To think most of MN don’t know what having no money means

[icecolddrinks]

And that admitting to having none is humiliating.

I see it here all the time. Someone has no money. Someone suggests something to make life easier. The person says again they have no money. MN suggest a cheaper version.

On the thread about dress up so many people were saying to tell the school.

I know debt and low incomes aren’t ideal but they aren’t uncommon either so why is it so hard to acknowledge that someone might have 3p in their bank account and no money?

@Iggly I am a Civil Servant and years ago when I divorced I was working in a benefit office . There were times I had less money than the people I was interviewing but always had a few pennies too much to claim top up benefits . I fought through the courts to get child maintenance (pre CSA) but just ended up with legal fees. Times were really hard but I just took every bit of overtime I could plus a second job . So I do know what it’s like to be skint !

Or there are children brought up like dh where food was scrimped, where dc had cardboard put in their shoes, where mil was constantly on the look out for cheap children's clothes, the children shared a cornet, each having a lick.

The children felt very very poor growing up but there was no distinction between poor and tight and living a miserable life. My remonstrations about how could you have been poor when your mother was a deputy head and father an engineer fell on deaf ears because x and y neighbour were Dr's and accountants and had well off grandparents and nice holidays. It wasn't until FIL died and the reality of his savings and investments hit that DH understood. MIL has still never bought a pair of shoes or coat outside the sale.

Now I do think there's a lot of that on MNet although I haven't read about the Duracell chicken for a few years.

I do wonder where people get their money from (wages? benefits?) and what they are spending their money on if they have 'no' money.

Surely they could cut back on something, change their lifestyle, go for the cheaper options.

I work and also receive benefits. I have also worked supporting people on benefits. Some were genuinely struggling but some others were also simply unwilling to make changes.

Those people smoked, drank, ate takeaways, got their nails done, fake tans done, then said they had no money left for bills.

There is very much a family history of poverty in my local area - several generations not working, on benefits, single parents, young parents, drink, drugs, alcohol.

So as I said, some are genuinely struggling and for others its what they have chosen.

I disagree. I think most people do get it. I've never had no money, but I grasp the concept, if a poster says it.

I disagree about the dress up day thread, even if she had no money she could scrape at outfit together from what she has in the house and a couple of safety pins.

Somewhere along the lines I managed to claim industrial injuries disablement benefit. Iirc about 20 quid a week. Total £83 per week.

Ok. Sound right for SSP and IIDB over a decade ago.

Reapplied to benefits - a single person only needs £45 per week to live on. With SSP and IIDB you earn too much

I'm really sorry, but this is wrong. I don't mean you are lying. You were given the incorrect information. You absolutely qualified. I can't be arsed to go back and work out what your entitlement would have been 15yrs ago, but please understand you did qualify. I've had clients tell me they "can't claim this/that" and I've been baffled as to where they've got that information. They'll say, the benefits office.

Several occasions will spring to mind where I've shown them online that they do qualify and to call back with this webpage infront of them. The ineptitude at the benefits office is terrible these days. It used to be much better. But certainly since UC, it seems you can be pot luck who you get on the end of the phone, who has/hasn't been trained on the system properly, and will happily declare "oh, you don't qualify for that" with no clue, like it's trivial.

@Soberanne

In this country we pretend to look after people and brag about our benefits system when in fact what is really needed is for people to be paid enough to live.

Completely agree. Minimum wage is not enough to raise a family with the high cost of living in this country.

We only have tax credits because employers don't pay enough. There would be no need for them if workers were paid a decent wage.

Might add to my pp that I was once very cross with an early 20s dd, who told me she ‘didn’t care’ about money.

As I very tartly replied, that was because she had absolutely no idea of what it was like to have no money , and no means of begging or borrowing any.

YANBU, if I say "I have no money" then I mean it, I have 2 autistic adult children that I'm feeding and clothing as well as keeping a roof over all our heads, I am not entitled to benefits and I have an income of just over £1000 per month, I cannot increase my hours at work because there are currently no extra hours available, both of my adult children are in full time education so not entitled to benefits, neither of them could cope with working while studying, neither of them are likely to work full time anyway.

People have told me to look for a full time job, but if I do that I would not be able to give ds as much support as he needs with college, that in turn would make life at home more difficult and would cause us all so much stress (for different reasons) and when I explain why they say "get a weekend/evening job then".

Nothing is ever that easy.

DS once said he didn't want to do dress up day and then changed his mind at bedtime. "With that notice boy, the only option is to go as Mowgli, ie, pretty much starkers. So we ripped an old pair of shorts a bit, dirtied him up with mud from the garden and sent him in with a copy of The Jungle Book. He got a prize for that! It was a warm day BTW and he did have a t shirt.

@icecolddrinks

I didn’t mean it was a nationwide thing *@Kolo* sorry - was thinking of different schools I know. They are all different which does mean mn is hard sometimes as you get posters insisting that this is how it’s spent and don’t realise every school is different!

As a general point though I do find that many schools use FSM as a sign of social deprivation which of course it is in a general sense but on an individual level I understand people not wanting their child labelled.

It's is used as an indicator of social deprivation. For one thing, schools are compared to 'similar' schools for their progress and achievement, as you'll know as a secondary teacher. Another of the reasons my school was so desperate to increase the uptake of FSM was because we always felt we were unfairly compared to schools with similar FSM rates, although we knew our intake was more deprived than our FSM rate indicated. Suspect that's a problem nationally, though, for reasons you've stated.

I've worked in a couple of different 'types' of catchment. One thing that I really noticed was that the more deprived the area, the more willing the parents were to contribute to school trips. You know you have to send the letter out with the paragraph saying (paraphrasing here) "it is not compulsory to contribute, but the trip won't go ahead without a certain level of contributions"? It did surprise me how the wealthier catchments seemed much happier to not contribute than the poorer catchments.

When I grew up I lived in social housing and came from a single parent family (the other parent didn’t contribute ever financially) there was never spare money, I went without a lot, including shoes and clothes that were always too small. Food was basic and wasn’t hugely nutritionally and we rarely had fruit.

I can relate to all of this. My Dad raised me as a single parent. I remember everything in our kitchen cupboards being that brand that Kwik Save used to do - "No Frills" I think? All the packaging was just white with black writing on it, from the cereal boxes to the tins of beans. You opened our cupboards and it was just a sea of black and white, couldn't tell what anything was. I still remember to this day eating the same basic things for tea every night because my Dad had so little money and no idea how to cook nutritious meals. It makes me appreciate very much where I am in life now, with a good job, nice car and savings. It's definitely no resemblance to the background I came from that's for sure.

YABU. People don't necessarily tell the truth about themselves on social media, and you don't know what baggage people are carrying around with them.

I live in a situation now which I'm aware would be described as privileged. I've worked hard for it - but others have also worked hard and with less recompense. My DH and I are both senior professionals. We are also from modest backgrounds; both of us went through university and built our way up in our careers without any financial leg-up whatsoever from our families, and with very little emotional support let alone financial (I did have the former from my mother, but she sadly died young).

My father was an abusive alcoholic who drank most of the family's budget. My mother was virtually scruffy: she had no new clothes for years until my grandparents bought her a new wardrobe. My sibling and I were well-turned out purely because she made all our clothes.

We were on free school meals for years. We have also been in intensive trauma therapy as adults as a result of what our father put us through. We rarely had holidays or treats of any kind: those we did have were courtesy of our loving maternal grandparents.

Looking at my life now you'd likely never guess it. But I know exactly what it feels like when your family doesn't have two pennies to rub together.

There are many kinds of poverty. Not all are them fiscal.

@1DoesNotSimplyWalkIntoMordor your situation sounds really difficult but clearly shows that life is not straight forward and no not everyone who should be, is getting support.

@Kolo I think the problem is that while that’s all true on a general level, it’s also understandable that people might not want that particular label attached to their child or family.

I would certainly find it easier to say ‘these dress up days are ridiculous’ from a point of view of being middle class and fairly well to do than say it because I couldn’t afford it.

@Soberanne

Sorry but for most benefits is not enough to live on. Like i previously stated, i work full time and get tax credits. I have one child. My rent is not covered and i get minimum tax credits. I get no CT rebate nor do i get free school Meals. I dont have any debt, but by week 3 of the month i have nothing left. Please dont tell me to find another job as i am the person looking after everyone elses kids so they can get to work. If i was paid a decent wage like so many others including carers i wouldnt need to live in poverty nor rely on benifits.

Well said, I'd also add that the people who trot out retrain or go to college, get a better job etc are so shortsighted it laughable. If they all did tomorrow, who do you think is going to do those jobs? There'll be replacements and they'll be paid too little to live on too, so in the bigger picture, what exactly has been solved?

The problem is the piss poor wage paid for doing these jobs, not the fact people are doing them. They are needed jobs, jobs that society would be fucked without, because you'd all be at home looking after your own kids and elderly and vulnerable family members instead of having that 'better job'. You'd have not been able to 'work hard' to achieve what you have. People like me and the quoted poster enable that to happen for so many people, yet are accused of poor spending habits, making excuses, laziness and lack of ambition when we struggle with the cost of living compared to what we earn.
To admit that though, means they are complicit in it all, no one seems to have a problem using elderly or child care for example so they can go out there, or a problem with the price they pay (unless it's moaning it's too much) but they do like to condescend to those doing those jobs and write them off as lazy, uninspired spendthrifts.

@1DoesNotSimplyWalkIntoMordor

If you are on such a low income and a carer then why do you not get any benefits?

@TwinsandTrifle

"I know debt and low incomes aren’t ideal but they aren’t uncommon either so why is it so hard to acknowledge that someone might have 3p in their bank account and no money?*

For me, two things. Firstly, from having to claim benefits myself and astounded at the amount I was given. We literally lived no differently to when I was in full time work.

The second. I had no money, one month. The clutch went in my car. I had "3p" in the bank that month. What I can't understand is how people only ever have 3p in the bank continually.

So my view, is that I know what you receive, I wasn't special, that's what I received too. I know what average bills are, and if consistently you are left with 3p, then it is not down to lack of initial money, but your own choices on what you've done with it.

The odd month with a surprise large expense can't be helped. The rest of the year? It's down to personal choices. Some months I'd have £300-400 to just spend on whatever, after all bills and food. That's a huge amount. And it wasn't like we lived like misers.

So yes, because of having been in that exact position, and knowing how very easy it was, I question what made me so "lucky" when some people swear they are so hard done by.

Wow, the ignorance in this post.

Not everyone on benefits gets the same.

Many people live in areas where the benefit cap makes a huge difference, and they have to use money supposed to be for living expenses towards the rent, or they have massive debts, or are sanctioned by the job centre for ridiculous reasons, or are being financially abused by their spouse, or are bound into contracts they took out before they hit hard times etc etc.

Your lack of imagination together with your lack of empathy is a poisonous combination.

The problem on here is for every thread by a truly skint/desperate poster down to their last 3p, who has tried everything, there are as many by
a) people who drip feed in various details that reveal they are in fact not really budgeting that tightly
b) people who are very skint but are given really good advice eg often arent getting all the benefits they are entitled to, and spend the whole thread whinging but ignoring the good advice

Welcome to my world.

"I'm so poor" You wouldnt be if you weren't blowing money on xyz, let's look at addressing that. (But...my car!....my three dogs...my one night out to socialize) I appreciate it means making sacrifices, often because you're in a position out of your control, but it's your choice. If you insist you have to, eg, keep three dogs and all their expenses, and it's £200 a month, then you're choosing that. Pets are not essentials when money is distributed to you. Whether you like it or not. It's fact.

"I can't afford my rent" Didn't you also just get back from Greece (usually met with aghast looks that the DC should have been denied their holiday) Rent a smaller place. "There's nowhere" (I will open Rightmove and find three pages of alternatives) "I don't want to live there"

"I've got no money" ah, you're eligible for xyz, this is how you claim. "I'm not shaming myself with benefits." ..... right, your choice. "I'm soooo poor!" Yes, hence the benefits available to you.

I'm very surprised about the earlier benefits calculation. I'm funnily enough also a qualified accountant though you don't really need to be to work a benefits calculator. I just ran one to check if we were both unemployed; 2 adults, 1 child. After rent costs we would have £660.58 to pay for all bills, food, transport to look for jobs etc. I'm not saying it's impossible but it certainly wouldn't be easy.

People sometimes bull shit.

There’s no obligation to buy a teacher anything. I hate our culture, turning everything into needing to mark it with something material. A home-made card is lovely.

The posts I see here pleading poverty seem to be a call to get posters to send money. Suggestion after suggestion is made and dismissed immediately. The fact that MN has a rider ‘only give what you can afford’ is a nod to acknowledging this practice goes on. There have been times I have been desperate for money. Going to an online forum and telling everyone is not how I deal with it. I’d be saving the electricity from charging devices, for a start! Or following some of the hundreds of threads posted about ways to budget and ways to make a bit extra money. No, not for tomorrow, but there are emergency provisions in place for those type of scenarios.

@icecolddrinks

But perhaps the non pride diet sticks in the throat too much.

well if its a choice between food and pride (and feeding my dc) I'll have the food thanks

@Iquitit i absolutely agree and those shouting retrain, or go to college, how exactly are we going to pay for it, by taking out huge student loans with no guarantee of jobs meaning that we will be further in debt.
Absolutely no respect or consideration in our country for the thousands of people working long hours in piss poor conditions to barely afford to live, to then be accused of being poor with money is highly insulting. The very people who were out there during lock down keeping the whole country moving. We dont want paid for nothing we want paid a decent wage for doing the jobs we are doing. Rather than telling us lot to go retrain as if there is no value in the job why not pay us what we deserve for providing society with a worthwhile, needed valuable service.

100%!! my daughter was invited to a play with a school friend at the last minute, and i said she could go (didnt think much of it, i guess i assumed it was free), but after id said yes the friends mum then turned around and said "you can transfer me the money" (about £8). i was mortified, not only did i have no money left for the month, i was over my overdraft limit, so in order to do a transfer would've had to pay off bank charges first, so i couldnt even borrow it from anywhere. i had to end up owing it to her, and it was really embarrassing. if she had mentioned the cost when she asked then i wouldve said no and made up an excuse. it baffled me a bit, because its a different world, if i was asking one of my family/friends kids to something the first thing i would say is can you afford it, because i wouldnt want to leave them owing out something that they couldnt affiord!!

Is being an accountant really of more value to society that someone who meets the needs of our most vulnerable in society. Or should we be as valued as each other for doing very different jobs.