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!

cathf are you for real? NMW is a take home pay of £1,118 a month! Using my my own circumstances of being a single parent with one child, no childcare required & no disability for either of us means I'd get £373 a month tax credits & £89 a month child benefit giving a total income of £1581 a month. I'd be eligible for fuck all help in the way of housing benefits etc & my basic outgoings for rent, council tax, utilities, food, travel & car expenses such as insurance & road tax are £1485... that would leave me £96 for DD's school dinners as I'd be over the threshold for FSM, any clothing, school trips, car issues such as a breakdown (which would need to be fixed or I couldn't get to work) etc... where the fuck do you think I'd have money for the sanpro I've already explained up thread that my DD needs?

NMW with or without benefit top ups is a fucking joke!

What people like Cathf also don't take into account, as that there are national gains to be had from supporting young girls/women, these are the people who will be doing the jobs and paying the taxes that will fund future services like pensions, NHS, councils and so on...Having to stay home because of lack of sanpro or being so anxious about it, they can't concentrate at school/work is a hindrance to their current/future achievement. They are more than worth the investment of a few sanitary towels surely?

lockedout it's fine, I post a lot on facebook and have to answer these ridiculous questions.

Not widespread? I'm in an area with a lot of grammar schools which is seen as a "naice" area. I am doing a talk shortly with some young women in a care home about the issue as they would like to help me (which i find amazing) it's massively wide spread and anyone who believes it isn't is a tool.

I remember all to well in 2000 when I had my first period. I lived with just my Dad and brother. My dad was already struggling since my mum left and my Nan and Grandad were pretty much paying our mortgage. Not only did I have to contend with the fact I had no female figure to talk to, I KNEW my family were poor. What exactly did you think I did? My options were to stuff my knickers with paper and hope for the best or skip school. Mostly i skipped school. I wasn't the only one. Food banks are far more widespread now and UC is letting a LOT of people down.

FYI, i work with the red box project and cover an area in Kent.

cathf let me guess...you're either working a nice cushty job or you are a sahm with a partner who has one? My NMW job that i worked my arse off at 6 days a week saw me with less than £50 a week once my rent, council tax & childcare was paid. Even with the top ups i was allowed - which were piss poor because of the cut off - i had less than £200 to cover fuel (as a carer doing 400+miles a week that was a lot), gas & leccy, water & food for a MONTH. I once had to beg for £20 to get my daughter a new pair of trainers because i could not afford them.

I budget, i meal plan, i buy basics. I had a mobile contract because i needed a decent package for work. I wore my clothes til they fell apart, i glued my shoes til they couldn't be glued any more. I could not have scrimped any further. Guess what? I didn't have the cash available to buy the pads i needed; at one point it was feed my daughter or buy pads.

Coming on here & spouting your bullshit about poverty being our fault is naive & quite frankly stupid.

RebelRogue - we will most probably be declaring bankruptcy next month - is that poor enough for you?
Sorry, I do not live a cossetted life and I am aware of life outside my on bubble.
But I have a questioning mind, and I do not accept things on face value and always follow the groupthink if it makes no sense to me.
I also do not resort to calling people names and making silly comments (of the Trump supporter variety) if someone disagrees with me.
I am not denying people survive on low incomes - I have been doing that for the past five years - nor am I denying things can be tough. But I really struggle to believe that even £2 a week is such a massive obstacle to a significant amount of women. If it is, it really shouldn't be if it is budgeted for.

Cath what your background to know that MOST women dont need heat pads and expensive sanpro? Interested to know how you can make such a huge assumption.

But for a lot of women £2 per week will not cover their SP needs. Can’t you see that CathF

Nice cushty job or SAHM mum - I wish!
Our family has been consistently below the poverty line for the last five years at least.

Could you read my posts please cathf?

Yes, we are all lying. £2 is fucking hard to find when you do not have it. Just seen you say you may be declaring bankruptcy...perhaps you should hope that that £2 doesn't become elusive to you after that.

@Pissedoffdotcom she'll be fine apparently the 23p sanpro from Tesco's is fucking amazing & can hold a whole periods worth in one pad

I didn't even have a penny a week, I was more in debt by the end of every week. We got no benefits apart from DLA because we were over the threshold, my oldest has cystic fibrosis, so cost a lot in extra food.

Bankruptcy doesn't always equal 'poor' it quite depends. Obviously I'll take your word for your circumstances, I just wanted to throw that out there.

I am getting a little fed up hearing about how some people can't afford to feed their children, can't afford sanpro, can't afford this, can't afford that, and people like the vast majority of posters on this thread just accept this as fact, and shout down anyone who dares to disagree.

Denying the reality of the lives of the people who've posted about their direct/indirect experiences of period poverty is not condescending and essentially branding them liars? Putting forward an unfounded opinion with nothing to back it up is not the sort of approach beloved of people like Trump? (Although I suppose if you find it insulting to be compared to a Trump supporter there may be some hope for you yet.) How do you characterise a 'questioning mind' if you ignore lived experience, surveys, research, facts and figures? How is that not just bias?

Had a chat in this subject with the DD's (18&16)

This is quite the issue in both their schools.

DD2 doesn't know anyone who uses toilet roll but does know a lot of girls who use the schools free sanpro system on a regular basis but they have to track down the appropriate teacher to get it signed off which at times means trawling the school whilst leaking.

DD1 says that she knows a couple of girls who use toilet roll & also says that the ladies in the office can be quite awkward about giving out the free sanpro - asking questions about flow, why they don't have their own etc which puts the girls off going to ask.

So although both schools offer free sanpro it seems their systems are quite awkward for the girls who need it.

Most women will buy a few packets of STs a month to suit their budget.
How do you know? What’s a few packets to someone who has to use double protection? Do you regularly question every women you meet about what she has in her knickers stemming her bleeding?
Most woman do not need heat pads, expensive sanpro and painkillers at £7.50 a pop.
Again, how do you know they aren’t and are getting on with things the best they can, like women are just expected to do every month. People don’t usually casually mention that they are in crippling period pain. Look at the stats on endo and fibroids.
Most women do not take time off work.
A lot of women will lie about their reason for being off work.
Most teenagers do not have alcoholic parents who refuse to buy sanpro.
Have you checked? Do you know all teenagers? Got any facts to back that up? Even if alcoholism isn’t prevalent, there are abusive and negligent families all the same.

I just find your attitude to people in need quite cruel and blinkered.

@cathf the whole point of it was that there are people that have less than you. So if you struggle now imagine having half of what you do,a quarter,nothing. It's not that hard.. give it a go.

One of the schools in our Trust has girls reaching puberty in families where money is so tight they cannot provide their own sanitary products. These are girls of 10 or 11 and their first experiences in becoming women are clouded by poverty. We support these girls with products and emotional support too. Their lives are often chaotic and not what you would want for your own daughter at all. Their reality is very upsetting.

Cathf Clearly you can't see that it's very hard not to assume that you are wilfully ignorant or indifferent to the plight of others. The reports/information on these issues is not coming solely from some trendy/lefty pro-Corbyn media it's being reported and researched across the board. It's something that's pretty much agreed upon.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/02/teachers-having-wash-childrens-clothes-lend-parents-money/

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/655790/Teachers-food-hungry-pupils

news.sky.com/story/malnourished-pupils-taking-school-food-home-11313620

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/poor-children-hunger-malnourished-rising-numbers-returning-free-school-meals-a7687091.html

www.tes.com/news/teachers-feeding-hungry-pupils-schools-survey-finds

Child poverty: Pale and hungry pupils 'fill pockets with school food
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-43611527

www.cpag.org.uk/content/child-poverty-harms-children’s-educational-opportunities

Replacing bed sheets because the stains don’t wash out is definitely a first world problem.

No access to sanpro shouldn't be a first world problem & yet here we are...

The last time I was in a position where I struggled to buy enough food was when I had to quit one of my jobs to care for my daughter after she suffered a mental breakdown.

I worked from home as a writer and out of the home in small wine bar. I had to drop the wine bar as it was evenings and weekends and I was never home to support my child.

My former employer took 6 weeks to get my P45 and take me off his books. Without the P45, I still had to pay full rent and council tax, my tax credits were stuck at the level they were when I was working full time even though I was only earning £100 per month from writing. My income from WTC and CTC was £160 weekly, my rent was £100 and my council tax £20.

But hey, I guess I just needed to budget better, right? I bet Cathf would've managed to feed a family of three, pay gas, electric, water rates and buy sanpro on £40 a week with ease.

I am getting a little fed up hearing about how some people can't afford to feed their children, can't afford sanpro, can't afford this, can't afford that, and people like the vast majority of posters on this thread just accept this as fact, and shout down anyone who dares to disagree.

Maybe tell all those charity folks doing studies and actually feeding people in poverty, government studies and the people working with these families day in day out that they are all full of bs then?

Maybe all these people waiting 6 - 8 weeks for any money to come through should evolve to live on fresh air?

Maybe having some money to buy food for your family is expecting a bit too much from those bloody scroungers (both in and out of work, who are disabled, in womens refuges, being financially abused, physically abused etc etc) who cant just pull up their socks and magic their way out of poverty?

Maybe ask your local benefits centre workers who have to tell people "Sorry your claim wont be processed for 6 weeks, can you beg food from relatives till then? Maybe they can pay your rent and your utilities as well?"
"You didnt make your appointment this week, sorry being rushed to hospital isnt a good enough excuse, you are sanctioned and it will take 6 weeks to get your claim back up and running, have a nice day."

NMW is only £15k if you are working full time 48 weeks a year. Not if you are on zero hour contracts or part time. And you only get top up benefits if you are working 16 hours or more a week. Every single job I have looked at in the past month ( I am working but would leave ina heartbeat for a better job) is for less than that. Some were 8hrs a week. Pointless unless you are looking for some extra cash for pocket money.

Does going bankrupt not cost 700 odd quid nowadays? I'm so poor i couldn't even afford to go bankrupt

Improperly laundered blood-stained bedding is a health hazard. Even if it some people think it's unimportant maybe they will notice when the bedbugs it attract spread to them?
www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/09/28/keeping-dirty-laundry-bedroom-allows-bed-bugs-thrive-say-scientists/