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.

YANBU. I think some of it is well-meaning but but narrow-minded. Other times it is totally ignorant.

I have been on threads where OP is asking for advice when a DC is having problems at school. Many default responses were about moving to schools further away, or moving house which for people who are struggling financially throws up transport issues, or logistical issues if they are also getting to work. Not that the advice isn't well-meant or helpful to some, just that it's clear the responses assume people have a car, and/or some flexibility in their morning routine.
Then other responses like try home educating. Or get a tutor. Or if you don't like the school dinners, be a SAHM and let them come home for dinner.

Another one frequently trotted out is around childcare for school age children. "school is not childcare, you need to make proper arrangements" re inset days, holiday, sickness etc. Well for a lot of people school is childcare. They have to work but there isn't enough left to pay for another form of childcare on top.

There are idiots on MN.

There are idiots IRL.

Sometimes you just have to leave stupidity well enough alone, and keep on keeping on in your own life.

This thread couldn't have been posted at a better time. I've just had a debate with one of my best friends:

She has just been bought a £700k house outright, no mortgage, (up north, too) by her parents that she is renovating (well, her parents are renovating it for her, on their dime). She lives at home (huge fancy house), rent free, was bought a brand new flash sports car for 18th birthday. Still gets an allowance and has her dad's credit card.

When I tried to say that some people are more lucky than others on life, that some really struggle and just don't have the money to help themselves out of it, she said they needed to work harder.

When I asked her if she honestly didn't feel she had been very fortunate in life, she said no, she'd worked her ass off for what she had and it was all the result of "positive thinking and positive energy".

Most supermarkets run offers for free delivery.

Sainsburys deliveries are something like £6.99 unless you spend £40. You can get deliveries for £2, but they're at a time of day when everything has been sat around all day and everything fresh is probably out of stock. And you atill have to spend £40. They're currently running a free delivery offer - for orders over £100. You can get free delivery passes, but you need to be able to afford one, in the first place, and then you still have to spend £40 to qualify.

rickets returns

A lot of young people haven't had help monetary wise (through parents & grandparents) to get on the housing ladder.

I don't think some of the better off MN'rs realize that either.

not unreasonable in the slightest. Some people on here can be vile to those on benefits or low incomes

its always easy looking from the outside... then i find you get the people who like to say well I did it. jo bloggs did it.... people dont fit neatly into boxes.

When I asked her if she honestly didn't feel she had been very fortunate in life, she said no, she'd worked her ass off for what she had and it was all the result of "positive thinking and positive energy".

How do you stay friends with someone so ignorant, deluded and unpleasant? You must be a saint.

Carmel McConnell, founder of the Magic Breakfast charity, which provides a free breakfast to 8,500 British schoolchildren in need each morning, said teachers in the schools she worked in expected to see a dramatic decline in the health of their pupils as they return after the holidays: "Teachers tell us they know even with free school meals it will take two to three weeks to get their kids back up to the weight they were at the end of the last school term because their families cannot afford the food during the holidays."

She has just been bought a £700k house outright, no mortgage, (up north, too) by her parents that she is renovating (well, her parents are renovating it for her, on their dime). She lives at home (huge fancy house), rent free, was bought a brand new flash sports car for 18th birthday. Still gets an allowance and has her dad's credit card.

When I tried to say that some people are more lucky than others on life, that some really struggle and just don't have the money to help themselves out of it, she said they needed to work harder.
When I asked her if she honestly didn't feel she had been very fortunate in life, she said no, she'd worked her ass off for what she had and it was all the result of "positive thinking and positive energy*".

Money has played a big part in this girl's life.
Positive thinking and hard work is all it takes? My Arse!

A lot of people would cut off their own arms to have the same start in life she has had!

I think what's really missing is people don't acknowledge the fact that poverty isn't fixable a lot of the time.

The chance of lifting yourself out of poverty is statistically very small

It's fuck all to do with hard work or application. It's to do with background, education, family, area. Nearly everything out with your control.

People always like to think things are within their control, that they are special and can pull themselves out. Anecdotally a few will but it's statistics that matter.

And the statistics say born in poverty? Die in poverty.

There's quite a lot of research that shows how poverty reduces people's ability to delay gratification. One issue is that having no security in life and no guarantee that something will still be there if you wait (which is exactly the circumstances that poverty produces) make it much harder for people to wait for things. Another issue is that always having to say no to things you want, or to put things off makes it much much harder to say no to other things. It's much harder to say no to the chippy from round the corner that you have the money for right now when you are always deciding not to put the heating on, and not to buy new shoes even though yours have a hole in them, and not to do a whole host of other things and you can't be sure you'll not need the money for something else if you don't buy it now.

So it's very easy for people who don't live precarious lives to feel smug about their ability to delay gratification and to see people getting new chairs (or a big telly) from brighthouse or a takeaway (or even really struggling to give up smoking) as a moral failing in others, but that's to totally miss the point. It's actually much easier for me in a warm house, with a full belly and a healthy and regular income (and who has grown up in those circumstances as well) to decide to be frugal (or froogal, even) than it is to do the same when your life offers much less in the way of comfort or guarantee.

I think I would rather enjoy my chicken for one meal than make fifteen meals for fifteen people and use just a sliver of chicken and call it a chicken pie calamitousley !

I think the hardest thing for people to comprehend is the never ending grind of it. Yes I remember being a student and surviving on beans and value noodles, but so were all my peers and most importantly it was only temporary. I knew there was an end date.

I can never understand what it is like to experience true poverty. The worst that can ever happen to me is I have to move back to my parents, own bedroom, living room and bathroom. Not contemplating a homeless hostel or the streets.

It is easy to start out motivated on benefits or a low wage. Positive that things will get better, but living hand to mouth and in fear of the next financial disaster wears you down. When there is no end in sight it grinds people into dust. Having people wax lyrical about how they coped on their gap yah experiencing real poverty really doesn't help.

I don't think our house (up North) is worth 1/10 of that

Online supermarket shopping is interesting.

Four years ago, my friend and I ordered food from asda. They couldn't deliver because of the snow and refunded us - a week later. Made no difference to me. She just about starved.

I do think one mistake a lot of people are making here is that it's just people reliant on benefits really struggling, and I think that's really misleading.

Not sure if this has already been posted, from Linda Tirado www.theguardian.com/society/2014/sep/21/linda-tirado-poverty-hand-to-mouth-extract . Sorry, too tired to do a pretty link, gave blood today and feel a bit wiped out.

Yeah, I've said this before on poverty threads that it's much easier if I was suddenly poor as I have things to sell/years worth of clothes and shoes/and a full store cupboard/ loads of blankets/ basically loads of everything.

It would take years of me being on JSA to feel really poor as Ive not been trapped in poverty for years- I'd call on friends, go to the heated library during the day.

Grinding, long term poverty takes away your ability to do anything apart from eke out an existence.

Hmmm - I've offered advice in the past on a thread (don't get a tv from brighthouse - get an old style one from freecycle/charity shop -people can't give them away! then save the amount you would pay to bright house and buy the same tv for half the money in a year and then you can carry on saving your 'bright house' money for emergencies). I got shot down in flames! (apparently second hand tvs are a massive fire risk etc! Except they aren't!) But that's what I'd do...
I'm ok for money now but I do know what it is like to be desperate...
First of all in my late teens/early 20s I was extremely skint, estranged and hundred of miles away from my family... but I was lucky, I didn't have dependents and I did have qualifications that allowed me to get what would be a minimum wage job now (no minimum wage then - really badly paid - less than £2 ph).
I ended up somewhere in the country I only knew 2 people (silly!) in a cheap bedsit - shared bathrooms/stairs filthy. Even hot water cost - shower was 20p in a meter, no hot water in the sinks - you had a water heater in your room. Only heating was a fan heater. Spent most of my time in bed fully clothed, hot water bottle trying to keep warm. I had to feed 50ps in a meter next to my bed and watch it spin round.

I earned just enough to survive - if I was careful - (eg took me 4 months to save up for the cheapest electric kettle (£12) I could get - figured it would be cheaper than using the 2 ring electric stove. No cheap microwaves then)
The first month I was being paid a month in hand. I had a little money but not enough for the month. I walked to work (a couple of miles) cos I didn't have the fares. I was truly down to my last penny. (Friends were skint too). I made the first two sensible decisions of my life.
I didn't take an advance - I knew that would be a stupid thing to do - I would be having to do it every month.
And my week's rent was due 2 days before I got paid ...I didn't have it. And I thought I could just be chucked out on the street, homeless. The landlord came round for it (old creepy revolting french guy) - I told him I didn't have it, begged him to wait, he rubbed my thigh and told me that maybe I didn't have to pay -wink wink - and I was very very tempted. But didn't.
And it did get better - over years - I got promoted, more money, moved on - but still wasn't particularly sensible - more or less spent everything I earned (but not more than). Then I got ill and couldn't work anymore for a while, eventually ended up becoming a student to retrain. I didn't have savings. I worked several jobs, complete balancing act to do everything and had to budget very carefully. I'm still careful now.
That's my life experience - I can look back and think I wish I hadn't done x, I'm glad I didn't do y and I wished I'd done z.

DP grew up extremely poor, his mum sent him shoplifting for food etc. He managed to get enough money together to get the lease of a restaurant by working really hard (90hr weeks), living in dumps & not spending for several years.

And when I've mentioned DP before I've been shot down in flames - why does anyone want to live with cockroaches ? Maybe short term cos that's one way out ...and what's the alternative? Just hope it will change?
I also have experience in my family - eg a relation of mine's son (with children, low paid job, has been on benefits at times) was showing off his latest phone - on a contract that was a really good deal...except he could have a good enough phone (not as flashy), air time/data etc for half what he was paying...

I find people don't want to listen...but I agree some people find being poor/people thinking you are poor embarrassing (I don't).
Some people haven't got the education/life experience/self belief to help themselves or plan ahead.
I do think we should be helping more at school - a worth while education.

And I think dodgy loan companies, like pay day lenders and brighthouse should be banned...
But our whole economy is based on people being told they need the latest, shiniest, newest thing ...so I doubt things will change anytime soon...

I'm not sure that you can just take and leave what you don't need, cheesecake.

Poverty - or even not poverty but being poor - is, as others have explained, relentless and stressful and upsetting.

Replies that are so far from your own universe, if you like, serve to underline the isolation and sense of exhaustion at it all, especially given the incredulous nature of some posts ('Well why don't you just ...')

YANBU OP. Being on MN has really opened my eyes up to the diversity of income in the UK.

Re those being critical of payday lenders - if you need money - need it - and can't go to a high street bank, where do you go?

The sneering at the payday lenders are part of the problem on here, not the solution.

I don't see the point of raging at people for not being poor. When people ask for advice on here it will come from a wide range of points of view. If it seems obvious (you need to escape from him, call a taxi) then you can't blame people for not knowing that the OP literally can't access a tenner to get away from an abusive partner.

Like all advice, some will be helpful, some won't. Just say thanks for the advice but that doesn't apply to me because x.