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.

Well nurses tend to be screwed when it comes to childcare as shifts limit who they can use. So the 22k gives around 16000 a year (minus taxes and student loans) so 1333 a month. Say 600 rent/mortgage.650 childcare and that leaves £83 for bills and food. Do you really think that people wouldn't struggle on £19 a week for food, bills and unexpected expenses?

As a foodbank worker, we will help anyone regardless of salary, if they are in a crisis. We don't judge whether someone has mismanaged their finances or whatever, if they are in genuine crisis for whatever reason we will try to help, and signpost them towards other places that can too.

Besides...what do you think we do?! Ask for pay slips and a bank statement?! It is none of our business what someone earns, no-one comes to us for shits and giggles.

Maybe we should pass a law that no-one is allowed to go on holiday unless they have a years income saved?

(Half-joking, half not. The only time I ever signed on, I had to explain that I was off on a skiing holiday the following week, which was a little embarrassing. It had been booked and paid for several months earlier.)

Does no one else here see the irony here. Someone receiving WTC and CB (so government funding) criticizing someone who's received a box of groceries from a charity.
Disclaimer: I'm not in the UK and am definitely not anti benefits (although WTC vs a realistic wage is a debate for another day), so am presuming this is concerning the woman who challenged Nicola Sturgeon, having not seen any of the surrounding media

The problem is your salary is just one number. What really mater is your situation. £22k is actually very little in some circumstances.

My salary is £32k. Currently on SMP and we have eaten through most of our savings during this time. When I return to work DP will have to go self employed to try and counteract childcare cost meaning my salary will be the only reliable income for a while.

Living on a direct train line to London means rent on our small 2 bed flag is high. I have £4K season ticket cost, student loan, pension etc come out of my pay before I even see it. Factor in bills, we cut many costs (no tv subscriptions or internet like sky etc) and things are very tight.

If anything happened that took us out of budget even slightly we would have to rely on family to help us get by. We are lucky to be in a position that we can do that, many people are not. We are in fact in a situation where I am being made redundant in Feb. Again lucky we have notice to arrange other work.

£22k would be pretty much impossible for us.

Depends on what your rent'/mortgage is. Here it's a minimum of £1k. With your other bills that stretches to another £500. That's your wages gone, with nothing left for food. I can easily see it happening.

Food banks are for anyone who for whatever reason cannot afford to feed them or their familiy.

Why does anything need to be added to that?

The base salary for a nurse doesn't tell the whole picture (I am one). Depending on specialty, a nurse may be working a lot of unsociable hours. In an acute speciality, about quarter of the shifts will be days during the week (plain time - 1x), quarter will be nights during the week (1.3x), one eighth will be nights during Saturdays (1.3x), one eighth will be nights during Sundays (1.6x), one eighth will be days during Saturdays (1.3x) and one eighth will be days during Sundays (1.6x). So overall you'd see 1/4x1, 1/2x1.3, and 1/4x1.6. That nurse would get a salary of £28600, so £6600 in enhancements.

So much ignorance on this thread.

I'll agree to disagree on that one Witsend.

An ex friend of mine used a food bank on many occasions because after paying for 3 mobiles, Sky, cigarettes/tobacco and the usual smoking stuff (papers/filters etc), she used the food banks and got enough food for both her and her DD. Her DD didn't live with her. She (the DD) lived with her GP's and was fed there as well.

I subsequently found out that many other people (many of them I know) spent their Tesco vouchers on alcohol and used the food banks to get fed. This is why I refuse to donate. Until the food banks start using more stringent criteria to weed out those who are abusing them, I will not offer a tin of beans. I know this is a harsh stance, and unfair to those who genuinely need the food banks, but I want the food I donate to go to those who need them, not to those who want to used them so that they can be fed while refusing to cut back on luxuries. These people are giving a bad name to those who have made those cutbacks and are in desperate need.

from what I have read :
the nurse in question is a single person with no young children (correct me if I am wrong)- so no childcare or tax credits.
If her rent is extortionate she would get housing benefit although not much if she is a single person who chooses to live in a 3 bedroom house (her choice)
I fail to see how £22K per annum is not sufficient. I wonder if the reality is that for a few weeks/months due to some unforseen circumstances she needed to visit a food bank and the media (as usual) have blown it out of proportion to imply nurses have to use food banks as a matter of course.

Scruff i work with Trussell Trust and I can assure you they have strict measures in place. All food parcels are given out when a voucher from a recognised agency is produced. This has reasons for the refferal who the person is and the agency providing it. They also have a limit on how many vouchers can be redeemed in a set period of time.

They choice to donate or not is yours but if you do ant to but are concerned then I can recommend Trussell Trust.

On a personnel note I would not deny a hungry family my donation simply because I do not get to decide whos worthy. For the price of a tin of beans I could not justify such a stance.

To all the people on this thread who lack the imagination to understand how people who earn £22,000 (or more) can end up in dire circumstances... have a read of this and try putting your outrage about 'high earners in straitened circumstances' to one side for five minutes ...

OP I can't understand why you find it impossible to care about anyone with a higher income than yours

I have friends who bring in much more than I do if you just consider salary who are stuggling and my heart genuinely goes out to them. They used to be 2 high earners and lived accordingly - not particularly lavish, just bigger house, nicer area. Then came redundancies, ill health, and an expensive house on the market that isn't selling even at dropped prices… so now they're on 1 income that is more than DH & I's joint income but they are in a shitter financial situation than us right now!

I hope food banks are giving parcels to families who drink/gamble their incomes! It's not their childrens fault!

I wonder if the reality is that for a few weeks/months due to some unforseen circumstances she needed to visit a food bank and the media (as usual) have blown it out of proportion to imply nurses have to use food banks as a matter of course. This seems a plausible explanation, but then why use it to score cheap political points? Lots of people have unforeseen circumstances, buts its not the governments fault! Its not anyones fault, its just life.

Also because I actually get to know people and don't just resent everyone who appears on paper to have things I don't many of the holidays that pop up on social media are paid for by grandparents! That does not mean that the equivalent amount would be available to spend on necessities! My DM likes to be seen to be uber generous in this sort of way! But gently suggest we use the money towards DDs extra curricular activity which we can't afford at the moment so she doesn't have to give it up, instead of something lavish, and she's not interested!

This seems a plausible explanation, but then why use it to score cheap political points? Lots of people have unforeseen circumstances, buts its not the governments fault! Its not anyones fault, its just life

Of COURSE it's political!

If it was "just life" why are the numbers of users sky rocketing. If it was "just life" it would be the same % of society just having bad luck as 10 years ago...

buts its not the governments fault! Its not anyones fault, its just life

So we're one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with expensive housing and rocketing food prices and shameful rates of child poverty and food bank use, but it's not the government's fault. Jesus wept.

expensive housing and rocketing food prices and shameful rates of child poverty and none of those things constitute a temporary unforeseen circumstance. By all means, hold the government to account on those measures, but not because you overspent one month without accounting for a lean month in the future. If a single woman with no school age dependants cant survive on £22k then she is doing something wrong, and its not the governments fault. As for all these grandparents, relatives and friends who are able to lavish exotic holidays and fancy meals yet must be turning a blind eye when their child/friend hits hard times and has to resort to food banks. Nah, sorry dont buy it. I assume all these posters stating that £22k is poverty terms must all endorse at least a £12 minimum wage then?

but not because you overspent one month without accounting for a lean month in the future.
You do realise that large segments of the population live from one payday to the next and are unable to 'account for a lean month in the future' or save for anything. New shoes could tip them into the red and something major like a boiler breakdown could be devastating. Even people earning £22K a year.

22k would barely pay my rent. It wouldn't cover food and bills as well.

Edinburgh is most expensive place in Scotland just now (sometimes it's Aberdeen, but low price is low just now).

Average house price in Scotland is about £180k, but it's about £270k in Edinburgh.

So I could see how someone might struggle on a nationally set wage in Edinburgh, whilst it'd be a good enough wage elsewhere.

Edinburgh is also growing in population reasonably fast- one of the few places in Scotland to have that. So house prices and rents are going up quite fast.

So, no pay rises in 8 years could mean that someone struggled with rent if their landlord put up their rent every year. Rental market is often tight in Edinburgh, so landlords can raise rents regularly.

If your landlord puts up your rent by £30-50 a month every year (maybe even every 6 months) a rent you could afford when you moved in could easily become unaffordable after a while. A flat is our block is advertised every 12 months or so, and it's usually £100-200 more expensive than the previous year.

And it would be equally be difficult to find somewhere else cheaper to rent because all the properties have gone up at the same time, plus the expense of moving.

So, I don't know this person's circumstances, but I do see how someone in Edinburgh could be struggling now on £22k, even though they managed fine 8 years ago. Like most of the UK where people are struggling, it would be about property prices/rent going up whilst wages stagnate.

*oil price

"Lots of people have unforeseen circumstances, buts its not the governments fault! Its not anyones fault, its just life"

I was looking through my drawer at work for something and found an old pay slip at the back from December 2012. I compared it to the one from last month and my pay has gone up by £62. In 4 and a half years. As a civil servant it's not life, it's the governments fault and their continuing crusade of austerity. Now whether I and the rest of my colleagues deserve a rise or not is one thing, but are we any less deserving of that pay rise than, say all the companies out there putting the cost of goods up? It's not like the cost of labour is going up particularly; most people I know are just about managing, the same as we are it's just more share holder profits, hence the government subsidies to people's wages to allow the big companies to pay shit wages. Just think about this for a minute - Starbucks, for instance, pay no corporation tax, but want a fully schooled and healthy workforce, who they pay shit wages to that have to be topped up by the taxpayer.

And I'd ask you, what do you consider the breadline wage, before people use food banks - £20,000, £18,000, £15,000? As for it being political and all about swinging the election, look at the time line for the stats and I think you'll find food banks have been on a major increase since the Tories came to power in 2010 and implemented their austerity bullshit.

Oh, and for info, I don't have Sky, smoke or take drugs, I have the occasional can of beer and that's it, we just buy food and petrol, and pay the household bills. We're not using food banks yet, but it continues like this then it can't be more than a couple of years away, and it's not something I'm looking forward to.