To not accept that there is 'period poverty' in the UK.....?

[rosetree7]

Fully expecting to be told I am BU, but I genuinely do not get this 'period poverty' malarkey.

Some reports say periods cost £42-45 a month (£500 a year.) Never in my life have I - or anyone else I know - spent £42-45 a MONTH on their period. Not even a tenth of that actually.

Some of the things they (supposedly) spend money on are tampons and STs (obviously...) You can get a pack of sanitary towels for less than a pound. Less than 50p in some shops!

And also mooncups.

Although mooncups cost £16 to £22, most mooncups will last 10 years, so you'd only buy 3 or 4 in your lifetime!!! And they also spend on pain relief - but paracetamol and ibuprofen are 16 to 26p a packet from Wilkos. And plenty of other shops sell them for a similar price!

Oh and apparently, they have to keep spending money on new underwear every month. What a load of shit.. I have bought 18 pairs of underpants in 5 years, (at a cost of around £25 for the entire 5 years!) 5 pairs of them are dark coloured - and I wear them for my periods. Never in my life have I bought new underpants for every new period.

So what is this all about? And how on earth are they coming up with such a ludicrous figure as £42-45 a month?! I mean, some girls are apparently using toilet roll as they 'can't afford' sanitary towels? In most cases, toilet roll is more expensive than sanitary towels FGS!

I have really heavy periods that last around 7 days. I go through around 36 sanitary towels each month. I won't use tampons as I've had toxic shock syndrome before. I often bleed through.

I also need to wear panty liners everyday. If I don't, my discharged 'bleaches' dark underwear. Some women have this issue and some don't. But I do, so have to use them everyday. But I do end up replacing underwear even with that.

Not everyone will have a body that works like yours. For some, it is expensive and I can abaolutely see that if you've got £20/£50 a week to feed your family and have teenage girls in the house... then how can you afford sanitary products for everyone. It is absolutely real. And women saying it isn't because they personally don't have the problem just allows MP's to ignore the issue.

Yes I agree £42-£45 is excessive, I've never spent more than about £8-10 in a month.
However, there are families in the UK who don't have the bus fare to get into town to a wilko or a larger supermarket, so the local corner shop will not sell sanitary towels/tampons etc for 50p, more like £3. Some families literally don't have £3 to spare some days. As a young teenager your periods are far more likely to be irregular, so preempting needing those products is harder and you can get caught off guard, it may be a couple of days until you have your next payment to get sanpro.
It's also more likely if someone is on such a low income that they will prioritise what they need now, to survive, cheap food, topping up the electricity and gas, paying off debt will all cone out of the money first, which makes it highly unlikely that they will have enough left for the sanpro.
I think the figures are misleading in all of the promotion of this issue, the real issue is that some families actually struggle to find a couple of pounds to cover the cost, £42 is making the issue look like a joke, which it is very much not!

Especially if you have daughters to buy for too.

A young friend of mine had no money to her name. She was in college and her mother kept every penny that came into the house. I gave my friend money on several occasions for san pro when I found out there were months when she'd had none. Her circumstances were temporary, lots of women's aren't. It surely isn't hard to imagine?

What if you don't have an extra 50p - £3 each month. Or the initial £16 to buy a mooncup in the first place? You do understand how poverty works don't you OP?

Have you used the cheap STs? They last five minutes so you end up using loads more than the expensive ones.

Does that figure not count lost earnings too?

What a horrible post.

Imagine if you've not got £1 spare, let alone the money to buy a moon cup. Imagine your periods are heavy and you're in so much pain you can't move, paracetamol won't touch it. And because you're in such a mess you can't go to work. No employer wants you trailing blood, taking numerous toilet breaks, throwing up.

Ignore the £45 figure, it does apply to some but not many. Imagine not even being able to afford a pack of value sanitary towels.

That's life for some women and girls.

Tomorrow, find your local food bank and take in a bag full of sanitary towels. They'll be very grateful for them.

Do the cheap ones work? I go through a super plus tampon every hour or two on my first day. I'm not sure I'd trust non-branded sanpro.

My dd throws her knickers out if she leaks and I have to buy her more

Here's a novel idea, stop buying her more! What a bloody waste. Teach her to wear black when she's on.

I think period poverty is over exaggerated. It does occur in teens that live in deprived households but like the OP says, most periods don't cost £42 a pop.

Yy to having daughter's to buy for too! Mine is now on the pill as hers were lasting between 10 and 16 days over half of which were floods. She gets it from me. So effectively 4 weeks worth of sanpro needed here (when I'm not pregnant!) It soon mounts up.

If you have a standard 5 day light to moderate period I can see how you can be blissfully ignorant of period poverty.

You can not get it all you like. It exists and a lot more people struggle with this than you may imagine. If you're struggling for money to feed yourself and your family then toilet roll may be the most logical option.

When I was a young teenager I didn't have any access to sanitary products. My family were poor, my parents were alcoholics and I never had any actual cash to buy anything I needed.
I had free school dinners and would steal toilet paper to wad up in my knickers.
It was grim and I felt disgusting. This was in the UK fifteen years ago. I am pretty sure it still happens.

OP im willing to test out a mooncup while sitting on your sofa.

Care to put your money where your mouth is?

The point of loo roll is that it's free from public lavatories.aybe you should read some of the credit crunch threads if you need a lesson in appreciating what you have and that £3-5 a month on STs really is stretching the budget and means going without something else.
Some people bleed very heavily. Some have periods that last 10 days.

You don't have a problem bleeding or affording hygiene products? Have a special MN medal

YANBU. I completely agree. I do use a mooncup now, but before I used to spend about £2 on a box of supermarket own brand tampons (which would last more than one month) and likewise the supermarket own brand painkillers (if needed) for pennies.

And yes, I've also never thrown away a pair of knickers after a period!

Of course there is period poverty in the UK. Girls and women who can’t afford san pro. Who can’t afford the bus fare to get to the shop to buy san pro. Who suffer heavy periods which stain their clothes and they can’t afford to take them to the laundrette and can’t replace them.
Girls and women who use toilet paper in public toilets to stuff in their pants because they don’t have the £1 to buy a packet of tampons. Who are bloated and crampy and sore and dirty and for whom every single months brings up to a week of worry and shame and humiliation.
So maybe it doesn’t cost £500 a year for every female who menstruates but I can see how it could.
And yes there is fucking period poverty in the UK.

Loo roll is free from school toilets. Imagine you are 14 with heavy periods and your mum and dad don't give you money but won't buy you sanpro or buy you a pack that's expected to last months. That she buys your underwear and yells at you if you stain it.

Or, imagine you are making the last couple of quid last for food for your child, every month. You're already skipping meals yourself. £1 on some pound shop sanitary pads means giving up that day's dinner. Getting the more absorbent expensive ones means your child won't eat.

People live like this. You're lucky you don't live like this. People steal loo rolls from public toilets, easier to steal that than things from an actual shop.

@BlackLambAndGreyFalcon so because you're all good the problem does not exist?

OP, you know the vast majority of women and feminists don't just make stuff up? If someone's saying it's a problem for them, it's probably a problem for them, regardless of if it's a problem for you. The figure you've quoted sounds high but the study doesn't sound very tightly controlled - lots of people may have included different types of expenses that other people wouldn't have. Regardless, it's still a problem, and your post stinks of class prejudice.

I used to spend about £2 on a box of supermarket own brand tampons (which would last more than one month) and likewise the supermarket own brand painkillers (if needed) for pennies.

You have light periods that don’t require much painkillers or SanPro. Well done.

Ok, I'll bite.

The cost will probably include any wage lost for time taken sick when your period is so bad that you can't go to work, you're on a zero hours contract and you don't get paid.

I don't know about you but I've certainly been through more pairs of pants than 18 in five years - I probably buy ten new pairs a year. I mess up at least one pair per period, thanks to an unpredictable perimenopause.

Some people can't buy a mooncup because they don't stock them where they live. I couldn't buy one in the whole of Oldham or Rochdale when I wanted one. I had to go online, and some people don't have access to the internet. And twenty quid is a lot of money when you are below the poverty line - for some people that is all they have for food and transport after paying rent and bills. It's sometimes easier to raid loo roll from a public loo or use an old sock than fork out for that. I've worked on checkouts in my time, and have seen so many people scrabbling through change that you know has to last them for the week. They buy one onion, two carrots, half a white cabbage, cheap bread. Sometimes they can barely afford to eat. They just can't afford sanitary protection when they have kids to feed.

Her cycle isn't regular, yet @Dermymc. She does wear black when she's on but is often caught out. I'm not going to stop buying my teenage daughter underwear or force her to wear stained undies when she finds it gross and humiliating.

The only painkillers that work for me are nurofen plus at about £7.50 a packet (Boots equivalent is about 50p cheaper but often out of stock). I also use a pack of those self heating stick on pads on my tummy which cost about £3. Neither of which are essential really. I can cope without them as long as I don’t need to stand up straight or walk anywhere for 5-7 days a month. I have a mooncup so no monthly cost there.

Just because you don’t have those costs doesn’t mean no one else does. Pretty bloody obviously.