To ask who is spending £13 on sanitary products per month?

[avocuddl]

Just watching This Morning on period poverty. I appreciate this may be a real issue but I just can't work out the costs stated on the website under 'The Facts' www.freeperiods.org/mission
£18k over a lifetime which equals £13 per month.

The MP said she'd spent £25 on one period?

I buy the always £1 pack and they're fine! A pack of paracetamol is like 20p?

Sorry if this has been done before but aibu?

[emmskie03]

For those whose mind us blown at the idea that those in poverty can't afford a £15 moon cup - when my endometriosis was at its worst, I cannot imagine for a second being able to insert a moon cup given I was basically dragging myself around on the floor. There is a certain art to it. And as someone else said, the practicalities when you have heavy periods aren't great.

[NannyRed]

One night I had to get up 7 times to change my Always pad and my tampon. (So every hour😢) One. Night.

One night, over half a pack of Always, half a pack of Tampax both at £2.00 ish each, so let’s say £2. That night, times by 7-10 or even 14 nights. Add laundry costs and paracetamol, I can see it costing some ladies well over £25 for a ‘bad’ month.

I’ve had Mirena since then.

[losingfaith]

People can't afford a £15 mooncups which will last ALOT long than 15 packs of £1 pads. Literally makes no sense.

I disagree.

Historically I used mooncups and championed them for lighter days. However as highlighted in my previous post I suffer terrible flooding and big blood clots when I move. The result is that even if I've been to the bathroom, the mooncups leaked due to volume and / or the clots within an hour. The toilets in my work are pretty grim and I wouldn't try to clean anything there. I can be in the office from anything between 8am and 11pm (minimum is 9am - 7/8pm) so would need god knows how many mooncups per day.

Regardless, I can't use them now due to a pretty bad history of utis which resulted in lots of investigations / tests (some under general anaesthetic) because gp didn't take it seriously initially. As much as I would like to use mooncups I'm too scared, ditto re tampons, So in my case it makes lots of sense.

[Dutch1e]

It also hurts my heart that we're quibbling over this.

There are women & girls who can't afford (or don't have access to) ANY amount.

The financial burden of menstruation adds insult to injury when, as rightly pointed out many times on this thread, women's serious health concerns are so easily dismissed

[PookieDo]

I’m very open with my teenage girls but they don’t find it easy to ask for san pro. It just disappears from the bathroom and I have had a few texts from DD1 from her dads asking me to drop off towels - never even occurs to him they might need them and they don’t want to ask him.
In the last few months DD16 has been more open with me and I told them both to get a tracking app which they now have

I always thought I had heavy periods until 2 years ago when I just started gushing blood endlessly. It is really debilitating in so many ways - mentally and physically. You are always anxious about a sudden flood and it really affects you in so many ways

[Thedarklady]

I was so shocked to read here about how heavy some women's periods are and the pain and damage they can cause. I had no idea.

[Dilligaf81]

The argument about school girls is different though isn't it?
The children themselves rely on parents and there are plenty of parents out there who are having to skip meals so their kids eat so I imagine tampons are lower down the list of priorities. No child should miss school because they cannot afford sanitary wear.

Also why we are talking about it women have a right to go to the gp about heavy /long periods and be investigated not repeatedly dismissed because its "part of being a women".
I read that viagra was also tested on women and it relieved period cramps and shortened period ls but they didn't move forward with that side of it as '' it wasn't of benefit to society and there was no hunger for it" men needs stiffs but relieve a womens pain nah!

[Upsy1981]

I would like to think the statistics were based on more than a sample of two.

[Meandwinealone]

The program more or less on radio 4 did this. It’s a statistics program. And basically they came to the conclusion it’s incorrect. It doesn’t matter if some people spend 100£ per month. The average did not come to £13

[PregnantSea]

A while ago I bought some bamboo reusable pads and i haven't spent a single penny on my periods since. I highly recommend them.

[skybluee]

I can actually see it being near that figure if it takes into account absolutely everything associated with a period, on average, which it should, as that's the proper cost.

Don't think it should include "sweets, chocolate and crisps", DVDs, magazines (??), toiletries not related to period. But anything else is fair.

I feel so sorry for people who struggle with immensely heavy periods, it sounds awful.

I'm not totally sure about the costs for myself. I use tampax and I tihnk they were £3 for two packs from Superdrug, I think that lasts about 4 months. Each year I possibly replace maybe 2-3 pairs of pants I chuck out. I do have black period pants, but sometimes the timing isn't 100% accurate. I really don't like the brown stains in them, it makes me feel a bit shitty so I don't tolerate it when I can get a packet of pants from Tesco 4 pants for £4. I possibly do some extra washing, so electricity, washing capsule and water, but not sure that adds up to much as it's infrequent.

[CheshireChat]

I said that GPs could offer them in the context of providing free sanitary protection.

[Treefloof]

I believe both groups are accurate in their experiences, therefore I assume that the £13 a month figure is not an average but is based nearer the upper end of the scale - totally accurate for some people but wildly inaccurate for others

Why would you think that?
An average can be mean, median or mode. But its still an average.

I am now on my 4th week of a period (the Joy's of menopause) and am now £100 poorer, not including wine, which I may yet remortgage for

So if I spend 25 quid a week and my neighbour, same age also peri etc etc spends nothing because she has no periods, then what's the average to you?

[SammySamSam09]

Before my hysterectomy I used to spend loads on sanitary protection.
From the moment my period started I would flood constantly until it stopped 9 days later.
That was the main reason I had a hysterectomy. Now I just buy sanitary protection for my girls but that is a lot cheaper thankfully.

[Upsy1981]

For every woman in this thread saying that it could easily be that figure because of heaviness/length/pain etc, there is another saying they buy one pack a month in Home Bargains for 60p which does them fine. I believe both groups are accurate in their experiences, therefore I assume that the £13 a month figure is not an average but is based nearer the upper end of the scale - totally accurate for some people but wildly inaccurate for others.

[Graphista]

Completely ignoring every other comment on your posts then.

And yes, unless GP's are given them AND the costs for administering such a scheme they're unlikely to support such an idea, given they have no issue ignoring women & girls with serious symptoms of serious illness.

[EBearhug]

I bet a lot of women would be more keen to use mooncups if they were offered them by a GP for free.

Probably true, but there will still be women who don't get on with them. And unless one of the menstrual cup companies decides to provide loads for free, I can't see that GPs could afford it.

[CheshireChat]

Actually, I bet a lot of women would be more keen to use mooncups if they were offered them by a GP for free.

[Graphista]

I made a reasonable educated assessment that someone who literally doesn't understand that someone who is poor cannot afford an initial outlay of £15 for something when they don't even have £1 to spare is extremely unlikely to have ever been in that position themselves

That's not rude.

I'm not sure you even understand how debate works.

Challenging others assertions and opinions is NOT rude!

Disagreeing with someone is NOT rude!

Stating facts relevant to the subject under discussion is NOT rude.

If you can't handle robust debate don't get involved in one.

[EBearhug]

People can't afford a £15 mooncups which will last ALOT long than 15 packs of £1 pads. Literally makes no sense.

Literally does. People may be able to find £1 for a cheap pack, but not £15 to pay all in one go as a one-off payment - it's like buying in bulk may be cheaper in the long run, but if you're budgeting literally to the last penny and have to make decisions like a loaf of bread or a tin of beans, because you can’t afford both, you're not in a position to spend out on a 9-pack of toilet roll, nor a mooncup, even as a one-off payment.


We are all different shapes and sizes, inside as well as out. It is unlikely that any single type, shape, size of sanitary protection will suit all women - and many, many women show that to be true. There is no one size fits all option, either physically or financially.

[CheshireChat]

Maybe something like healthy start vouchers but for sanitary products?

Though with a higher threshold ideally

[ketchupormayo]

@CheshireChat it is shocking that it's not more readily available. In Wales prescriptions are free, condoms are free everywhere. Absurd that sanitary products aren't. Or even a food bank but for tampons/pads/mooncups.

[ketchupormayo]

@Graphista you have absolutely NO idea about my life so how dare you make assumptions. You are so unbelievably rude

[CheshireChat]

ketchupormayo thanks for clearing that up.

I wonder how could they go about providing free sanpro from a distribution POV. Schools, drs, sexual health clinics... Where else though?

[Graphista]

Not rude frustrated.

Rude is not reading even OP'S posts and at least a few pps before commenting. Rude is making assumptions about the poor which you are clearly not (nor I suspect have ever been by your updates). Rude is not considering other people's lives, bodies and circumstances are not the same as yours.

My choice to use caps for emphasis isn't rude either.

If a girl/woman/family cannot spare £1 for Sanpro they certainly cannot spare £15 that's just common sense!

Re "if they can afford £1 X 15 months they an afford £15 in one go" is the point at which its glaringly obvious you're clueless about being poor.

Are you paid your salary in one lump sum in advance? No? So do you pay all of your bills and household costs annually in advance when you're paid monthly? No! Why? Because you couldn't because you don't yet have the money!

Clueless utterly clueless!

Poor people don't have that kind of money available for upfront expenditure, they don't have savings or even credit available to them.

There are thousands (possibly millions) of families in this country on the bones of their arse that cannot even afford basic food and they supposedly have a magic £15 available?!