to think some people have no idea of how some people live?

[ihatevirginmobile]

Being vague cos I like the person and I don't want to out myself or them but it did make me think they have no idea...
We were talking about paying for an activity for children - a charity run by volunteers and the 'fees' are deliberately kept as low as possible to be inclusive. Can be paid monthly (so small amounts) or four times a year - which works out at max £25 - but actual amounts vary for various reasons. Payment can be made by internet banking, cash or cheq.
Person I was talking to was complaining about having to make the payments (by bank transfer -takes a few minutes) - it would be better just to make it quarterly payments of the same amount so they could set up a standing order. And to make it more rather than less so the charity didn't miss out - they would happily pay £10-15 more a year for the convenience....their time was worth more than that...
They are employed in a public service role that is relatively well paid and we do live in a relatively affluent area - I would agree that most people would be fine with it - could easily afford it...(I could but have struggled in the past)
But I also know from something else that we do have the odd person who is less comfortable and struggling - and £10-15 a year for some people is a lot...it is a couple of hours work at NMW.
So AIBU to feel a bit cross ... and .. I don't know - sad? despairing? ... that people can exist in a bubble and have no idea how difficult things can be for some people...or maybe I'm wrong and isn't really a lot of money so maybe they have a point...

I think what we can take from this is to look out and be kind and generous when we can - we don't have alot - been building a business for 6 yrs - we just this year took ourselves off tax credits to try and drive us to maximise earnings from the business, we have done it we still owe bits and bobs but not scarily so, we got a new car this week - contract hire but still, we have managed on a car that has been limping about this year and they gave us 1K for it, and we consider ourselves lucky for that. There have been weeks in the not distant past when I have had to sell things to make the cash too shop or to do things (like pay for the petrol for a break over summer holidays that cost 25 a night between us). A car boot where I borrowed the stand money from DD to get in to sell stuff. Where my parents took DD for shoes and said I would have to pay back - without telling me and sent me into a bit of a tailspin as to how exactly I was going to do that. My poor mother has lost all concept of not having enough money even though she was brought up on the breadline. A catch phrase in the family is "oh just go and flipping get it if you need it" I despaired at one point and just stopped talking to her about anything but newsy stuff - nothing tough

Be kind buy a coffee for a friend, pass along books or clothes in a good state of nic - too good to pass on to just anyone is something I have used in the past. I let neighbours cook in my aga its on anyway saves them an hour or so oven time, its efficient for us and good background heat for the kitchen where the home office is, baked pots for lunch are lovely, warming and cheap. Buy bogofs and give away the freebies (can always say will never use that much in a month of sundays but it was free). Pay it forward you never know when its your turn.

srslylikeomg I didn't know I was born till I became (unexpectedly and unwillingly) a lone parent. Suddenly I was supporting 3 of us on one wage instead of 2, with an insulting pittance from the DC's father thrown in. I had to pay huge childcare costs, all school -related costs, mortgage, insurances, transport costs, clothes, food, bills, everything.

I couldn't earn more because the extra childcare bills and costs just negated it.

My in laws are very wealthy and very kind. And very very clueless. My dh is the son who did not finish college, who did not go into an approved profession. We are not skint by any means but have sat in dark as the electric had been shut off and we weren't able to scrabble up payment until the following day. We have declined birthday invitations at the end of some months as we would not have had money to buy a gift for the birthday child. This has hit our dd hard at times as she is very social and loves a party. Mostly, for us, it is the small humiliations, the walking into a family conversation only to hear a whispered, "OHHH, SHHHHH, here comes T...let's not say anymore as they wont be able to afford a skiing holiday in Telluride with us". Like we won't find out via Facebook..

To the Op who posted the poor can be naive..really??? Well fuck that...You don't know the circumstances that surround people's lives.

Yes, everyone should consider others. Spell, though is that your husband's fault? He had every opportunity and chose not to finish college and picked low paid work? My son has chosen to be a postman so although I'd never let him starve and I'm kind to him the fact he doesn't earn much is entirely his fault.

In the book The Road to Nab End the authors sister is offered a grammar school place but the parents couldn't afford the uniform so she didnt go, that book had me crying buckets and I'm not usually tearful. Also some people have ill health or dont like the idea of a pressured work environmnt but are there many people who bypass educational opportunities.

Maybe I'm being dim, but if that person wants to pay slightly more by standing order, why doesn't she just do that? I'm sure the charity could use the extra - she just needs to speak to the treasurer to explain what she is doing so they know what to expect.

As someone else said further down, yabru in taking someone's comments about what would suit them personally and building them into a judgment of what that person generally understands about money, just so that you can knock it down (and bask in your own superior insight?). You don't actually say anywhere that this person said she thought everyone should be forced to pay that way, rather than just wanting to be able to pay that way herself.

It's true there are lots of people who don't understand or who have forgotten what it's like to be struggling to make ends meet, but is being willing to pay a bit extra to pay by standing order really a sign of that? I regularly buy big packets of teabags because it's handy - each time I look along the shelf for those am I showing my ignorance of people who can't afford to buy more than 40 at a time? Maybe if I started calling for Tetley to stop the 40 packs and only make 240 packs, I would be doing that, but I'm hardly doing that just by looking out for the more convenient bigger ones for me.

I have been poor in the past to the point of being unable to afford food or have the heating on. I will never forget that experience, even though it's in the past. It's not the day-today effects of poverty that get you down - while it's shit, most people become surprisingly adept at negotiating their way around the difficulties it presents. It's the sheer unrelentingness of it that gets people. When you can't see a better future because you can't work/earn more/retrain/change your personal circumstances/do anything more to try to reduce your outgoings and yet your income isn't rising and then the kids need a new pair of shoes...

Which is my way of saying that even though poverty is a thing of the past for me, I won't ever judge someone for being poor and try to be sensitive about money when talking to people who don't have any. I know how crap it used to make me feel; even when you know you've done everything you can, when someone suggests something you can't afford it manages to make you feel like it's somehow some deficit in your character meaning you can't. That's not nice.

Personally, in one of the richest countries in the world which is supposed to provide equality of opportunity for children, I think it's shocking that kids can't have new school shoes and afford Brownies, let alone the fact that their parents can't afford decent food or heating.

If these people want to pay quarterly but the amount varies, then they could always set up a standing order for the maximum it would cost, and call any difference a donation to the charity?! so they get their convenient way to pay and the charity get their money..

A friend of mine is so tight for money that she cant afford £20 a term in one instalment for her DD to go to Brownies. I suggested that she ask Brown Owl if she could pay weekly instead. I think it unfair that her DD can't go just because they can't find £20 in one go. I don't know what happened but her girl still hasn't started Brownies.

I am fantastically lucky. income poor but with a back up of savings for emergencies. I think that it has come from not having a lot as a child. I should be happy but there is that lingering fear of not having stuff. I struggle to use the last of anything in the cupboard. the fear of not having something is still there. I was in and out of work on short term contracts in my twenties and spent a lot of time going without to save for the bits in between.. but still never, ever to the same extent some people have to restrict spending. for which I am eternally grateful.

we are careful now. food shopping is at aldi and I spend on average £45 per week for 1 adult and two children and get a really good, varied pescatarian diet and do not really feel we miss out on much. and it would not be healthy stuff anyway a couple of people really can not believe we spend so little (do they not know others spend less?) they were discussing a challenge where you spend about three pounds per person on food per day and were lamenting how impossible it would be. I was how come you spend so much?

On standing orders etc I was explaining to one my teenagers how my father used to buy in bulk in the 1970s (when the country had power cuts, 20% inflation a year, 99% upper tax rate, 3 day week etc etc) and that was an interesting discussion. The fact you could save 3p or whatever it was on a loo roll being worth your journey to the cash and carry. We all do calculations those lucky enough to have choices - is my time worth X or should I do Y?

No matter how much money you have it is a really good idea to know how to live happily without very much at all. That alone can make you feel secure and self sufficient.

I think it is, as PP said, that you assume you earn just above average. I certainly was shocked to do the Joseph Rowntree income calculator. Doing that, and reading stories here on MN, has really opened my eyes to the reality of life in the UK in 2015.

Case in point, I couldn't understand why a person would choose a pot noodle over making a big pot of soup. MN helped to realise something that simply hadn't occurred to me - the cost of the electricity made cooking prohibitive. I feel stupid for not making that connection.

Dh laughs at the amount of toilet roll I stock, we had fuck all when I was little and often had to use newspaper to wipe our arses on.

My dad left us, things were hard before he fucked off but they got a lot worse after, some days we had no electric, no heating and slept in our coats.

I'd often follow the coal man round the street to pick up the bits he'd dropped and take it home, when the coal man realised he would leave a bag every now and then for my mam.

My biggest fear is ending up in the same way with dd, I know my mum loved us, but she felt such shame at not being able to give us what we needed all the time, and although she does well now, she still carries guilt. Having loads of toilet roll in makes me feel a little bit protected. Sounds silly I know.

I got not silly. I'm the same. I remember having to use newspaper too. Not nice

IGot, when my granny died, they found scores of bars of soap and loo roll stockpiled in her cupboard. She was very poor all her life except for the last few years (not suggesting you're as old as my granny BTW!) .

Sometimes the Style and Beauty threads make me laugh/wince in terms of how much £££ some people think nothing of spending on one item.

But people live in a bubble and often hear an echo chamber of their own beliefs and expereinces if they mix with the same people. They forget that what is normal to them is very different to other people
Mumsnet in a nutshell.

IGot - I'm the same with food. I take inordinate comfort from having lots of tins of stuff in the house. It's definitely to do with having been hungry for long periods. I can't explain the feeling- it's a kind of absence of anxiety, if that makes sense. That if there weren't anything in the cupboards, I'd somehow feel exposed. Fortunately, canned stuff keeps for eons, and my DH is understanding.

DeoGratias - you're making a big assumption there. SpellBookAndCandle never mentioned why her DH didn't finish college.

I thought this today, I'm doing the Christmas present collection for the class teachers and a mum asked how much people were giving. I answered that as much as they wanted to. She thought it would be better if I stipulated an amount and everyone gave the same.

I disagreed, she can't know individual incomes/disposable income and it is a bit arrogant to assume that everyone can contribute as much as she can.

It works both ways though - if you leave it completely open then people can still feel pressured. Naming an amount can act as a useful ceiling so people don't feel worried they ought to give more than that. What I like is to be told something like "any amount welcome, it's working out at about £1/£2/£5 each on average so far" - that gives me a rough idea but at the same time it's not rigid if I can't give that much or don't want to.

There was a thread a few months ago about growing up poor.

I mentioned how I got very emotional when I bought my DS those small boxes of Kellogs cereals, the variety pack ones, you get six in cellophane.
They seemed absolutely wonderful to me as a child and I positively yearned for them.

Many other posters felt the same.

yanbu

Deo, fuck off. My dh is a police officer. He risks his life every day. He was a firefighter/EMT before going into law enforcement. He runs towards danger when asshats like you run away.