Minimum £44 per week on clothes and £106pw on social/cultural activities???

[Snowflake65]

For one adult and two children - does that seem excessive?

Just completed the calculator on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation website and this is what it says is minimum income standard

Funnily enough it is telling me my salary is not enough - I should be earning £35,000 a year to have a minimum standard of living or when I put in my actual mortgage and utility figures it told me I need to earn £40k+

Surely they cannot be right? If they are campaigning against poverty I would have thought they would use more credible figures, or maybe IABU.

www.minimumincome.org.uk

£44 per week on personal goods and services???? like what?

Dental treatment
Opticians
Haircuts
Prescriptions
Toiletries - eg soap, shampoo, deodorant
Sanitary Towels/Tampons

I got that I needed about 17k for a basic standard of living. I'm single and live in an urban area outside London. That seems about right for me. When I lived on less than that I was buying my clothes mainly at charity shops and dipping into my savings (could have gotten into debt if no savings). However, I don't know many single people who are not T total who can spend less than 5 pounds a week on alcohol and my council tax in a very small flat in a deprived area is more than they estimated.

I spend zero on alcohol - can't believe that is even in there

You can't believe that the average person thinks people should be able to afford some alcohol?

'social and cultural activities' includes Tv license, sky, netflix, internet, phones, parties, kids clubs, hobbies etc etc so not that excessive.

For a single adult, it says £87 per week. I'd love to know where!

Yes if you have not got kids, the amounts are actually very low.

Hmm I guess it depends if you average it out over the year , the year DD started secondary the mandatory PE kit alone cost £96 , without buying trainers . The other uniform came to about £140 , that is one skirt , one jumper and 4 shirts , plus tights which cost £7 for 2 pairs . This is a standard state school . Add on a couple of pairs of school shoes a year and the odd replacement for lost kit , it soon adds up .

Anna I'm in Scotland ...so optician and dental checks and prescriptions are free - even so in England opticians - check every 2 yrs - think £20? And dentist is £20ish every 6 months - prescriptions you get 2 months worth of meds for £9 - and if you need a lot you get a yearly thing that works out much cheaper. And those prices are for the adults - the children are free even in England.

Toiletries - I would include that in food shop...so that is even more excessive...but I don't spend a lot on those...bar soap, basic shampoo and conditioner for rest of family (I have an MIT allergy - so use a shampoo bar for me personally - £5 for 6 months), basic moisturiser/deodorant from lidl , tooth paste for family £1-2 a month and I don't use cosmetics...oh and I have a mooncup - so that was £20 6-7 yrs ago...(Just bought DD1 a mooncup too)
Haircuts - I cut my own! (don't like the hairdresser) - but say £80 (all 4 family members) every couple of months..
so for me that does seem like quite a lot ....
klaphat - it isn't that I think someone shouldn't be able to afford alcohol - it is that it has its own separate category -I think that should in the social bit...and for someone who doesn't really drink that is like having a category for cost of fags on there...just seems odd.

It can't calculate ours because we have 5 children.

For 4 children it says we need to earn £52, 000 between us.

I'm surprised by the figures. DH doesn't earn far off that and it says we are £87 a week below the minimum threshold.

I realise they can't cover every circumstance, but I was pretty shocked you can't select if you're disabled. That's a huge expense and has certainly increased my costs in all sorts of ways. And no, DLA doesn't cover even a tiny fraction of those costs.

Looks right to me. Most people have the wrong idea about what Poverty looks like.

Unless you replace a couple of big appliances every year...(I've just had an expensive run - needed new tv and a dishwasher - decent ish makes - cost about £700 -but the dishwasher was 8yrs old, TV was 16 yrs old...I haven't needed to buy a big appliance before that for about 4 yrs... )

Key there is 'decent ish makes'. If you spend more, you replace less often. If you're on a budget, you buy the cheapest, often on credit so paying in some cases more than 2x the initial cost, and it needs replacing more regularly.

Being poor is an expensive business.

onceandneveragain the idea that kids clothing spending is much more expensive is probably right. I don't grow out of my clothes and shoes, nor do I need a specific school uniform. My kids uniforms cost me £600 this year (two teenagers) and that wasn't even replacing everything, just the boys that they had grown out of / worn out. They have both needed replacement shoes already and one of them a replacement cost after his got damaged. One of them needed specific outdoors clothing for a school outdoor pursuit weekend and the toddler seems to grow out of everything every couple of months (shoes about every 4 weeks ). So I think the estimate of kids clothes being twice as much is about right.

I had that gripe about disability earlier in the thread glitter. My disabled teen costs me an absolute fortune.

Unlucky - household goods probably won't just be appliances. It might be cleaning products, things you use in the house (crockery, pans, etc), light bulbs (we seem to spend a fortune on those!), carpets and decoration, furniture, etc. Perhaps toiletries? It may also include service people to repair items. There's probably a lot under that category including consumables.

It's completely inaccurate. How can it work out the minimum you need to earn without knowing your housing costs? When I put my details in it's say rent £91.97 per week... I wish! Try £225 pw

pounding I agree with you - being poor is more expensive...
But my point is £1300 is a lot of money to spend on stuff like that every year - yes you probably need to replace more often but have a lower initial outlay - so I could have got a similar TV and dishwasher for £350...and they should have lasted a year minimum (under guarantee) probably at least 2 years ...
(And I agree with buying on credit - don't get me started on Bright house etc - but this is about having enough money so that you don't need credit...so you could afford to put £25 a week away for stuff like this)

It's quite clear it's based on public opinion and therefor not factual and it's painting a picture of the minimum you need to not be poor so I'd expect it to come out higher than just scraping by.. A couple of things were a little high for my life, but rent in particular was low. I live in the expensive south east so presumably it's close to the national average?

" in England opticians - check every 2 yrs - think £20? "

Just been to the opticians. The test is free if you need new glasses. To replace the glass in my specs was 200 pounds. I also had to buy a second pair to use while the original pair is sent to the factory to be done. I do need mine to be flattened, which I suppose you wouldn't if you're not very short sighted.

As for dental costs, I have big gaps in my mouth because I don't have the THOUSANDS that it would cost to get implants. I can't find an NHS dentist, but even then it would be a lot of money.

glitter have closed the window now - but there was a category household services too - was that phone line rental etc? Rather than boiler service etc.
I am probably not the best judge of what is considered 'normal' spending though ...I try and be environmentally aware etc and also I was really hard up about 20 yrs ago (long story was skint, then ok and wasted money then skint ...) so I became very frugal (I had to be).
I am more of a spend thrift now but some of the habits I got then I still have...so I find it hard to spend money on some things that aren't 'essential' and usually look for bargains/good deals/value for money ...but like I said DCs do activities - have life experiences etc. We have no worries...even though our income is quite low...our expenditures are too.

"It sounds a lot, but people always spend more than they think on these things."

This ^^

I went down the wormhole with Joseph Rowntree once and ended up looking up the actual list of stuff they reckon people need.

Clothes were not excessive. Its based on the basics from a supermarket. They go as far as working out how long a pair of ASDA chino's should last and giving a weekly figure based on the price divided by the lifetime of the garment. I'd happily believe the clothes figure.

Social and Cultural Activities is everything. So: summer holiday, christmas presents, meals out, lottery tickets, kids piano lessons, everything.
They work it out by getting focus groups of ordinary people (all different backgrounds) to tell them what they think a person should have to not be "poor". The summer holiday is probably one of the bigger things and as living standards drop and less people can afford holidays, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is finding more and more that the focus groups argue over including it. In the future, we might see it drop of the list.

Something's definitely a bit odd about the figures. I apparently need to earn £29k once actual mortgage figures are put in - but I couldn't actually afford my mortgage on that.

Some of the things that "the public" think of as essentials are also weirdly specific. I think at one point they said that every household needed a laundry marker - I'm still not completely sure what that is used for in practice and certainly have never owned one,

How bizarre- I didn't mean to do a link to Asda. I mean, I get that you know what Asda is! My PC did that automatically or something!

unlimited have a look here - you didn't link it MN did....
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/site_stuff/2845367-Skimlinks-on-Talk

I had to increase all the outgoings as they were wildly underestimated! My rent is double per week what they said as are my fuel bills and childcare.