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.

I don't want to comment on that particular nurse - I know nothing about her circumstances.

I give to foodbanks (out of a very low salary), and expect that they will give to anyone who cannot afford food, regardless of whether the recipient is in any way to blame for their circumstances.

However, I'd agree that someone on £22k shouldn't need to use a foodbank unless they haven't managed their finances well. It's responsible to have savings before spending on luxuries or signing up to financial commitments.

At 22k, maybe this should be 6 months' expenditure, compared to maybe a year's expenditure at 40 or 50k, and maybe 3 months for those earning 15k.

Yes, it takes a lot of sacrifice to get to that level, but it's possible, and doing so might mean no holidays for a few years, and no new television or phone, but it means that when financial disaster strikes (e.g. redundancy, illness), you have a buffer, and time to sell the house or end the tenancy for a cheaper place, or sell the car...

So I wouldn't judge individuals, and I wouldn't want to see people in need turned away from foodbanks, but I do agree with the principle that most of those on anything approaching an average salary, who use foodbanks, have mismanaged their money at some point.

DS2 (20) is a 2nd year student nurse. His bursary doesn't even cover his rent so he has a part time job in a pub despite having to work on placements (all his student nurse friends work part time jobs) and we pay his food every week, and other things when necessary. This is the only way he can graduate without debt in the form of overdrafts. He will have tiny student loan which will need repaying from his first pay packet as he earns over £21k. Then there's registration fees, or something, to pay every month.

Nurses aren't well paid. They aren't paid enough for what they do especially as from this September they are losing their bursaries and they are going to have to pay to train.

DS2 doesn't want to move back in with us when he's finished uni, so he can't move back here because we live in quite an expensive area due to DH's work. He's going to stay where he's training and move in with a couple of friends so he can hopefully save some money.

In some areas, in some circumstances £22k is a fortune. In others it's not. I think it's a crying shame that we've got people in jobs like this who do need to use foodbanks.

But your son wont be on £21k forever. From what i have read that is the graduate pay and within ten years wages can be anywhere up to £36-40k. Or have I interpreted that wrong?

It depends on circumstance. I earn 22k. The nursery I use would be £1000 a month full time Monday to Friday, however, as a nurse, I do not work 7.30-6 Monday - Friday and would require extra child care to cover early mornings, evenings and weekends. Mortgage is £760 , on a council estate, nothing flash. I drive a small, economical car and shop in Aldi. I hardly feel that if I were single that I would be living the high life! I am very lucky that my husband has a reasonable salary and our families help each other with child care.
I do get the frustration people feel about misuse of the benefit/support system but I am grateful for it as nobody knows what's round the corner.

Im not bashing the welfare system, id absolutely defend it to the death along with the nhs. If someone has children on a £22k wage then i would expect that they would get help with child/working/childcare tax credits and I wouldnt begrudge them that. But a single person with no school children struggling to live on £22k tells me they are mismanaging their money and living outwith their means. And imo thats not what the welfare system or foodbanks are for, to make up the shortfall between their actual income and the the life they feel entitled to. The latter has been confirmed to me by a foodbank volunteer despite what other posters on this thread have stated.

Meant a single parent. Obviously like yourself, if there are two people bringing in an income then tax credits etc most likely wouldnt be required.

I don't begrudge her using a foodbank....
I just don't think she really did.

I dont think she did neither and it was a stupid thing of her say given her social media pages. If she did then is was because of gross financial mismanagement on her own behalf, and im in two minds. Foodbanks are charities (as pointed out) and imo she is taking away from finite resources that other people who are in genuine poverty may need. I just cant equate living outwith your means when your earn £22k with people who have little or no income due to reasons already mentioned. They are just not the same.

Is she a nurse or a nursing assistant? Lots of nursing assistants refer to themselves as nurses when stating their profession. The salary is significantly lower ( bands 2 or 3 of the Agenda for Change payscales if anyone is interested enough to google)

No she is a registered nurse, according to her social media she works as an agency nurse for three different agencies, BUPA being one of them. Will they get paid less than NHS nurses?

There will be very few nurses on £30K + so yes you have misinterpreted that.

So do all nurses stay on £22k regardless of length of service? Are bands for different types of nurses then? Im not a nurse or work for nhs so not sure how banding works.

So do all nurses stay on £22k regardless of length of service? Are bands for different types of nurses then? Im not a nurse or work for nhs so not sure how banding works

Firstly, there is a cap on how much agency nurses can be paid if they do shifts in the NHS

Secondly, yes plenty of nurses have been in service over 10 years and still work at "staff nurse" level, i.e. band 5 - same band as newly qualified. But there are levels within band 5 with small pay incriments IF they pass all their appraisals.

However, for many people in service 10 years plus the shift work takes its tole and they have to go on reduced hours so in real terms their pay doesn't go up.

Also those that do go up the bands tend to lose their enhancements, as it costs less to put a band 5 on nights than a band 6 or 7. So you can have band 6s on less than band 5s

But your son wont be on £21k forever. From what i have read that is the graduate pay and within ten years wages can be anywhere up to £36-40k. Or have I interpreted that wrong?

YES! big time!

There's only one band 7 per average ward, so do the maths! Not all nurses can progress through the bands, there are not enough band 7 posts! The majority retire having never worked at band 7

The vast majority of nurses, not just newly qualified, work at band 5.

You need a masters for band 7 and part timers (i.e. mothers) generally don't have a hope in hell of that sort of progression! I have never seen a band 7 job share in practice!

Band 6 is also not an automatic progression - you have to interview for it!

And it's just not worth doing so unless you're aiming to do further study and specialise because you will probably lose any flexibility/family friendly working as you have to cover the skill mix, and in real terms it's usually not a pay rise. It's also an incredible step up in stress/pressure.

A lot of band 6s step down to 5s. A lot of 7s and 8s step down to 6.

If a household income suddenly dropped from £122k to £22k then i'd suggest that the household needs to cut their cloth accordingly. Not living a £122k lifestyle on £22k budget and expecting the state to pay for food.

I disagree. It's not always easy to 'cut cloth accordingly' if you have monthly commitments, a big mortgage, kids, credit cards/loans etc. I assume you know the ins and outs of this girls life to be commenting on what help she should or shouldn't get.

You need additional qualifications to be able to apply for a £40K Band 7 job and as others said there's only one of those per ward or department so the majority of nurses don't anywhere near that no matter how long they've been in the job.

Who are you to judge the reasons why someone needs to use a foodbank.

Do you think that it's a nice thing to have to do? How do you think she feels having to walk into a foodbank and get food.

I cannot imagine, I really can't. I prefer to err on the side of believing people. Simply because I know that most people are decent human beings with morals.

I think OP is a cybernat and is trying to discredit the nurse who took on Nicola Sturgeon so effectively. The nurse's point was that the NHS is devolved and so the SNP are directly responsible for low salaries in nursing, plus low morale and being overworked.

This has been playing big time in the Scottish media. Sturgeon's minion, Joanna Cherry, had to apologise to the nurse for spreading lies and attempting to discredit her.

One thing she was maligned for was apparently being married to a Tory councillor (she is not married at all). What is more interesting is the way they attempted to discredit her for her "husband's" views - as if women couldn't have their own views.

Now that turns out to be untrue, they are trying to claim poor financial management, lies etc.

The moral of the story is, don't speak out against the SNP in Scotland or your life will be made miserable and their minions will seek to discredit you. And the cybernats are clever - they start threads as a way of carefully sucking you in to agreeing with their views.

Yes, YABTU. Next.

I used to volunteer in a food bank... there are certain myths about them:

1. That you just show up and collect some food - wrong you need to be referred

1. That it's just benefit claimants or anyone else the Daily Mail types label as 'scroungers' that need to use them.

In reality, it's people who have been dealt a bad hand, one that anyone of us could find themselves in.

Some real life situations from food bank...

Man who because of a mistake had had a direct debit for child maintenance taken out twice leaving him without anything for month.

Ex military (lots of them!)

Guy who owned his own second hand car dealership but had so much to pay in debt one month (or bailiffs would turn up) he hadn't a penny.

Older person on good pension but had had series of urgent repairs to make to house.

People in debt...lots and lots and lots.

Those with alcohol and drug addictions, working and not working. Hearing some of their life stories...of abuse and horror you realise how tempting it must have been for them to misuse substances for the sake of escape

Single parents working but usually with debt and no savings who for whatever reason had some outnof the ordinary expense or illness and so had to miss work.

Zero hour contracted people.

Disabled clients, whose benefit had been stopped, sanctioned, messed about or lowered. Also bedroom tax related issues (when that came in).

Most of us could potentially need to use one in the future. Don't judge.

Redundancy in the household causes huge problem. When my husband was made redundant he only got jsa after waiting 4 weeks. we werent entitled to any help with mortgage or bills. We had used all our savings just staying afloat with two young children and id been on two maternity leaves. All the bills still had to be paid. luckily he got another job but i dont know what we would have done. The system isnt set up in a sensible way. these things are not cut and dry.

I love the idea that it's easy or cheap to lower your expenditure by moving house to a cheaper area if you lose your job. We are selling our house at the moment and it's costing us a fortune in solicitor's fees, estate agent fees and moving costs. It's also taken since March to get our exchange sorted out (for tomorrow, please God) and we're not even in a chain. We should actually move in late July. If we were selling because of financial hardship we would be in real difficulties to manage our move, even if I sold my camera (?!) or our seven-year-old car or whatever other assets we are selfishly hoarding. In the meantime, children need to eat three times a day. People have been forced to take on enormous mortgages to live in cities such as London which may be the only place you can do a particular job. Moving out of London means much higher commuting costs. Changing jobs is not straightforward in every profession. I am happy for everyone who is financially solvent and expects to be so for the foreseeable future but the reality is that you can have a run of bad luck (being made redundant within a couple of years of starting a new job entitles you to not much). Maternity leave is expensive. Child care is cripplingly expensive. People have financial commitments that they cannot change or stall easily.

And we are talking about boxes of groceries as if they are lines of coke. It's food. Basic food. The bare minimum. If you can't imagine yourself needing it, you are lucky, not better than someone who does.

I knew two people who worked full time that ended up going to the food bank. You shouldn't make assumptions. Nobodys desperation is more than anothers we all need to eat.