To think people who have never been poor, really do not understand it

[brasty]

Just that really. Big difference between not having enough money to do what you would like to do, and going months and years where you constantly have to scrape just to get by. And the impact this has on you mentally.

I don't think it's fair to say no-one in the UK truly understands poverty

Daisy You can't be serious surely?

Then read my definition of absolute poverty Horse hmm

Keep your to yourself, if you meant ABSOLUTE poverty in your first post you should have said so, but you didn't. And it's dismissive of those who are in poverty in the UK.

Fluffypinkpyjamas Deadly.

I have been poor but at a time when I was a lowly paid trainee and I believe it is not the same when you have a lot of hope for a better future than when you are simply stuck in the predicament indefinitely. I'm quite good at living economically and spending small amounts whilst creating good food but what must be a total nightmare is when things go wrong, when the shower leaks, the dog needs to go to the vet, children need things for school, sometimes even with a decent income those times are difficult. Yes, OP, living in a frugal way when you have enough is nothing like really being hard up, and they presumably don't call it "grinding poverty" for no reason.

Try being financially, physically and emotionally a used to the point you have not one penny in your purse. That was me a couple of months ago. The police gave me food to get by. I had nothing.

I was on benefits for a good while when I first left my older kids dad. I still don't recognise this world people on MN talk about where there's no money for bread or people can't afford a winter coat from Primark once a year.

I didn't find it that bad in all honesty.

So although you were a single parent nothing else went wrong? You werent made redundant unexpectedly? You landlord didn't decide you sell up and kick you out with a months notice? Your benefits weren't stopped due to a mistake and weren't reinstated for another month? You had no debts that you suddenly couldn't afford cos you were single?

I've been a single parent for 13 years and several of the above have happened to me and if it wasn't for my parents helping me, we would have been homeless and starving at certain points

Read my previous posts in context.

The point in raising the difference between poverty as it is experienced in the UK and total poverty is not to make those in poverty here "grateful for what they have", it is to highlight that it could be worse. And the reason that's important is because a lot of the safety nets that stand between us and absolute poverty are slowly being unravelled. Changes to the way benefits are structured and administered, housing shortage, cuts in legal aid, cuts in education, library closures. It's like we are sleepwalking onto a plank that gets narrower and narrower with people falling off every foot of the way.

Its not great now but it could be so much worse. And no, I don't think most people get that at all.

Can I give you this example? Ireland's new Taoiseach got up and made a speech about how his appointment ''proved'' that prejudice has no place in Ireland. He meant it, he believed it, he moved himself to tears. I feel less moved from my position on the live register. He may be gay and half indian but he came from a wealthy educated successful family and he's basically a tall young ish attractive ish clever very well educated ambitious male who is only slightly not white and yet he thinks he knows that his success proves there's no prejudice. He's no idea what it's like to face prejudice in the face of a job hunt when you're a straight poor pasty faced white male from the inner city or even a single mother trying to get back in to the work place after years of being unable to work due to childcare costs and restrictions.
Yes but equally I'm guessing that you have no idea what it's like to be gay and to have to hide your sexuality from people in your everyday life because of the homophobic attitudes? As someone else said, most situations can be hard to understand if you've not lived them. You can't assume that your particular situation is harder than everyone else's, or that someone has it easy because they have more money etc. I've got enough money for a decent lifestyle so I'm sure some people think I have it easy - but I've got OCD that is screwing my life up at the moment (on top of Asperger's which gives it another twist, though equally has its benefits). You don't know what others are coping with. So don't judge too harshly.

I would have been homeless if I could not have stayed with my parents, who fed me.
Anyone who has no safety net like that is more at risk.

I was in receipt of the old income support many years ago. I think I was receiving £61 a week for myself an a child (plus CB - but tax credits of any kind didn't exist). That was for bills and food. It was really really tough - coupled with that I was very young with limited cooking and budgeting skills.

I lived on that for 3 years before getting my first job - I often went hungry so my child could eat, didn't have more than 2 sets of clothes (which were kindly given to me) and got into debt every Xmas and birthday - because I brought my child a £20 gift from the catalogue.

Horrible times.

I agree constance I have been broke. £5 a week to buy food (I know people have had it a lot worse) but I was also training at the time and was able to count down the months till things got better. Can't imagine being in that situation for any longer than I was.

I have noticed a few things about poverty and how little it is understood.

People saying that their friend is better off than them even though they have a lower income because they go out/have new clothes/get takeaways but they can't afford that stuff.
They don't seem to understand that spending all your money on different stuff is not the same as being poor.
Your friend may get a takeaway once a week but they don't pay a mortgage, car payments, credit card bill that paid for those holidays and a whole host of other stuff that means you are way better off than your friend on tax credits.

Frugality is not fun when its not a choice. Its bloody boring and demoralizing.

There is always a lot of sneering at Christmas when people buy lots of toys for their kids, Why don't they 'invest' in experiences for their kids!?
Because £200 can buy you a shed load of toys that your kids can play with all year round. A trip to the theatre will use up all of that money in one go and unlike many of those going on about 'experiences', the parent on the low income wont be able to repeat it 4/6 times that year.
big
Baking your own bread is not a cheap alternative to buying a 50p loaf

Maybe some people are also scared of it and prefer to think that all poor people are poor because they haven't tried enough or through some other fault of their own.

Poverty is gruelling and exhausting and lonely and miserable. There are people in the UK who are utterly destitute and know absolute poverty. There are far more people who live in conditions that might not meet the definition of absolute poverty but who do not have enough of anything. Quibbling about whether the deprivation people experience is 'real' poverty is not helpful.

Yes, I once sat listening to a man talking about how he was "skint" whilst sitting in his huge house M, with his Range Rover outside and his yacht in the harbour whilst eating a massive with wine.

*massive meal

Just because someone else is worse off than you doesn't mean its ok.
I love the posts on here sometimes:
cook from scratch its cheaper - yes if you can bulk buy, have a store cupboard of spices etc and can store it
Buy a slow cooker they are cheap to run

Its hard, cold, boring, relentless and all consuming

I agree - I experienced poverty as a child to the extent that my sister and I shared a meal and my parents didn't get anything when it was too long to payday.

It led me to develop compulsive saving habits and working 3 jobs through uni in order to avoid debt but it didn't help when I had to move across the country for my first proper job and ended up having to pay all my savings on moving costs and a deposit and left me £50 for food until my first paycheck which wasn't for 6 weeks.

It was incredibly short term and I only had to look after myself, but I can still never forget the anxiety and how much it stopped me being able to think because I was so worried all the time. I cannot imagine how people survive that long term, or when they've got children to worry about as well.

I now volunteer with a service for financially vulnerable adults and I find it astounding how many people think it's good advice to tell people to save £5 a week - I'm sure for some people this is relevant, but for the vast majority of service users if they had £5 a week to spare they wouldn't be in trouble.

I've been poor, it destroys you, my mental health deteriorated and I felt quite worthless.
I went to India some years later and saw true absolute poverty, and it did open my eyes. However it doesn't change the fact it really affected me (even though I did have decent shelter, free health care, free education), its all contextual as many have said. I found the fact I was in debt; not by much but enough to keep getting banking charges, very stressful. The less I had the more the charges mounted up.

I've got the song Common People in my head now.

YY Somewhat!!

That song has been on repeat in my head for the last 2 months!

I've been well off, and not so well off over my lifetime - at the mo I'm on benefits & very much not well off; however, I am still able to live within my means because I already have 'stuff' so am not living hand-to-mouth.
I'm also fortunate to be financially savvy & confident so am not afraid of authority or ashamed of being perceived in a negative way.

Pulp definitely nailed it with Common People - there's a lot of that going on at the mo.

"So although you were a single parent nothing else went wrong?"

I was on income support, and we'd already been housed as a statutorily homeless household by the council after my violent ex threw us out so there wasn't really much further to fall.

Don't get me wrong- it wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs back then. But the money wasn't the worst thing by any means. We certainly weren't walking around barefoot or anything.

YANBU but its all relative. I don't think (thankfully) anyone in the UK truly understands poverty.this is not true. I know people who have been through hell without state help. It's easy to think everyone in the uk go through the same thing even the poor. But there are people who are worse off. There have been and probably still have children who are worse off compared to what you think. Not their fault but because of their parents immigration status in this country. The only thing different to other places around the wold is sleeping in the gutter.
The inner city school I went to you would here all sort of things. Children who grew up and the only food they ever ate was from shoplifting in the super markets, either because their parents where so poor or the parents where on drugs and the children had to fend for themselves.
One of them appeared on one of the hated newspaper as gangsters. But the back stories is even more sickening how they grew up and how they had to fend for themselves from the age of 5, 7. It was shocking when I was told about it.

I remember a friend telling me how skint she was because she only had £100 in the bank. I was living on £25 pw unemployment benefit and had a mortgage of £200 a month.

Thankfully, it was only for a few weeks, but it was tough.

I really struggle helping clients budget when they're on basic JSA or UC, and they're left with around £35 pw after bills to feed and clothe themselves. You can do it for a few weeks, but if your washing machine packs up or you need a new pair of shoes or jeans, you're stuffed.

Some of my clients end up walking 6.5 miles to the job centre and 6.5 miles back again, because they can't afford the £6 bus fare. Living in a rural area where there are no services and transport is expensive is a killer when you're skint.

We have a generous welfare system, free healthcare and free education so any poverty is nothing like absolute.

I recall a list from a lined website once on a MN thread where it stated not having a mobile phone or a holiday etc was a poverty indicator. Not a sign of poverty at all.

People who know a great deal more about poverty than you will disagree with you rainbows

How can you access anything without a phone? If the lack of something disadvantages and disenfranchises you of course it is an indicator of poverty