To think the poor families on Rich House Poor House cannot be that poor?

[Sickmama]

I'm not well and have spent the last 2 weeks watching a lot of Rich House Poor House for no other reason than I've discovered that when streamed onto Chrome, the adverts don't play on Chanel 5 for some reason!!! So I'm exhausting anything I can on Chanel 5.

Anyway.... Most of the poor families have somewhere between £100 and £200 after bills to spend on food, fuel, clothes etc.
We make £42k a year and after all our bills, childcare etc I have worked out that we have exactly £192 a week to spend and I'm sorry, but that's not poor! It's not rich of course, but it's not poor! I've recently paid off a load of old debts too which were taking up a large chunk of this so easily I was on less than £120 a week to live on. And to be clear, the total amount the families have is clearly defined as disposable income after their debt payments too if they have them.
Am I missing something? Why is an average of £150 a week disposable income considered poor? In London perhaps but most of these families are not in London and many are in cheaper parts of the country than I live in.

It’s totally relative though isn’t it. Remember it works both ways, for example I saw an episode where the rich family had £3000 a week after essential bills, so having to swap places with a family with £100-£200 a week would definitely be very difficult and “poor” for them.

Depends on family size. £190 per week for 2 adults = no problem. £190 per week for a large family with 3 teens who eat loads and keep growing put of stuff = more challenging

Disposable income is after all essential bills inc food and fuel both of which are very expensive

I think the definition of "disposable income" is anything you have control over. In theory you could choose to live on the pavement and starve yourself to death. So rent, utilities and food are, strictly speaking, discretionary items that you choose to spend money on.

Google says disposable income is:-

income remaining after deduction of taxes and social security charges, available to be spent or saved as one wishes.

I watched a family this week that had less than £60 to buy food/groceries for 3 adults (I'm not sure what else needed to come out of that)

When it says the rich family have £2000/£3000 left per week usually that would go on school fees, extracurriculars, savings etc it's not all just spending money is it?

Also they don't try each others jobs (shadow someone who does the same eg) so it is just like a holiday.