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!

OP, are you by chance a "television personality" and former columnist? Your writing style and wording is very similar, if not.

@rosetree7 are you actually a man? I'd be amazed if you are really a woman, with your attitude.

The OP has to be Theresa May. Or Esther McVey. Or similar.

Even if you used 4 tampons a day EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE YEAT you would only be spending £88 a year. Halve that when tampons are on buy one get one free pack at Superdrug. These figures are utter BS.

rainingcatsanddogs why does using rags give vaginal infections? Genuine question. How is using a clean rag worse than using a washable pad? Do you mean in the 3rd world or here too?

@SavvySaver24

YOu literally have no idea how some people live. You think they can afford sky TV etc? What about people with very heavy periods who can't buy cheap sanitary products? Why are you so myopic?

But I think it's about impossible choices - do you buy fresh veg or sanitary towels? Pay the gas bill or buy sanitary towels? Get behind with the rent or buy sanitary towels? Put £10 towards a Superdrug order or buy your child a birthday present?

Savvy those figures are crappy, yes, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t in period poverty.

@SavvySaver24

Are you joking? 4 tampons a day is no where near enough for some people!

Thanks op for correcting me and telling me what MY experience was
I must have been mistaken about my actual life
Some posters here understand poverty - what it’s like scraping for £1 , and making the choice to eat or buy sanitary products

It may be the figure quoted is high but even with basic products and cheap painkillers I still could not afford it

But off you run , why not put your fingers in your ears and shout la la la can’t hear you , while you are about it ?

OP: l'm not U, tho
Everyone else: yes you are, example a, b, through to z

I don't think that is a fair representation of this thread, quite a few posters have queried the average cost of £42-45 a month. I do think that is exaggerated and doesn't help the case. I think the issue is that some people cannot afford basics, including sanpro. Exaggerating the average cost of sanpro actually detracts from that important issue.

Supeerdrug deliver free over £10. Don't tru and make excuses

Neglected kids don't usually have bank accounts (you need a card to shop online)

Mums who are neglecting their dd and not buying sanpro are probably stuffing toilet paper in their knickers too

I am lucky and can afford my period. My experience is:

When I was a teenager (until I was 16 and had a job and could buy my own sanpro) my mum would buy me 1 pack of thick mattress like sanitary towels a month. 12 towels? 16? My periods lasted 7 days, i used 1 towel per night. The remaining towels were eked out with toilet roll to make them last longer. They leaked. I wore 2 pairs of pants and a pair of cycling shorts every day on my period so that nothing showed on my uniform. My parents weren't poor, my mum refused to talk about bodily.functions and I could not ask for more and had no money to buy it myself.

Nowadays, I do not use towels during the day. Because they leak and I hate the feeling of blood on the towels. I use tampons. 1.5 boxes of 16 super super plus tampons (I buy 2 for 1 and have a few left over for next time, maybe £2 or £3, shops don't always have the 32 boxes) and then maybe 1 box of 32 regular so another couple of quid. I use tampons plus night time towels at night so another £2 on towels and I can't use cheap ones because I leak and flood.

I spend maybe £6 at the lowest per period. BUT.

I can afford to shop in shops that have a range of sanpro prices. When I was a student or after I got my first job, i had to buy from the nearest chemist - only stocked expensive branded product. More.exoensive than own brand from boots or Superdrug or Poundland. All.of then a £2 bus journey away.

I have the money spare that this isn't a cost for me to reckon with. But I know that for many people the bus journey cost to access the cheaper shops is too much never mind buying sanpro.

Just because you CAN buy towels for 25p doesn't mean they work for you. They leak for me and they give me thrush. If I was living in poverty then is that my only choice? Substandard quality that makes me uncomfortable? And then needs more.expense to cure?

Nah.

It's horrendous that in the UK we should count ourselves lucky that we can afford to hygenically manage menstruation. But we should. And i know many people can use 1 pack of towels or 1 pack of tampons for their period and therefore spend under £3 a month. But many people cannot.

Period poverty isn't a lie. Listen to people's experiences. Learn. Be a bit more compassionate.

I've reported your thread, OP, because it's unhelpful, mocking and basically a huge pile of shite. I've struggled to pay for san pro several times in my life. Really quite arrogant and inflammatory for you to suggest this is a fallacy. HTH. You idiot.

Did you see the thread where one girl asked to go to the toilet to change her pad and her teacher said no?

DD knows to say politely that she is going to the bathroom but if the teacher says she can't go she's to get up & go anyway, then call me so that I'm prepared for the call from school.

I've never understood the concept of asking permission to undertake a basic bodily function.

TheNavigator I wouldn't put a figure of £42-45 as average, no. Doesn't mean period poverty doesn't exist.

Evening, folks. We have had a fair few reports on this thread and, to be honest, it does seem a tiny bit goady and we were going to delete it.

However, having read it, there are so many stories and experiences on it that we think are actually quite important to have 'out there' so people can see that period poverty is a real thing and how many 'ordinary' average women it has affected at some point. So we were thinking about leaving the thread up.

What do you think? If the majority just think it has no place here we're happy to zap it but if the feeling is that it's a useful 'testimony' to have here we'll leave it.

I do think it is a bit feeble to report a thread because you don't like an opinion. We are all entitled to our own experiences and opinions, if you don't like it, debate it like an adult.

One of my dds friends is in period poverty.
I noticed my dd had taken an extra pack of towels out the cupboard so asked if she need higher absorbencey and she told me that she'd given a pack to her friend as her mom didn't get paid for another few days then she'd get her a pack back.

Obviously I said it doesn't matter but this is a real situation that is happening right now. Like alot of people said 50p when your struggling to put food in the table is alot of money.

who can't buy cheap sanitary products?

You realise Superdrug own brands come in different weights too right..... all you are doing is paying for the name with tampax etc. No difference in effectiveness.

@whiskeysourpuss please push for your dd to be sorted out.

I had similar issues as a young teen. Constant heavy bleeding for up to two weeks at a time, I would get a week off then it would start again. All put down to my periods 'only just starting' (a year+ before) we were told it would settle, I even had an accusation I was making it up to get on the pill by one GP.

I gave up complaining in the end and shut up and put up. A few months later and I ended up being so severely anaemic my hemoglobin count was 5.4 (iirc) and I had a 6 pint blood transfusion. Whilst in hospital I was then pushed to tell them if I was pregnant (they thought I was miscarrying). I was 15 and I'd never even kissed a boy let alone had sex!

An emergency scan the next morning revealed an ovarian cyst which they then called the emergency anesthetist in on a saturday afternoon so they could whip it straight out.

Wish I'd been old enough to have the balls to complain as I was treated horrendously.

Debating an opinion is ok. Bleating ignorant shite and refusing to actually engage with others despite evidence then start goading is trolling.

I think it should go. These stories are out there on mumsnet anyway in other threads. The impact of poverty on women is so, so important and more awareness needs to be raised but this goady as fuck and rude OPs thread isn't the way to do that.

Savy
Get rid of some of your 'luxuries' (sky tv, mobile phones, coffees etc etc etc etc - I could go on) and this is a pittance.
Supeerdrug deliver free over £10. Don't tru and make excuses.

Get your head out the sand. If you have no money it doesnt matter how cheap and useless san pro is you cant buy it with freah air. Its not rocket science.

If you dont have £10 how the freak are you going to get superdrug to deliver anything?

Just
And if it's not happening, it's not down to society it's down to her parents not looking after her.

People are living below rhe breadline as in no income for weeks untul thier claims are sorted out, stupud sanctions lufted etc thanks to gov cock ups with disability claims, universal credit etc. People are dying of poverty ffs in UK in 2018!

People are committing suicide as they are left without a penny to thier name but unable to work. Wake up and smell the fucking coffee.

A pack of ten Always towels is £4.25 at my local shop. They are the cheapest towels they stock. Our nearest big name supermarket with the mega-cheap basics range towels is a £6.40 bus ride away and that's for one adult, it'll cost an extra £3.20 per child. One pack of ten is not enough for one single period, 2-3 packs are going to be needed so it's £8.50 for two or £12.75 for three and that's for one person - costs would go up if there was more than one woman in the household. If you're already on an incredibly tight budget where virtually every penny is accounted for or you're having to borrow from Peter to pay Paul then £12.75 really can be an impossibility, as can the £6.40 bus fare to Asda/Lidl/Boots, and booking an online supermarket delivery is all well and good but you need internet access, a debit or credit card, and you need to spend a minimum of £40. Then there's the washing of underwear/clothes. Water, electricity for the washing machine or gas for the boiler if you're washing by hand, detergent, somewhere to dry them which in the winter would mean somewhere warm indoors which is more gas for the radiators.

Reading some of the posts here it really seems that some people don't understand how it is to live in poverty or why it's called the poverty trap. It's all very well saying "what about Lidl?" or "get an online Asda shop" or "use a Mooncup" but getting access to these things cost money and when you don't have the money to buy 2-3 packs of basic Always towels at £4.25 a pack how on Earth would you find the money for a £16 Mooncup or a £40 online shop or £6.40+ bus fare to Lidl? Having no money creates barriers and actually costs you more money in the long run - higher energy costs due to having key meters, higher food prices due to being restricted to local shops with lack of choice, companies like Brighthouse and Provident your only fallback when something essential breaks and needs replacing/repairing or an unexpected bill drops through the door, and so on.

You can believe what you like but there really are parents in this country who struggle to feed, house, and clothe their children and for whom the expense of a period/teen daughter's periods is an expense too much.