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Original poster

To think some people have their heads in the sand about poverty in the UK?

246 replies

MrsFlannel · 10/04/2015 10:28

On here we see a lot about "Don't have children you can't afford" etc.

this article in the Guardian really brings home the effects of poverty today and it's really breaking my heart.

By rights I should be among those who are struggling so badly...and in one way we are...but because I managed to get a degree and get my DC into a school which is good despite living in a very poor area, we're not quite in the trouble many people around us are.

We live in a council estate...all around me is quite terrible poverty. The upsetting thing is that whilst DH and I have decent work...it's not enough to be able to donate to food banks etc....we only scrape by. I'm sick of the people who deny that there's a problem...or shove blame onto "feckless parents"

OP posts:
OnlyLovers · 10/04/2015 18:08

fantastic local library

Not everyone has one.

Original poster
MrsFlannel · 10/04/2015 18:10

Ilove I was pointing out the differences in perspective. In my circle most families are well off...that's because my DC go to a school in another village.

Anyway...I thought you were off?

OP posts:
ilovechristmas1 · 10/04/2015 18:10

no they dont but schools have them and much more convenient for the child

diaimchlo · 10/04/2015 18:13

what

ilovechristmas1 · 10/04/2015 18:13

im back now,wasnt out for long,will be reading all the posts to catch up

daisychain01 · 10/04/2015 18:18

The one thing I have become acutely aware of is the notion that 'ordinary' people are potentially 2-3+ paydays away from financial ruin. It's that stark a reality.

My DP fell ill very suddenly, and before we knew it we had lost one salary overnight. That was a massive wake-up call. I think about that most days (there but for the grace of God go we all). Especially in the context of people who talk about £10 being a lot of money - because they are constantly having to think from only one payday to the next. Eat or heat etc.

The big difference for the Beckhams, Middletons or Bransons of this world is that they will never ever have to face that stress - admittedly, they are not immune from tragedy, but they'll have a good bit of padding that most people will never enjoy.

Fannydabbydozey · 10/04/2015 18:36

Solid - amazing posts there. I work an industry which was mixed in classes when I joined but is now almost universally staffed by middle to upper class people who all have degrees and who have never been poor in their lives (you used to be able to get in without a degree but this is impossible now) This makes a difference when we are doing items on benefits, policies, fuel poverty, old and cold etc and there is no understanding or empathy. To work in this industry now you will do endless work experience for nothing followed by a lengthy stint being the junior earning the bare minimum. Certainly not enough to live in London ( where the work is) without either having a healthy allowance, or parents who also live in London and can subsidise you. The number of times I've been incredulous at the comments of junior staff saying things like "we'll have to pay her petrol when she gets here as she doesn't have enough money to drive the 100 miles back home again. Why can't we just send a cheque? It's SUCH a pain. Moan moan moan." That's actually a pretty shit example but there are so many comments and situations where understanding of those less well off is frankly appalling.

I grew up for a while on a terrible estate. Suicides were common, there was all sorts of abuse going on, lots of worrying stuff and also lots of very disadvantaged people scraping by and trying their best. The local school was bedlam. It has left me with an everlasting fear of having no money again. No-one I know now lives like that. But back then, everyone I knew lived like that (until I changed schools.) I thought it was normal that kids roamed around from morning to night from tots onwards. It was normal that people got drunk on the cheapest booze available: usually their lives were so shit it helped a bit. It was normal that kids would try to smoke from age 8 and have babies in their mid teens. There was a lot of early sexual experimenting that looking back on I am HORRIFIED at. I wasn't part of it but it was there. We got out, but if I'd stayed what would have stopped me going down the same path? I'd like to think my parents... Yet a crap education alongside cultural and peer pressure may have won. When I changed school I was fascinated by my class mates: mostly middle class and like aliens to me. Their lives were so widely different. I'm glad my parents got me into that school (months of revision as I had to sit an exam to get in) but I was out of my depth in so many ways there.

Finally, I'll add this: If you've got nothing you don't expect that you'll ever have anything. If you'd told the 8 year old me what the 40 year old me would be doing and where I'd be living and the sort of life I would have, I wouldn't have believed you. Not in a million years as I wouldn't have believed I was worth it, could ever have it, or deserved it. And I'm not living a millionaire life by any stretch of the imagination. It would have been incomprehensible to me to get from what I saw as one extreme to the other. Just a perspective on how working yourself out of the gutter is not as easy as some would like to think.

bodingading · 10/04/2015 18:40

You know it's interesting. I don't live in poverty any more. I worked and worked and worked and worked like the very devil to get myself out. By god I worked. And you know where I got? Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere! It didn't matter how hard I tried or how much I struggled, I couldn't deal with all my problems on my own. You know how I got out of poverty?

  1. I got an (tragic and unexpected) inheritance in my 20s, which I used to start a business.
  2. I got 2 hours a day care cover for DH and a special mattress for him so I could sleep in three hour blocks instead of 90 minute blocks.

That's it. Once I had those two things I sorted my life out and now it's great. I solved my poverty with... money. Don't tell the Tories; their heads will explode.

LotusLight · 10/04/2015 18:48

I think it's a bit unfair to pick on the Middletons. Like me their grandparents were miners in the NE. Mrs M was just an air hostess. They only did well because they worked hard.

I am not saying it is easy to save money but plenty of us have slept on floors so we are at least saving some money for a few years so that if we fall on hard times we have a cushion. Some start with paper rounds at 12 and build up a few savings. IT is not impossible. In fact lot of our richest entrepreneurs started that way from complete poverty.

Fannydabbydozey · 10/04/2015 18:57

And there we have it. You CAN work yourself out of poverty. You're just not trying hard enough. Just, you know, save a bit. Hmm

TinklyLittleLaugh · 10/04/2015 19:00

Ah yes, the local library. Our council made cuts to library funding. In the fairly affluent village where we live now, we all kicked up a big fuss, campaigned, signed petitions. We kept our library.

In the rough bit of town where I used to live, they have closed the library. It was a lifeline to me when my kids were small; free books, cheap holiday activities, great playground, and there were always kids on the pcs doing their homework. Sadly, I think they need theirs more than us.

SolidGoldBrass · 10/04/2015 19:41

I saw a post on one of my FB groups today, from a woman who had been made redundant from the library where she worked. She had just received a mailout inviting her to become a volunteer at that library. Basically, she had been asked to go back to the job she had been made redunant from and do it for no money.

expatinscotland · 10/04/2015 19:45

Bingo! The good ol' 'Pull yourself up by the bootstraps' comment. Worked so well for improving poverty in the Victorian era, all those underserving poor! Oh, no, wait, that was social reform.

Original poster
MrsFlannel · 10/04/2015 19:47

Solid Ah yes..."Big Society" wasn't it called?

OP posts:
expatinscotland · 10/04/2015 19:50

DC trotted out how well Big Society has worked under his government. With a straight face.

LoisWilkersonsLastNerve · 10/04/2015 19:52

But what if you can't be an entrepreneur or "work hard"? Should you be left to starve? People who aren't mentally strong or have low intelligence or addictions, disabilities etc. Judge us on how we treat the weaker members of society. Sorry for saying weaker, not sure how else to put it.

coppertop · 10/04/2015 20:39

"I think it's a bit unfair to pick on the Middletons. Like me their grandparents were miners in the NE. Mrs M was just an air hostess. They only did well because they worked hard."

There was also the teensy little matter of Mr M's inheritance from his grandmother, who was herself a descendant of the wealthy Lupton family:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupton_family

Fannydabbydozey · 10/04/2015 20:57

Yes, the Middletons didn't quite work and work and work their way out of poverty. Unless relatives with titles, property empires and known as landed gentry passes for poverty these days.

ASAS · 10/04/2015 21:18

I'll say this (since it's MUMsnet), I got out because of my mum. 32 years later she's still doing it via free childcare. I can't describe the significance of this.

HelenaDove · 10/04/2015 21:21

A tenant i know was left without running water in her kitchen for two weeks.

9 weeks.

7 weeks.

11 weeks
y
Just some amounts of time that some HAs are leaving ppl without heating or hot water.

So if landlords are happy to leave ppl without heating for so long how would they get clothes dry.

Newbrummie · 10/04/2015 22:04

I can only speak of my recent experience, if it wasn't for charities we'd have been fcuked. I earnt a very good salary, had savings, own quality furniture, electrical basics, washing machine, TV, iPads etc. overnight it was gone.
My ex let our house get repossessed, blew his savings, our car will be taken it's just a matter of time, things I'd worked hard for for many years. All gone because basically my ex can't handle the pressures of life ie going to work and he's met another woman who's prepared to put up with this.
Anyway the big ticket items you couldn't afford to buy or replace in ten years if you stayed on benefits, car forget it, a bloody bus ticket I think twice about and I will go without to buy myself an education out of here because if I don't and stay like this frankly I will kill myself so the kids get the life assurance, I feel more useful to them dead than alive.

HelenaDove · 10/04/2015 22:32

New Thanks

Original poster
MrsFlannel · 10/04/2015 22:50

New no...you're more useful to them alive. You'll get there again...you will. Flowers

OP posts:
Newbrummie · 10/04/2015 22:59

Having seen how quickly it can all turn to shit, I'm not sure I want to some days.
The one piece of advice I wish I'd listened to is have savings ... Running away fund, I had a bit and an overdraft ... I honestly will not buy another non essential item until I have £5,000 in the bank. Never underestimate the rainy day fund.

Marmaladedandelions · 10/04/2015 23:03

Flowers new x