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!

Ah cath a dose of your own medicine always tastes bitter doesn't it luvvie

But my point is I have been completely skint and I still don't see how anyone can genuinely not afford sanpro. I stand by that.
I have read about people supposedly living in poverty who have up to £200 per week after living expenses. I have had weeks where I could only dream of having that much left.
But my opinion - and experience - seems not to count for some reason because I happen to think that if someone really can't afford sanpro, there are some budgeting problems somewhere along the line.
I am also saddened at the vitriol directed at my financial situation. Apparently because I don't subscribe to the MN groupthink, my hardship is somehow less meaningful than others.
I wonder if those revelling in the demise of my business would feel differently if I told them 10 people also lost their jobs? No doubt they are deserving poor, unlike the greedy business owner who was always last to be paid - if at all.

Why are you ignoring the fact that record numbers of children are being taken into care because of poverty?
Why do you choose to believe they actually have £200 a week to spend?

But my point is I have been completely skint and I still don't see how anyone can genuinely not afford sanpro. I stand by that

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. You can't have lived on the breadline for long of you can't see how having so little for any length of time can't leave you in a precarious situation.

What do you do if your washer breaks? Or your oven packs in? Or one child loses their gym shoes and the other outgrows their only waterproof coat?

And if by £200 p/w, you are referring to me, you know that is only when I had hours, which I often did not.

Live off £72 after rent and bills (excluding grocery shopping) for 6 weeks, then come back and tell me you can't understand how people could not afford sanpro. You get bonus points if you do it during the summer holidays.

Because the poster i was talking about posted her budget on this thread and described herself as living in poverty. Will that do for you?

Frequency, I have done it. I really don't know what more I can say.

@cathf exactly 10 people will lose their jobs,and as they do some if them will end up in poverty or serious financial difficulties that is not their fault.

Btw it was posters like you that introduced the deserving poor idea.

And then there are you creditors and their businesses and employees which will now not be paid by you. But hey, those people just can't budget.

"We're always advocating body autonomy & consent in regards to this yet apparently this can be thrown out of the window when it comes to suggesting demanding that women/young girls should use mooncups"

I said the same thing upthread Whiskey but youve put it much better than i did.

If you are actualky skint then you would have nothing no money nada. Therefor unable to go to a shop and but anything not even 23p san pro.

Which part of if you have nothing you cant spend it no matter how you try to 'budget' your way out of it is hard to understand?

Hope you give the 10 people who lost thier jobs good budgeting tips before they go as 6 weeks is a long time to.wait for help from.the gov to pay thier rent...if they rent court proceedings to evict them will have started by 4 weeks..just saying. But hey its thier fault for not earning any money i suppose.

Why isnt there a banging your head on a brick wall emoji?

I said previously on this thread some posters are too thick skulled unless they have it personally shown to them that issues such as this are complex.

Yet even when someone kindly posts up their budget pointing out it was their best week and also their income on their worst week, posters like cathf's reading comprehension skills are so poor they don't understand this. Well I can only attribute it to poor reading comprehension skills as I can't believe someone is deliberately still that nasty when they have had something explained to them.

“I’ve been completely skint but I could still afford....” is a contradiction in terms.

The fact that some women think it’s acceptable for young girls and women not to have access to basic sanitary products and couldn’t give a shit really makes me angry.

I feel like I've read this thread before...?

You did. A few weeks ago. And its not the first thread to be resurrected recently.

The vitriol directed at your financial situation cathf is, i suspect, because you seem to think that your business failing is down to forces beyond your control...yet you fail STILL to grasp that poverty within the home is often the same. Take those 10 people you will have to sack. What happena if they then end up unable to pay their bills because YOUR business has gone bust? Is that down to bad budgeting? No, it isn't. That is down to them losing their job.
Your business is basically a larger scale model of a family budget. Any number of factors can put strain on the purse strings. You have stressed over & over that your business going bust is due to other things beside your bad business skills...yet you still harp on that poverty in the home is down to bad budgeting. It's hypocritical, it's highly ironic & it really doesn't paint you well.

Oh & if you have always had the money to cover emergencies? You haven't been truly skint. You can budget all you bloody like, but when something wipes that budget plan out the window & the income simply does not match the outgoings? You can't squeeze blood out of a stone.

Blue That's a bit one sided. A number of posters here have been very unkind to Cath, who was a brave enough to post about her business which show the mentality of the hive - all they can do is name call, ridicule and bully. Typical left wing really is no surprises - no skills. Benefits and Tax Credits are provided for people on low incomes to cover the cost of essentials so whats wrong with questioning why are we giving away more just because you shout loudly and bully people. I hope you never represent any campaigns for these causes. I for one will never donate to a Foodbank or Red Box on the back of this thread.

A homeless girl asked me to buy her tampons once, she was waiting outside boots. I asked her to come In with me and choose some different sanitary products, and bought her twice as many as she asked for, and got her some wet wipes too. How do you know she didn't promptly sell them to buy herself something else?

Look at the massive campaigns sanpro companies are creating to ensure girls have what they need Hmm, now what do Always sell?........... And honestly, I've never seen a campaign of this sort.

Yes the £40 odd figure is probably an over estimation. But of course there's women/girls who can't afford sanitary products. Some can't afford to put food on the table every night!

Find me a teenage girl who would want to use a moon cup even if it was given for free (which they aren't).

And I often used to buy the Asda £1 a box own brand tampons. The applicators don't work half the time and you end up binning a whole unused tampon and starting again. Tampax compak all the way (at £3+ for a small box).

How do you know she didn't promptly sell them to buy herself something else?

Are you even human? Why can’t you ever understand that being poor doesn’t equal having no bloody morals!

Benefits and Tax Credits are provided for people on low incomes to cover the cost of essentials

But they don't. This is the point. They DON'T cover essentials, which is why women are having to choose between food and sanpro.

@Neshoma just for you

How do you know she didn't promptly sell them to buy herself something else?

Even if she did that means that there's someone out there willing needing to buy tampons on a street corner like a dodgy drug transaction

I for one will never donate to a Foodbank or Red Box on the back of this thread

I don't think any of us were under the impression that you were currently or ever likely to be a regular donator to either to be fair

Wow.. just wow.

We're allowed to call people thundering fucking lunatics? 😂

We are arguing about different things here.
The hive are saying benefits/minimum wage is not enough to live on, and one poster said she only had £72 -£210 a week left after essential bills (but not food). The hive are agreeing this is it enough.
I am questioning how that is not enough? How you can't afford to feed a family on £210 and have some left over to budget for leaner weeks, which you know will come?
Frequency says she does budget so why all the unquestioning rhetoric about poverty?
To me, poverty is not about having that level of disposable income.
I am not going to post about my situation anymore because there seems to be an accepted wisdom building up, and anything I say is taken the wrong way.
You'll just have to take my word for it that I know what it's like to have no money, to not be able to replace things and to not be able to afford petrol for my old car. I will add here that on those awful weeks, my staff were paid in full on time.

Then you haven't been completely skint cathf. We're only better off now because our families help out.

The rent's gone up and HB's refusing to pay the difference, DH has to give me £10 less every week, out of that from September I'll have to pay £18 a week dinner money because DS2 goes into KS2. Apparently, if you're on WTC that covers dinner money my arse. Compulsory school meals at their school.

I have no money left after living expenses. In fact, the money doesn't stretch to a week. Family help us, or we'd be back on Marmite on toast.