Is food poverty real?

[Leapfrog44]

Provocative title, sorry I know food poverty is real. I'm just not convinced about the extent of it.

I've cooked half a packet of dried chickpeas 50p which we eat fried with garlic, salt and olive oil. They're also delicious with pasta or with potatoes as a curry. Braised Puy lentils (60p) cooked with onions, celery and the bendy carrots left in the fridge.

And to really push the boat out an aubergine stew with onions and tomatoes. The 3 big aubergines cost £1.50. Tomatoes and parsley came from the garden.

I spent an hour cooking today including making a loaf of bread. With some rice or couscous, and some salad, what I've made will feed us for 4 nights.

We have apples too, foraged at the weekend. The windfall ones I cut the bad off and stewed them, the rest are good for eating. There are also elderberries, plums and a few late blackberries dotted around the margins of the city for anyone who can be bothered to go out and pick them.

I know not everyone has a garden but a very small space can be used to grow quite a lot. In pots I grew enough tomatoes, green beans and lettuce to feed us all summer. If I was less lazy or more skint, I'd also seed save, to ensure I can grow them for free next year. Many allotment holders would totally give up some produce in exchange for labour too.

So I guess I'm wondering if the increasing number of people who are in financial dire staits and find themselves needing to use food banks are in fact suffering from a lack of food education as much as lack of money? Our grandparents in the same situation would have cultivated every bit of earth with home grown vegetables and I'm sure would have been more resourceful and more capable of making do on very little.

Obviously there are very vulnerable people without the means to cook or to grow but surely not everyone experiencing 'food poverty' is in this category? I often wonder why at food banks they don't ask if recipients have access to a bit of ground (or a few pots) and give them seeds? Pulses and in season veggies are incredibly cheap and with a few quid you can feed your family really well if you know how to cook them. It's far better to cook a simple vegetable curry or dhal and eat it all week than have to exist on the pot noodles, tinned sludge, sugary cereals and biscuits that they're giving out.

Times are going to get MUCH tougher. Climate change and environmental destruction will soon jeopardise our food security and food banks will not be able to help everyone.

So AIBU? As a society are we actually getting poorer and hungrier or have we just raised a couple of generations lacking general resourcefulness, cooking skills and horticultural know how? Times are tough for increasing numbers but I can't help feeling that many of these people just don't have a clue how to help themselves.

@abacucat sorry to hear that xx

Courtney you clearly have no.idea i mean meters dont take coins anymore and havent done for years but thats by the by, we live in the northwest and in social housing so rent is quite cheap, innother areas rent is ridiculouslyy expensive and housing benefit might not cover all the rent anyway , if you have had a mortgage for a long time. and fall on hard times you would probably want to prioritise your mortgage and not loose your house .

Courtney Your figures are wrong - Everyone is being transferred over to Universal Credits now , tax credits and housing benefit are no longer.

There is no working tax credit on UC
There is a 5 week wait (yes, even if you are transferred automatically from tcs) in which you have to get into debt to survive
The housing and child elements of UC can be sanctioned (used to only be jsa/esa element sanctioned)
For the first time, working people can also be sanctioned.
Money is whipped off people's awards for third party debts.

The whole system is much, much harsher and more difficult than ever before.

"you could in rented accommodation" for starters there is as has already been mentioned a severe lack of social housing. Anyone who had a home, sold it and the sale only covered the outstanding mortgage would be classed as having made themselves homeless and therefore ineligible for social housing in most areas. In addition there likely to be way down the list behind people in bedsits and b&b type accommodation or overcrowded living with relatives etc.

If you say well they should get private rented accommodation - again there's not exactly a glut of this in most areas. In addition most won't accept benefit claimants (usually stated on their ads with 'no dss') even those that do usually require a solvent guarantor. PLUS most private places require a months rent and the same amount again as a deposit. That's a lot of money to try to find when you're in dire straits.

That's even IF a former home owner would be able to claim housing benefit, I've never owned myself but I don't believe they can, because again, they'd be considered to have made themselves homeless.

So selling up isn't necessarily the solution it might seem. It MIGHT be if selling the house means the people in difficulty will make enough profit for it to give them the boost they need, but that's not true for everyone.

And yes, most of the time the situation is 'sudden' -

Redundancy - (we've seen recent high profile companies go bust with absolutely NO warning to employees - a relative was in this situation literally turned up at work and their branch was shut that was how they found out. It was in the news an hour after he was due to start work, there'd been no rumours or anything - total shock to all their workers!)

Bereavement - again happened to a relative, young seemingly healthy partner literally dropped dead from an undiagnosed genetic heart issue

Partner walking out

People leaving domestic violence - (they're usually not in a position to save money in preparation)

Accident - that's what happened to me, was stationary at a junction when a speeding knob ran into the back of me shunting me into traffic! Ended up disabled but the disability wasn't immediately Dx as its a rare result of such incidences and worsens over time, symptoms similar to what you'd expect in temporary issues following such an accident. The stress of the whole situation and consequences both financial and medical led to a breakdown.

Illness - 2 friends have had their partners have to stop work due to shock dx. One was cancer - only picked up due to an injury at work causing them to go to a&e, dr noticed something unrelated, tests run, next thing they knew he was being admitted urgently for treatment. Another his job involves driving lorries, went for regular eye test and a condition that prohibits him from driving was detected - immediate job loss, no qualifications beyond basic gcse's left school at 16. Only work experience driving lorries.

@Frequency - obviously a pretty dreadful situation. What are the options for making it better?
Options which range from action you have to take to action the government should take.
And if it's for the government to take, what are your suggestions for funding that

I'm not sure if you mean me personally or in people in poverty in general?

If you mean me, I did go to college. I'm lucky to have on my doorstep and a lovely bunch of MNetter's dragged me a deep put of depression once, giving me the confidence to go.
When I was asked for £47 for uniform up front before I could start, I cried. I didn't mean to cry. It's just it had taken so much for me to simply apply and even more for me to turn up at the interview that I was exhausted and emotionally battered. Being told I needed to pay money for a course I was applying for because I had no money was just too much and it all came falling down. The wonderful tutor insisted on paying for my uniform from my own pocket and let me pay her back £5 a week for the length of the course.

Being at college and finally having a glimmer of hope helped me focus and helped dissipate the fog of depression. With the help of my tutor we identified areas I excelled in (not just areas related to my course) and thought of ways to make money from that.

By the time the course finished I was in a much better place, emotionally and financially.

I think people don't get the exhausting, all consuming grind of poverty. After a while, it saps so much out of you, simply getting out of bed is a mammoth task. You're told so often by so many people you are worthless (the media/online forums/the government/your kids when they have holes in their shoes and you can't afford to replace them) that you start to believe it. For these people surviving is hard enough, 'pulling themselves up by their bootstraps' is physically and mentally impossible.

To help reduce poverty in society in general the government needs to spend more money. Job centre staff need more training and more compassion (and higher pay), sanctions need to stop, benefits need to increase to a liveable level, the NMW needs to go up and the focus needs to switch from demonising the poor to demonising the people who keep them there. Why is it not okay for Mrs Bloggs with the three kids and no husband to work 16 hours and receive enough benefits to properly feed and clothe them but it is okay for Tesco to give Mrs Bloggs a zero hours contract with the stipulation that she must be available 24/7 thereby stopping her finding a second job? Why is it okay for Amazon to pay Mrs Bloggs less than NMW as a driver for them using the gig economy?

Education needs to be truly free for people on out of work benefits and in work top-up benefits and by truly free I mean they should have uniform paid for, travel to and from college, free college lunches and a loan or grant to apply to for any kit they need but it needs to be sensible. If there are 5000 hairdressers in a town of 10,000 people, for example, but only one plumber, make the plumbing course free and charge for the hairdressing course.

Yep, everyone's being put on UC now, all new claims or 'change in circumstances' and it's UC. It will be fully operational by next year. LOL at metres that take coins.

Have any MNers had any PMs yet from Bimgy or Neshoma?

Because im sure they will be happy for you to childmind their DC and are clamouring for you to do this despite what you have already explained to them.

Well Said Frequency

Well said, Frequency! Bravo to that post!

Bit worrying that a qualified accountant cant work out the difference between HMRC and DWP and thats its the latter who would/will object to people doing cash in hand work and not the former.

Well said Frequency and i would like to add something else

Why is it OK for Tesco to use Tuxedo cards to pay wages.

"d no husband to work 16 hours and receive enough benefits to properly feed and clothe them but it is okay for Tesco to give Mrs Bloggs a zero hours contract with the stipulation that she must be available 24/7 thereby stopping her finding a second job"

Companies who do this should be made to pay for their employees being on call ............because they ARE on call.

The higher status jobs do it. Its a class issue.

How do I find someone who will let me babysit for £20 - £40 a night? I don't know anyone who can afford that. So would parents really respond to an advert in a newsagent?

Local FB community pages often have "desperate for a babysitter" posts and posts saying "48 year old mother of three available for babysitting in and around the "

You don't know until you try.

serb im guessing you will put your money where your mouth is too.

@Allergictoironing having a lodger does not affect UC.

If you are on HB, above £20 a week your HB is reduced but on the flip side that spare room is no longer considered spare for the bedroom tax so potentially might net out, hard to say.

Apologies Helena. To accountants, particularly like me who've been in the business for 20 odd years, we don't distinguish between governmental departments when tax credits, benefits etc are concerned. We kind of expect the audience to understand that tax credits and universal credits are interchangeable in conversation, rather than try and "oooh, oooh, it's not called that anymore"

And if you want to split departmental hairs, Hmrc and dwp would be equally interested in cash in hand. In both cases, for the occasional adhoc night, they don't care.

Highly recommend fb for the babysitting route. Huge audience, essentially effortless, and you can tell straight away who is genuine.

It is interesting isn't it that having a lodger doesn't impact UC but working a couple of evenings for £40 does. Wonder why they set it like that.

Courtney - which dept being referred to may not matter to you, it DEFINITELY matters to those dealing with them as the rules differ, and running afoul of those rules can have serious consequences.

Re letting a room - yes under UC rent from a lodger is not counted as income BUT that room could still be counted as extra re bedroom tax AND depending on the status of the lodger could mean a much higher council tax bill which could well negate any rent they pay. Plus they're going to be using (perfectly reasonable expectation) heat, light etc incurring an extra cost there.

It MIGHT be an option for SOME who fall in more the 'on a tight budget' area.

For those in real crippling poverty, they're unlikely to have a spare room in the first place, and even if they do it could make things harder not easier.

@Allergictoironing having a lodger does not affect UC.

That's dandy if you are a homeowner (and your lender and building insurance allows it), but if you are a renter, 9/10 times there will be a clause in your tenancy about sub-letting, stating that is a violation of your tenancy agreement (for very good reason).

Courtney, probably best to swot up then. ALL benefits under UC are under one umbrella, that was the whole point of instituting it, that it was all in one location.

And again, why is this about how poor people need to improve and not those who employ them? Why is it about how those who are the most powerless and disenfranchised need to pull up their socks and not those who use zero hours contracts, use fucking Tuxedo cards to pay wages, contract out to temp or umbrella agencies and so are able to effectively skirt the NMW, pay those who are legal adults (ages 18-25) in terms of any benefits entitlement less? I mean, c'mon, till 25?! Some will have completed a degree or apprenticeship by then for 3 years or more and be providing skilled work. Even in bloody AMERICA the NMW age is 18 and you can't pay less because the person is under 25.

I wonder, too, are they paying those in the Forces less because they are under 25 when they are going out and working to defend our own country? How is that even considered acceptable?

Staff on cruise ships leave their families for months at a time. Polish people leave their country and come over to find work. But there's no way some British person on benefits will do a bit of ironing!

abacucat or DH being told that he couldn't support his family, and to sign on, by the HB office. Before that, he was self-employed.

Staff on cruise ships leave their families for months at a time. Polish people leave their country and come over to find work.

Do you realise how many of those people are exploited? C'mon, no one is that ignorant. And you have to have someone to leave your family with in the first place! You really think that's a good paradigm? Fuck me!

of course some British people on benefits will look to work from their home (ironing) Nesh - but posters have repeatedly hit their heads against a brick wall have tried to tell you that such an ingenious solution won't work if you are in a crisis situation, or are in the five week period waiting for your first UC payment.