So..Britain..

[Lanark2]

Overheard in gym today, a 20something woman, explaining how she gets up at 4am to clean at a chain store's offices before work, and has done for over three years, not to have a holiday, but just to live. My work has a guy who is making himself I'll eating just bread and ridiculously cheap coleslaw sandwiches, to keep his work food bill below £1 a week so he can afford the commute. I am surviving on lentil stews and £3 chickens, and had a month without being able to shower or use the toilet because I couldn't afford a plumber until next month. Another person takes home the work toilet paper and teabags because she can't get by (zero hours) and at my second/third job, some staff live on food that is thrown away by that workplace because their wages are too low to live on as well. What is happening??

[winchester1]

Is it a good thing though that its now societies problem rather than each person trying to climb over each other to the top.
I suppose the answer is higher wages, more income tax esp for those at the top and a welfare system that actually works and helps people work, take care of their kids etc. But until the poorer people unite in some way against the rich it won't happen. Politians and business owners aren't there to help the poor imho.

But how that could happen and who will lead it I don't know. A mass nationwide strike, political marches ....

[barkinginessex]

Sorry OP, I thought your gym membership would be around £40 per month as that's standard where I live. Didn't mean to cause offence.

[PurpleThermalsNowItsWinter]

for everyone struggling.
I really wish we could end poverty in a first world country. I've been in the position of having to wash at work as I couldn't afford deodorant and use toilet roll for sanitary purposes. Just because my business is keeping out heads above water and we're comfortable for the first time ever doesn't mean I think people should work harder or more job than one (I've worked three jobs before). We need the service industry, the hospitality industry, the leisure industry etc and it should pay a living wage.

[OddBoots]

The EU thing is a bit of a red herring as British business gets much much more out of it than we pay in but the problem is getting those businesses to pay enough tax and/or wage for that to filter through.

The increase in minimum wage will help some people but anyone who spends a good proportion of their earnings on goods and services provided by minimum wage earners (eg supermarkets and childcare) will find they end up paying out more too.

[NattyTile]

I used to think that too, that it wasn't happening here, that it couldn't happen to any of my friends.

And then my income halved overnight.

I'm lucky; I had savings, I have a full pantry, and I have a big freezer. So I can still shop very cheaply, fill the house with bargains and eat relatively cheaply but well. And I have a mortgage which I can still just about pay.

We had a foodbank open in our lovely leafy town, one of the most expensive places to live outside London, a place which up until a few years ago had 100% employment, and one of the lowest crime rates in the country.

And the people who come to the foodbank, yes, some of them are who you might stereotypically make assumptions about. A couple who turned up because there was no food in their house, both wearing new coats because they were in the sake, each drinking bottles of coke from the shop next door. Personally, if I'd no food in the house, I'd spend my last tenner on bread, beans, apples and milk, not coke and primark jackets. But I've been doing this for a few months, not years, and my coat is still waterproof and warm, and if it stops being, I've an older one in the wardrobe I can go back to. I still have the luxury of choice.

And the new jackets and bottles of coke visitors to the foodbank are the minority. Far more common are the men and women who haven't eaten for several days, so their children still have food on the table after school. The families who manage in term time with free school meals, but who cannot afford three meals a day in the holidays. The single men and women living in appalling conditions, who have no access to cooking facilities at all, so who need parcels of food which can be eaten cold or heated with a kettle.

It's all got so much harder for people who were already living on the edge. Now me? If I lost all my income for a week, I could live on my reserves just fine - I wouldn't need to spend anything, although the food might get a bit boring. But my neighbour? If their money were stopped, that would mean no way to feed the electricity meter. So not only no way to cook food, but no way to keep food already bought safely. And because they have to live hand to mouth, having already sold anything of value, that electricity meter runs out every week, the day before the money comes in. They go overdrawn, and the charges eat half the next week's money. The meter needs feeding, they need somehow to cope with water rates and other monthly costs, and then maybe there's a fiver left for food. Which can't be bought cheaply in bulk as a) no reliable storage, b) no cash up front for it, and c), no way of getting to the cheaper supermarkets. So you rely on whatever's on offer at the corner store, and maybe a 12 pack of tenants is cheaper than a block of cheese and four pack of beans and a strangely misshapen potato - which you probably don't have the fuel to cook anyway.

Maybe that's the extreme. But for those who don't see it, maybe you just don't know that the TA supporting your child also works evening shifts at the petrol station, that the woman "on a diet" actually has no food until payday. And then to be told that it's just because you don't work hard enough...

[LittleCandle]

I earn slightly more than the current minimum wage. I have a 20 hour contract because I dropped hours to look after an elderly relative at home. Now that she has had to go into care, I am struggling on my 20 hour wage. I do get offered more hours, but not at this time of year when retail is quiet. I have been looking for another job, but getting one is not that easy. I am now facing what could be several months off because I require major surgery, and I am going to have to cash in my savings to life off. It is the last thing I want to do, but I have no choice. the money I will get for being off sick won't pay the bills. It is crap.

[Dotandethel]

Hilarious how some people think. "it's not happening in my area" and "are you up North" the reasons you don't see it in "your" areas is because you're not looking. "you have a gym membership, stop your moaning"

[Vixxfacee]

Ppl you wish you could end poverty in a first world country?!

I will probably get jumped on but have you ever been to a 3rd world country and seen what real poverty is? Where children are walking around barefoot and in rags? But I suppose I will get told it's all relative.

To the pp who hasn't had a pay rise in 12 years as they have been with the same employer- it's time to look for a new job. Most people get a pay rise by getting a new job.

[CosyNook]

OP, You've posted similar threads before, and I suggested everyone has the option to have a good education, obtain work related qualifications, change jobs in order to increase experience and gain better paid work.

[BeetlebumShesAGun]

• I agree it must be regional, the sort of convos I overhear at my gym centre around holidays, second homes, riding and private schools.
  
  Are you up North OP?*
  
  Are you joking?!? This is the most ridiculous ignorant post I have ever read on Mumsnet.
  
  Poverty is real, it happens to real people. It will keep happening as long as people like you continue blithely along so long as you are ok.
  
  Unbelievable.

[NattyTile]

No. Not evetybody does have access to decent education. Not when access means ability to learn from it.

When you're in temporary accommodation which moves around the county every 6 months or 6 days in Some cases, you cannot get your children to school all the time. When you do, it either means a new school every few months, or a 2-3 hour ride each way on public transport age 5 and 6. The reality for a friend of mine, during her 4 year wait for permanent housing. How are her children supposed to learn under those circumstances?

Free medical treatment is wonderful, I love our NHS. But moving from B and B to hotel (with no food allowance) to temporary let after temporary let with no forwarding address because no knowledge where the next house will be means that medical letters go missing, appointments get missed, and the children are discharged without being seen.

This all happens in the "affluent South East." Maybe you don't see it. Maybe it doesn't look like children begging on the streets. But it doesn't mean it isn't there. It is, and it is exhausting.

[Catphrase]

Meanwhile homeless rates have doubled, hostels cut and homeless fighting over fucking bins to sleep in.
Britain in 2016

[Catphrase]

nattytile your posts are spot on

[Alchemist]

I live in SE and I promise it is happening in the "affluent" south.

Roughly five years ago, a friend broke down to me about how she was having an awful time keeping up with everything, including feeding herself. She fed her daughter first. She is a martial artist and is naturally of a very slim build. So, all assumed everything was ok. Happily, her circumstances have changed but mine have too.

I am the one "dieting" and I fucking hate it. I'm honestly scared of the future.

[BadDoGooder]

I live in the south east, DP works in London (tradesman).
I live in a very poor town, in a very rich county.
All those who seem aghast at the idea of it being in their area should really open their eyes.
I would love to get educated and get a decent job, but I have no chance to save, I've been SAHM for years becuase thanks to the commuter belt ft nursery fees are hundreds more than I could possibly hope to earn. I can't even take DSs 15 free hours because the nurseries that only do the free hours are heavily over subscribed.

There is no help for people like me, I dread to think what'll happen when DP has to stop doing his incredibly physical job, he's already nearly 50!

And I am one of the luckier ones, in that I can just scrape through the month, some of my friends are really, really struggling.

All those people saying "just get a better job", do you not think people would if they could?

[BadDoGooder]

Oh and YY to everything NattyTile said.
What hope have your kids got of a good education when they don't even have a decent home/diet/ a permanent base from which to settle and work.

Honestly some of the ignorance of other people's situations is astounding!

[Catphrase]

It's the knock on affect, as a parent if your working 2/3 jobs. Where do you find the time to sit down and help the kids with their homework? Do the extra maths/ English help they could do with. It's not just the cost of cooking a proper meal but the time as well.

It shouldn't be that hard to feed, clothe and house your kids.

badDoGooder we are in a similar situation, physical job for DH we are all getting older (him grumpier!). I've looked at college for me but between fees and childcare. It just seems impossible. A lot of the help for re-education is aimed at young people, if you missed that boat (there are a million reasons why) there's little guidance, help and support.

[Ubik1]

Yes op

It's unfair and rubbish. I hope things improve for you.

[morningtoncrescent62]

It might be bad but it's not new.

It may not be new, but that doesn't make it right. We're one of the richest nations in the world, and something is very wrong with our spiralling levels of inequality. I went through my 20s with very little money on a succession of rubbish jobs paying rubbish wages, and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I hope things improve for you soon, OP. I agree, it's a sorry state for the nation to be in, and the outcome of politicians (most of them) being in thrall to their vulture friends in business, and out of touch with large numbers of their constituents.

Confession time: I got so used to taking toilet paper home with me from wherever I worked that I still sometimes find myself doing it, even though I've been on a decent income for about 20 years. Some habits die hard.

[Moopsboopsmum]

I meet people every day who would love the opportunity to live in Britain and make a better, safer, healthier life for themselves. Posts like this make me .

[RitaVinTease]

I've never lived any other way, and my kids have grown up like this. Its normal. Its how most people in the UK get by.
What you see in the media is not the average lifestyle.

I grew up in the 1970's without tv, fridge, washing machine, phone or central heating. And that was not unusual.

[AnnPerkins]

In the Home Counties town where I work there is a visibly larger number of homeless people than there was even last year. People who for whatever reason can't even get a night in the town's homeless shelter.

The shop doorways in the High Street have people sleeping in them every night.

Waitrose installed a foodbank collection bin last week.

There's a growing encampment of people living under a concrete ramp next door to my office. Somebody set fire to their possessions on Christmas Eve.

[GingerCuddleMonsterThe2nd]

But why moop? Perhaps people trying to get in to this country should be told it's not all as rosy as they think. Millions of children right here in the UK live in poverty. Many young working families are struggling to stay afloat, with high housing costs and extortionate childcare bills.

Life here isn't great for many, it may be safer for some as itsnottba war zone and healthcare is available but day to day it's hard and cold and miserable for many.

[SlinkyVagabond]

My dsis used to go to a well known sandwich chain in London. Got friendly with staff who told her that they all flat shared with 4 other young people who worked nights. One lot came in to the bed the others just vacated, they brought food home from work. That is the type of story you used to hear about migrant workers 50 years ago. They were a mix of young Europeans and British graduates. And Moop why does it make you angry? Yes poverty is subjective to the country, but the reality is that people are having to make the choice between food, water, heating or clothing every day in Britain. It makes me angry, but for different reasons.

[AuntJane]

I work for a university in a job funded by a government department. Two of my colleagues - one with a first degree, the other with a master's - live in hostels because they are single and cannot afford a flat on a single income. Another has a room in a shared house where her landlord brings in other housemates with no obvious checks, so not what I would consider safe.

A while back, someone from my team was sent to a meeting which required a two night hotel stay. The hotel and travel was paid in advance, but she was told to buy her evening meals and reclaim; in the end she had to go to Welfare because it was the end of the month and she couldn't afford anything more than bread