AIBU to ask what you think poverty is?

[Rayn]

In a way this follows on from the 'did you
Grow up poor' thread. Just been on the news that on average a third of all children in my region are in poverty. When I think about the children in my son's class it makes me sad. I can think of one or two maybe but a third??

I just wondered what is classed as poverty in today's world in the uk.
Food, clothes, the basics?

People are conflating poverty with destitution

Poverty is when you lie awake all night, cold, hungry and worried sick.

We were reasonably well off. One year was really bad for me, split up from exDH and DM died soon after. Spent 6 months crying all the time.
Had to take on a huge further advance on the mortgage to buy ex out of his half as I couldn't sell the house (complicated issue).
The central heating broke in the autumn and I had no money to pay to get it fixed. So I was stone cold in the house all winter.
Racked up hundreds and hundreds in bank charges every single month, they'd bounce a direct debit for about £12 and charge me £35 so I'd be even more overdrawn than I would have been if they'd let the d/d go through.
Some people I owed dd/s to would try and claim it several times in one month and cost me a fortune in charges, and I couldn't stop it happening. The bank didn't give a shit.
Some months I'd go over the overdraft limit because of their charges, and then they'd charge me even more. If they cancelled the mortgage payment, I got penalised by them for that as well. I had to take out loans to reduce the overdraft.
Sometimes I had to choose between food and petrol. If I didn't have enough petrol to get to work I'd lose my job - and my house - feeling hungry all the time was a slightly better prospect than being homeless.
The only time I ever went out was when one friend said if I drove her car to the pub, she'd buy me soft drinks and crisps all evening, so she didn't have to drink and drive.
Going into public toilets and nicking loo roll. 'Borrowing' tea bags and nearly-empty bottles of milk from work.
Not being able to buy even the cheapest new shoes. I got very adept at using a black marker pen to fill in all the worn bits and scuffs, and I used gaffer tape and cardboard to mend holes in the soles.
The only way out of it in the end was when a distant relative died and I inherited just enough to reduce my overdraft to within manageable limits and stop the horrific charges adding up every month.

It is so easy for everything to spiral completely out of control within weeks. I know all too well, it happened to me. And I didn't even have any kids at that time either.

IMO poverty is when you can't pay all essential bills, e.g. food, rent, essential clothes, electric and gas. Essential bills DO NOT include Netflix, Wi-Fi, cost associated with a car, etc...

I would say that a cheap internet package is essential. Without it people cannot apply for benefits (as not everyone can get to a library and many are online only). Essential bills sometimes are cheaper online and so can other essentials such as clothes and banking. Also it means that any children are able to do their homework

A car may or may not be essential depending where you live. In London it's not essential, somewhere without adequate or affordable public transport a car maybe essential if you cannot physically get to work without one.

Poverty is working every hour God sends and still not having enough to make ends meet. I've been there. Ends meet now, and for the first time in my life, saving a small amount is a regular habit. I feel rich just because ends meet and I don't have to worry about bills bouncing.

This is poverty:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-46344967

It’s awful and terrible and wrong. Children should never suffer they are completely innocent.

🤔 However, almost all of the situations listed in @brizzles article list multiple children living in awful conditions and young children at that (which suggests they were born into those conditions rather than misfortune landing them there).

At some point parents who do not take adequate steps to prevent bringing children into situations such as these need to be held accountable. It’s not fair.

We’re not living in the 1800’s or even America - Birth control is widely available and FREE from walk in centres and clinics! I don’t believe that all of these children were the 0.1% failure rate!

Poverty is when your employer reports your wages wrong on the RTI system, and therefore Universal Credit's rigid monthly assessment system says you've been paid twice in one month (even though you haven't), and even though you can prove your employer reported wrong, they don't care and say you are not entitled to any of your top up the next month. Tough. This happens to quite a lot of people, some numerous times a year. Same thing can happen if you are unlucky enough to work somewhere that pays wages early for Xmas.

So you then have to make £700 of wages last the whole month, with your modest damp private rent being £500. So you have £50 a week left to pay council tax, feed yourself and 2 Children, top up gas and electric, and get to work. You can't eat into your rent money unless you want to be on a swift route to eviction. Impossible.

These kind of problems with the system is why evictions and food bank levels are rising like crazy. Nothing to do with reckless i-pad using, special brew drinking parents and the like (see the poverty porn myths of a few years ago still going strong)..

Not being able to pay for internet access or phone. Never being able to go on holiday or for days out. No money for Christmas or birthdays

good grief

If you don't have the means to be a full member of society if you don't have access to education health care internet, secure affordable accommodation

If you don't have the means to be a full member of society

What constitutes a full member of society?

Therein lies the rub

I agree as well with the point and have been there a few times myself in the past, about not having money costing you more. Now our cupboard are bursting with food and at any given time of the month I can make something home made, nutritious and tasty. Meat in the freezer, fruit in the fridge, veg, tins, carbs, and plenty of stocks and spices.

However that’s a stark contrast to having tiny amounts of money to live off and have insecure accommodation. If you can’t drive how do you get to a supermarket where the prices are good? You have to pay, bus or taxi fare - and back again. What meals can you have that are cheap enough - beans on toast but butter is expensive, cheap frozen food out of the question because nowhere to store it living in a dodgy room in a shared house. It’s all very difficult and it sets out back, you’re forever trying to get on your feet and stumbling backwards because the immediate cost of what you need is so pressingly urgent. It’s very difficult for some people and I have every sympathy. I know what it’s like to know you should spend all of your money as well walking to the supermarket and walking home again laden with bags of value tins, but all you want to do is get some hot fast food, accessible from a 5 minute walk down the road. In ore extreme scenarios I imagine it’s the same for poor parents who grew up in poor households (in regards to people talking about prioritising cigarettes, alcohol, feeding addictions etc) - I don’t think you learn the stability and resolve to push through and strive for better circumstances. If you’d always lived your life from day to day, I can imagine it’s very difficult to start planning, budgeting, sacrificing short term comfort for long term gains - when everything is already stacked so high against you and those small comforts are all you really have to look forward to. And then more children are suffering the same fate due to selfish parents and the cycle continues.

It’s very bleak. Despite still feeling poor sometimes I’ve looked at our income and outgoings and I feel grateful after reading so much about what poverty is like for so many. It’s tragic and people need support out of that situation.

I think worrying about how to afford basic things like food, shelter, heat, etc. are all signs of poverty. I think a lot of people fret about money to various degrees, but hopefully most of us on here aren't really in a position where we are unable to feed ourselves/our children on a daily basis, or heat our homes in the winter, or facing being homeless.

I think if money is keeping you awake at night, if you're anxious and worried about it to a degree that it impacts on your wellbeing, then that's another sign of either current or impending poverty. As I said before, most of us fret about money in one way or another, but for many of us that's more around maintaining a certain level of lifestyle that we are used to, not worrying about how to feed ourselves.

I agree if you grew up in a chaotic and dysfunctional household then you are probably going to be emotionally damaged and prone to choosing partners who are dysfunctional thereby recreating the chaotic home life that you came from
You can in theory acquire the skills needed to manage on a small budget you can in theory improve your emotional health but it's going to be a long hard road and you're always on the back foot

It may seem a trivial matter, this not having modern conveniences internet etc, but when you look a bit deeper you see that these small things combine into a perfect storm which keeps you at the bottom of society never able to transcend your roots or fulfil your potential

Jesus, that is so shit about early Christmas wages buggering up UC.

That is why people with actual ordinary life experience, not Eton boys, should be designing the benefits system.

With working tax credits, child tax credits, child benefit, minimum wage part time job, and child maintenence, me, ds (7), and two pets have £38 a day between us. It's tight sometimes but I try to make and stick to a budget, so we manage, always have the basics, food, gas, electric, wifi, netflix, now tv (reduced price atm then it might have to go too), toilet roll, cleaning stuff, shower gel etc and enough for the odd treat, lunch out with family now and again etc. Always managed to get a gift and card for the birthday boy/girl when ds has been invited to a party, even if it was just a cheapy one, colouring book in a cute bag or whatever. I'd say I'm relatively skint, rarely go out to socialise (will invite friends over or out for a walk or whatever instead).

I wouldn't say we were living in poverty though, we have far too many creature comforts to qualify imo. Since I lost my overtime (covering another staff member), I've had to cut way back in the last few months, on takeaways, going to the bakery, I quit cigs (but not smoking sadly, now I smoke the cheapest legal tobacco I can find, which costs me about £6 a week), buying drinks when out and about, using the gas wisely and not willy nilly etc, and have managed to save enough for a decent christmas, and weekly driving lessons (of which my dad pays half, he insisted which was unexpected, but which I'm so grateful for). Hoping if I can keep this up, I'll actually be able to afford to run a car if I pass my test. I'm in some debt, have an overdraft with my bank that I'm well into, but I pay the monthly fee, and reduce it when I can. Ran it up when my ex was living here, trying to keep up with the Jones's, so to speak, stupid I know. That's the height of it thankfully, no credit card debt or anything like that. I'd say we do okay, if I had more than the one dc I think I'd really struggle though.

*£38 a day between us, after rent, which is a super cheap £40 a week, for a small two bed council house, after my housing benefit (which is about £18 p/w and paid direct so I don't see/can't access that money).

Poverty to me

• not having enough electric to heat hot water or to have the fire on low in freezing cold weather
• walking 8 miles (4 miles each way) to save about 50p at Aldis. Fuck off Jamie with your mangetouts.
• walking 8 or 9 miles so that my daughter can go to holiday club or other appointments.
• obviously using food banks, borrowing from friends and family, hunting round the house for coppers and 5ps, eating bread and dissolved stockcubes and pretending it's soup, stealing toilet paper from public loos, nappies and wipes from baby changing rooms, all the usual survival techniques that I'm sure others have mentioned.

I think I am in poverty. I was an absolute idiot and got into huge debt, lived beyond my means for a decade and it's caught up with me. I hate myself and feel so ashamed and I know I've let my dc down.

I have £12.50 a week to feed us, and rely on rice, grains and soups- cheap veg soup is often dinner with the cheapest ice cream for the kids for afters - this means they get nutrients from the soup and veg but they're calorific needs are met with the ice cream.

They've had to hide from bailiffs and are more than used to only having the three gifts (all second hand )

Their uniform doesn't fit and they can't go to the Christmas trip because the fact is I cannot afford £30.

I've sold everything I had and my dad pays for my broadband as otherwise I'd not be able to contact him. I also use his Netflix.

It's shit.

Having just enough or not having enough money to pay your bills and having little or no savings. Obviously by bills I mean the essentials and not your monthly payment on a jag or a yacht or anything

I find these threads so interesting as I believe you can tell the difference between those with opinions who have experienced or lived close to some level of poverty in the UK and those who haven't.

We lived some of the time in poverty but it was relative. We were never hungry but some years my uniform was bought by uniform grants (yes they used to exist) and I was on free school meals. My dad also acted as an illegal taxi over Christmas times to make ends meet!

The fear of helplessness should something go wrong is my own definition of what poverty feels like. You can be one payday away from disaster and that lack of security can be overwhelming.

The other stuff like being hungry, cold and not being able to replace things are the obvious poverty signs.

This government should be ashamed that there are food banks at all in this country and they are used as a buffer to a useless benefit system which should be the safety net.

I haven't experienced it in the slightest, but I'd describe it as a lack of security at providing basics and regularly having to compromise. Do you prioritise your child's school place or housing security? Topping up the gas or electricity card? Minimal disposable income left over after basic costs. Having to make short term choices to keep going and being subject to poverty premiums (e.g. meter rates, shop choices, size choices, quality e.g. £10 shoes that last a month rather than £50 shoes that last a year).

Basic has changed in British society. The way our towns and services are now organised means that it is very isolating to not have access to transport or the internet. Public transport avaliability, work locations and hours mean that so many jobs are only accessible by car. So many job applications and the benefits system are internet only access. Libraries have shut or have very restricted access. Access to email and mobiles is expected.

In reality it's the impact on life and choices rather than absolute income. Someone in London with higher rents, childcare etc will get less for their money than someone in the midlands. Very rural areas will have higher transport costs and premiums from poorer choice of services.

I think some of the things described are pretty normal for most families. Budgets are tight.

I think the main thing for me would be having no safety net. Nobody to help or feed you or bale you out if the shit hit the fan.

It makes A MASSIVE difference.

I don't think not having a safety net means you're living in poverty. Living one payday to the next is pretty common for many families who earn decent incomes, but have high outgoings.