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?

There's myself and 2 teenage daughters here. I spend £5 a month for all 3 of us 🤷🏻‍♀️

I don’t

But I use reusable sanitary towels

So I paid out an initial cost of £40-£50, and that’s it. Apart from washing them, I don’t have anything else to do

I won’t go back to disposables now. Love them

I don’t think women who spend £3 on a period have any idea what it is like for women who flood. It’s pretty much a given that you will ruin all of your towels and bedsheets on a regular basis. I really like the little vanish soap bar (not always easy to find) and end up wearing disgusting crotch blood stained night clothes because I cannot afford to replace them and blood just doesn’t come out. I’ve bled all over my sofa, my bedding over and over again

Since using Mefanamic Acid my spend each month has gone down. Plus I invested in some Diary Doll pants which haven't let me down yet.So quite an expensive initial outlay to be prepared.

I think possibly £10 a month now on tampons and towels.

If you need a prescription more than once a month, it's cheaper to get an annual subscription. No-one needs to spend more than about £10 a month on prescriptions.

Obviously costs vary hugely, but presenting extreme, exaggerated examples made up of buying huge quantities of the most expensive products from the most expensive shops, in addition to replacement of clothes, underwear and bedding, plus chocolate and magazines(!) as typical or average isn't really helpful.

If you have heavy periods you have to buy the superplus towels and they are more expensive than the standard size ones. Sometimes I get offers and I only pay £1 for a pack of Bodyform but they are no good for my heaviest days so I have to buy the Always super-night size and they are expensive (and perfumed, grrrr, but that's for another thread!).

Lilets orange. £2 for a box of 10. I have to change every 3 hours for the first 4 days. So 16hrs a day of tampon wearing (not overnight) = 5 tampons a day. That’s 2 boxes in the first 4 days = £4.

I double up with towels as I flood & leak. £1.65 a pack, changed same time as tampon. So 2 packs in first 4 days = £3.30

Things ease off in the remaining 3-4 days, meaning I can change every 4-5 hours. Reducing my usage to 3.5 tampons (average) a day for 4 days. That’s another 1.5 packs = £1.50 & towels £1.65 for a pack of towels.

Plus a pack of thick night towels £3 for 10.

So that’s £13.45 already. Not including pain killers or laundry costs. People like me are bumping up the average.

I once bought a new pair of jeans about £20 from next, and a few days later had a massive unexpected flood in them - I ended up trying to dye them with Dylon (not cheap) so I didn’t have to throw them away and they looked so shit I cried

I’ve ruined office chairs, countless clothes, mattresses, bedsheets. You name it. The cost of sanitary products is the tip of the iceberg.

I had horrendous gynae problems that were eventually fixed with surgery (polyps and fibroids). I had to double up tampons and pads and still change things every 45 minutes or so. I was so anemic for so many years my doctor didn't know how I was standing! i don't know what I have paid out over the years as it seems pointless to add it up when its a necessity. But as well as products, if you add in new clothes and bedding because you have flooded all over the current ones, and it defo adds up. Surgery changed my life!

@BarbaraofSevillle

Yes I pay £120 a year for period medication on a subscription. But that is only for prescribed medication

It is not an exaggeration to explain you cannot wear thin tiny cardboard like San pads, that you get severe chafing on your bum cheeks and inner thighs from being damp and rubbing of the pads, you bleed all over your clothing and belongings regularly and it’s upsetting. I am sure those women would gladly swap for a £2.50 period don’t you think?

thank goodness no more but - I use to use two heavy duty pads at same time for two days change them every hour or two plus a few times during night plus extra pants over l=o-n-g period of up to 8 days - 2 large packets of heavy duty pads, 1/2 packets medium & 1 packet of light weight liners - know idea how much that cost never calculated than but yes I can imagine it would be over £13

@PookieDo If you need 3 prescription meds a month you can get a prepayment certificate for around £10 a month.

I probably spend around £5 in night time pads (only ones that work), the odd tampon for swimming, 40p for Tesco ibuprofen but I do need to do extra bedding and underwear washes. I also use more cleaning stuff since I tend to bleed over the seat so clean the toilet every time I go. Also disposal bags, but a pack of cheap nappy bags does several months and Andrex (or supermarket) wet toilet wipes for around £1 a month.

My periods are not too bad, around £10 a month taking it all into account.

I think the average woman probably spends less than £13, I always take these statistics with a bunch of salt.

I occasionally missed school when I was on my period, because some teachers wouldn’t let us away to the toilet during class, and I was prone to flooding. This was even with explaining/having a note from my mum.

Much easier and less embarrassing having a morning/afternoon/day off school than having to sit in detention for missing the first five minutes of class to nip to the loo between lessons.

I probably spend about £10 per period, with tampons/pads/painkillers.

The issue with adding in all extra costs makes it very complex. What is the campaign trying to achieve? Zero VAT on sanpro? Then that appears to be a minimal cost. The biggest costs appear to be from replacing clothing and bedding which won't be affected by zero VAT rating.

before I went on the Pill, average period was 7-10 days and heavy. my mum was the same.

paracetamol doesn't touch the pain.

I can see how this money is spent for sure. I'm glad people are talking about because actually I'm surprised that so many women have these easy periods that are discussed. I can come off the Pill but I don't want to because of this. One of my friends spent years resisting taking any hormones but she is a director and eventually she just couldn't get away with the 2 days off work every month, because all that flooding and cramping just isn't possible through long meetings.

Oh & black trouser/skirts plus 2 knickers plus extras just in case every period

I’ve spent £15 in the last two years - I bought a menstrual cup.
Some women have heavy periods. So can only comfortably use certain products. For example, before I discovered a cup, I could only comfortably use Tampax Pearl tampons, which are some of the most expensive on the market. Every time I tried cheaper ones, I found them very difficult to insert with the cardboard applicators, and they were uncomfortable.

Periods aren’t a one size fits all thing.

Yes I don’t think that the san pro is the real cost. It’s the replacement items

I have a prepayment now because I can’t afford to pay each time so it’s £10 a month. Just for PERIODS so I am already £10 down let alone all of the products...

Poverty isn't just funds either. The products could be inaccessible for whatever reason. We cant just judge period poverty on the cost of things. That's a very material thought that is causing bigger problems. If men had periods the products would be free.

I deal with night leakage by sleeping on a folded red bath towel on my heaviest days. It’s easier than having to change & launder the sheets/duvet/mattress.

I have had to replace clothes due to flooding, bedding, underwear. All the extra washing, showers and protection can really add uo. I don’t think I am unusual, as you get closer to the menopause this happens to lots of women.

I get very heavy periods too that can last 10 days +. I need to use the biggest pads I can find. Painkillers, iron tablets, creams, new pants, bedding, chronic anemia, migraines, extra washings, days I can't work due to pain and excessive bleeding. All these things add to the cost, its like having a medical condition and nothing like a bloody body form advert! On the opposite side of the spectrum my friend just uses a few sheets of loo roll folded over for her sanitary protection.

I have to have night time pads, then maxi pads at the start, as I flood, then normal pads at the end. I can go through 4 maxi pads in about 6 hours if it's bad. It does cost. I buy when I see things on offer, so tend to have a stash, but as my cycle is all over the place as I'm perimenopausal, I sometimes have run out of a particular pad and have to restock. I'm in Belgium, where it is more expensive as well.

That kind of threads really pisses me off. I understand someone asks a question, but the judgemental "AIBU" to think it's too much is not helping anyone.

-Maternity pads (which happen to be cheap, but still £1 a pack)
that's 4 or 5 packs a period.
-Night pads (with wings) to double up in underwear
that's another 4 or 5. Don't tell me they are not mandatory, who wants to have blood everywhere when commuting.
-Pads and tampons when the heavy flow finally stops.
-Tampons which are pretty useless with heavy periods but still recommended when you take a shower to keep the worst away from dripping everywhere.

-Pain killers.
-Plastic mattress protectors on top of your normal mattress protector

-I would strongly recommend a dark colour towel to put on top of your bedsheet for the night.

It's not even added, but some women had to rethink their period wardrobe, to have thicker and dark trousers to keep their dignity when needed.

Yes, it's high. Yes, periods can be a fucking nightmare for some women. You can be extremely lucky, pop a tampax and still wear a bikini and have a normal life. Or you can be in agony with ridiculously heavy flow.

When i read posters mocking teen girls who don't want to go to swim lessons or do sport when they have their periods I honestly want to slap them. You don't know what they are going through. All periods are different, have a bit of respect for others.