £12,000 a year in 2001/2002. Highest wage ive ever earned. It was enough at the time. It would be impossible now.

It's definitely made me think too . nerdy . I often say to people 'Well you could do X/Y/Z probably without really thinkng about it...

Bloody hell Garlic, I'm very taken aback by what you just said. I think you are extremely enlightened and if you were religious would make a great priest/imam/rabbi/vicar. Of course it matters if you are alive or dead, to me it does anyway, you have made a huge difference to people's lives on here and I hope you continue to do so for a very long time.