AIBU to think that if you earn £22k+ you shouldnt need to use foodbanks?

[beardymcbeardy]

Or am I in denial, or just lucky? I earn less than that and admittedly I have to be frugal, live a fairly boring lifestyle (no fancy holidays and shitty old car) but I've never had to rely on a foodbank. I can't get my head around earning £22k and still needing to use a foodbank.

What NapQueen said. You can't just make wholesale lifestyle adjustments overnight.

There's been so much information and misinformation about this nurse. Is it true her children go to private schools?

Firstly, not all nurses can work full time for health, childcare, other commitments.

22,000 = 1,800 / month GROSS, so shall we say 1,500 net? If that's a single earner family, rent around here (NOT london - calm down!) for a 3 bed terrace is £1,200 if you are NOT fussy about area and forgo off road parking. Okay that leaves £300 a month/75 per week. If that's for a whole family, TOTAL, for all bills, expenses and food, as well as travel to work and parking etc. I can easily see how one or two unexpected bills would leave you short for food as there is no wiggle room for rainy day savings!

Firstly, not all nurses can work full time for health, childcare, other commitments.

22,000 = 1,800 / month GROSS, so shall we say 1,500 net? If that's a single earner family, rent around here (NOT london - calm down!) for a 3 bed terrace is £1,200 if you are NOT fussy about area and forgo off road parking. Okay that leaves £300 a month/75 per week. If that's for a whole family, TOTAL, for all bills, expenses and food, as well as travel to work and parking etc. I can easily see how one or two unexpected bills would leave you short for food as there is no wiggle room for rainy day savings!

Firstly, not all nurses can work full time for health, childcare, other commitments.

22,000 = 1,800 / month GROSS, so shall we say 1,500 net? If that's a single earner family, rent around here (NOT london - calm down!) for a 3 bed terrace is £1,200 if you are NOT fussy about area and forgo off road parking. Okay that leaves £300 a month/75 per week. If that's for a whole family, TOTAL, for all bills, expenses and food, as well as travel to work and parking etc. I can easily see how one or two unexpected bills would leave you short for food as there is no wiggle room for rainy day savings!

Firstly, not all nurses can work full time for health, childcare, other commitments.

22,000 = 1,800 / month GROSS, so shall we say 1,500 net? If that's a single earner family, rent around here (NOT london - calm down!) for a 3 bed terrace is £1,200 if you are NOT fussy about area and forgo off road parking. Okay that leaves £300 a month/75 per week. If that's for a whole family, TOTAL, for all bills, expenses and food, as well as travel to work and parking etc. I can easily see how one or two unexpected bills would leave you short for food as there is no wiggle room for rainy day savings!

It comes to something when there's a witch hunt for people on low incomes using food banks. I'd understand if you were upset about someone on £100,000 using a food bank, but that is not the case in this scenario.

There are hundreds of reasons that you do not know that could result in someone using food banks. Severe debts accrued during Med school, high mortgage/ rent, single earner in large household. Use your imagination.

Not common for someone to be paying for all that alone without tax credits/ child support though tinsel

The nurse on the telly blamed the Scottish Government for her shit wages as a nurse as her reason for having to rely on foodbanks as opposed to some unfortunate or unforeseen incident (which i dont think the SNP could be held accountable for?). Thats what I cant get my head around. She must earn a minimum of £22k, and she claims she has had to resort to foodbanks. Im on less than her (in a no less demanding job) and havent had to resort of foodbanks. Which is why I think she must either be speaking nonsense or seriously mismanaging her money.

Our rent in London is 25k a year. People's circumstances differ.

I'm on ESA and regularly donate to our local foodbank, soup kitchen and Womens Aid. Admittedly not large amounts.

Give open handedly or not at all.

Do people really believe all that they hear/read?

Op you haven't said if you are the sole earner in your house, or if you have dependents or if you get any benefits.

I think if you're going to hold yourself up as an example then you should provide context by answering these questions.

This is bloody nasty!

No wonder people are afraid to speak out when they are scrutinised and smeared for doing so. An SNP candidate has already been forced to make an apology to this nurse.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39997155

Id heard her children had went to private school as well as seen all the fancy dining/holiday fb photos but since I couldnt confirm any of it, thought i shouldnt mention it. If a single mother only earned £22k then she would also get tax credits and child benefit.

Only on mn would £22k be considered a low wage when most people earn less than this and are expected to live within their means.

They very much are for people who've had shit financial management: the children of people who make bad choices deserve to eat too. Most food bank use is down to tenporary cash crunches though - exploding boilers, benefit sanctions, bank fraud.

It would be very odd for a single woman in Scotland on a steady and low but not appalling salary to be regularly reliant on foodbanks but it all depends on your housing costs.

Yes I am a single parent of one child, no csa but get tax credits and cb.

If she's been qualified for 8 years she will be on a lot more than £22k full time and extra enhancements on top for weekends and nights. I'm a nurse and came out with about £22k last year for working 22 hours a week and some overtime.

Well i guess i'll concede that foodbanks are there for people who are shit with their money regardless of how much income they have. But they surely they would have to accept the blame for their mismanagement themselves, and not blame the government of the day?

£22k is nothing. Our housing association home cost us £700 a month alone, which is nearly half our annual salary. Ironically My dp runs his own estate agents . He takes home £28k a year.
It depends where you live, if we lived up north we'd have bought our own home and lived comfortably.

@Tinseltwins, someone with child/ren earning 22000 and paying £1200 a moth in rent would be entitled to housing benefit and CTC if they were the sole earner, so their money left after rent would be higher.

Oh come on if you can afford a holiday in the states a few months ago you should not know be attending a foodbank - and if that's from unusual circumstances then why blame your pay?
Either papers are lying and making up the stuff about her dc going to private school etc, or she was lying and trying to score political points. But got caught.

Not common for someone to be paying for all that alone without tax credits/ child support though tinsel

Literally everyone I know has been hit with "we have over paid you" letters from tax credits over the last few weeks (even if their salary hasn't changed in a few years … that's another thread…)

Tanith, Im not interested in the smearing of the woman or not, but whether the 'facts' she has claimed are true or not, I think if you go on the TV and claim that the government is not paying you enough (despite the fact that you get more than a lot of other people and more than colleagues in other parts of the UK for the same job) and that you have had to use foodbanks to get by, then its not unexpected that people like me who earn considerable less and are expected to manage, raise eyebrows and question the 'facts' that have been presented.

If there's a child in the mix then chances are there might be some tax credits and possibly housing benefit in the mix depending on age and situation. If you were dealing with a child in ft childcare and renting in the area I've seen mentioned for the nurse living - local to me - then entitledto suggests benefits of potentially 276 per week.

Any delay in those could cause a need for food bank usage - isn't it about the most common reason for referral? But you might well consider that the only reason you needed to do it was because your wages weren't enough to live on iyswim