Pay to be Poor

[LetterBug]

Got sent into an un- arrangement overdraft and it costs £30. So you are fined for having no money. Meaning when I'm paid I will be £30 down from the off. Meaning I will more likely run out of money again. costing another £30.

Pay to be poor.

Yes and the utilities meters are an outrage. Poor people pay more per unit for electricity and gas because of meters. It's wicked.
The social structure in this country is designed to keep the poor poor. I sound like a Communist which I am not at all but it's true.

fluffy that's appalling about the Scout subs ... as an ex Leader I really suggest you challenge those 'rules', many Scout groups may have an arrangement to waive or at least subsidise subs in hardship cases. We would always help out any families who were struggling.

The richer you are the more likely you are to be wined and dine on someone else’s dollar. You don’t think the likes of David Beckham is having a Waitrose ready meal every night? Nah he’ll be out a minimum of 3-4 evenings a week being schmoozed for something or other.

@fluffythedragonslayer

Oh yes, it's expensive being poor! We have to pay everything in installments rather than one upfront payment and so many things cost extra that way. Even Scout subs. We can't afford 3x£75 in one go, so we pay 3x£30 in three installments. And end up paying £45 more than those rich folk who don't have to count. Literally everything is cheaper if you can pay it all in one go. Which we never can. When we got our mortgage we had a crap rate because we had low income and not perfect credit score. Yup. It's expensive being poor.

This doesn't sound right. A) they shouldn't charge differently just because you pay in instalments b) Most scouts have a hardship fund to subsidise the cost for low income families. Ask your GSL

@honeylulu

Yes I agree and it is shocking. When I was much younger and in a job paying not much more than minimum wage (had left home so also covered all my own living expenses) was trying to change my life for the better and get a qualification going to law college in the evening. I got turned down for a career development loan and an overdraft "because my outgoings would be more than my incomings". Well no shit Sherlock, that is why I needed a loan.

Luckily I switched banks and secured the loan. 6 years later I qualified as a solicitor and 20 years after that I am a partner in a City firm. I am plagued with offers of loans and credit cards, including from the bank that turned me down, which I don't bloody well need. Madness.

The free food thing is also very true. So many catered meetings or work dinners (outside Covid times). Some weeks I barely needed to go shopping.

Car is another one. For years I drove a rust bucket of a car that broke down frequently at great expense and cost approx £300 of welding to get through its MOT. I just couldn't save enough to replace it. Now I have a car I bought brand new for cash, never had anything wrong with it, insurance is a piddling amount as I've been driving so long. It feels like it costs next to nothing.

I am now quite well off but I will never forget those years of struggle and how unjust it felt!

@honeylulu But isn’t this true of most people’s life? You start off struggling especially when you have a young family. But as they get older you have less childcare costs and you can work more hours and progress up the pay scale. Ok it might not be very far; I work in admin and went from minimum wage to about £30k. Over 40 years that has made a huge difference to my life.

For work (personal care, barely above minimum wage) i pay for my own lunches - fair enough. My husband, senior technical person in infrastructure type role, gets lunch most work days as part of meetings. My car, i pay for everything i only get mileage for transporting clients. My husband has a fuel card. The higher up the ladder the less often you get your wallet out.
This is why giving money to those who are poor benefits the economy. They will (need) to spend it. Rich people just hoard it like dragons. Trickle down is bullshit

"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money"
Terry Pratchett (the boots theory)

@Jessie75

One of my friends is a medical rap and she takes lunch to the doctors surgeries every single day and naturally it would be rude for her not to buy yourself a sandwich and eat alongside them wouldn’t it.

When I was a medical rep we had a £5 Daily lunch allowance and this was a few years ago. However, I very much doubt your friend takes lunch to Doctors every day, it’s more like a couple of times a month and then it was not done to wait until the end and eat what was left (or of you were smart put yourself something nice to one side) Anyway, not the point of the thread

"Free food" would also come from being able to "Buy 2, get one free".
You can only do this if you can afford the multi buy in the first place.

And as someone else said, being able to buy in bulk --> cheaper costs.

Lots of people where we are get their working hours lunches compensated as a perk. For those who don’t use the lunch expense allowance, they get vouchers that they can use at the supermarket.

@fluffythedragonslayer

Oh yes, it's expensive being poor! We have to pay everything in installments rather than one upfront payment and so many things cost extra that way. Even Scout subs. We can't afford 3x£75 in one go, so we pay 3x£30 in three installments. And end up paying £45 more than those rich folk who don't have to count. Literally everything is cheaper if you can pay it all in one go. Which we never can. When we got our mortgage we had a crap rate because we had low income and not perfect credit score. Yup. It's expensive being poor.

That is outrageous about Scout subs. Someone should have a word with the leaders about this.

@Dumbitdown I worked as a nanny for the little ones of a very well known actor and the free stuff strangers tried to press on him was insane! Randomers wanting to pay for his whole family's food! This guy is a multi millionaire!

It's like late payments with anything, can't afford to pay on time then you get fined and have to pay more - pay more of what you haven't got?!

@Fairyliz

Yes I think it is true for many, maybe even most people to start off struggling. But for some people the struggle is so great that they are never able to pull themselves out of it. I am well aware that the main reasons I managed it were because I already had certain privileges: a good brain, good health, private school education and a good first degree (because my parents had funded me through University). Oh, and property prices were much lower in the 90s and I managed to buy a flat despite earning close to minimum wage rather than pouring away more money on rent. Later I married a man who was also a professional/had a decent salary which upticked things again because we could share our living costs. And yet I was very nearly defeated a few times along the way because I could barely service the levels of debt I incurred to carry on with my studies and hang onto my home.

Without those extra privileges/bits of luck it is very hard for people to step off that hamster wheel however hard they work/struggle.

Yep. You can only bulk buy if you can afford it in the first place, and have a big enough space to store it. I don’t have room for a big freezer to put loads of stuff in as my house is too small & a terrace, so no garage.
I have only just paid off my overdraft after having one for over 20 years 😩 if I ever went over the limit it would hammer me for another £30 which just compounded the situation. It was really shit. And I work full time, as does my DH, in decent enough jobs - but life is expensive & it’s so hard to dig yourself out of that hole when you’re forever being penalised. Unless you’ve been there it’s very hard to understand. Sorry OP, no advice, just sympathy!

Ah I got the wrong end of the stick. I read it as a pun on the "really well off" as in "really in shit Street finances wise" as per the start of the thread

The only time we get lunches and dinners paid is if we're entertaining clients, because we're working during that time. I'd rather be at home with my husband than having to fake being nice to Letchy Ted, but it's part of our job. Even in the case of David Beckham given above, the company have decided its worth them paying for it (its not free!) to build client relationships which bring in more revenue than it costs.

If you don't want to pay 3x subs for something, don't send them or don't have 3 kids. I do agree about bank and overdraft fees though, they're extortionate. Payday loans and ridiculous 400% APRs are glorified loan sharks, and should be legally capped.

A bank is a business just like all others. They don't give money away free. If you went to tesco and had no money to pay for your shopping would they let you have it free?
Arrange an overdraft with your bank. You only pay when you go into the red and its much cheaper

@Skyll

Yup.

I’ll add. Rent house so have to have prepayment meters so pay more for gas and electric

I rent and have smart meters. You don’t have to have prepayment meters if you are renting your home.

When I rented my landlord didn’t allow me to change supplier. I know they’re not supposed to restrict that it they did.

[quote honeylulu]@Fairyliz

Yes I think it is true for many, maybe even most people to start off struggling. But for some people the struggle is so great that they are never able to pull themselves out of it. I am well aware that the main reasons I managed it were because I already had certain privileges: a good brain, good health, private school education and a good first degree (because my parents had funded me through University). Oh, and property prices were much lower in the 90s and I managed to buy a flat despite earning close to minimum wage rather than pouring away more money on rent. Later I married a man who was also a professional/had a decent salary which upticked things again because we could share our living costs. And yet I was very nearly defeated a few times along the way because I could barely service the levels of debt I incurred to carry on with my studies and hang onto my home.

Without those extra privileges/bits of luck it is very hard for people to step off that hamster wheel however hard they work/struggle.[/quote]
Yes, add people having kids as teenagers and that could be one the reasons you do not go up in life at all.

@nellly I agree, I was a manager at my last job that had a tourist attraction as part of it, the managers could ask the cooks to make them whatever they wanted for lunch every day with no cost. Other staff didn’t get this perk thiugh

I know of someone who goes to food and to save money. Not because they need it.

Assuming you mean food banks, most of these are based on referrals so this is unlikely.

Many well paying jobs come with free or subsidised work canteens, free business lunches, expense accounts etc.

But these are for all employees so the lowest paid workers have access to these too.

I’m pretty well off. I rarely have free food and if I do, it has nothing to do with my earnings.

OP is not wrong though, there are many, many ways that people are trapped in poverty because of how the world works. Key meters, bank charges, higher credit costs, ATMs which charge being mainly in poor areas, food deserts meaning they rely on smaller, more expensive stores etc. These things need to be legislated against if we want to help people out of poverty.

Arrange an overdraft with your bank. You only pay when you go into the red and its much cheaper
OP could you do this so you have a bit of breathing space in case it happens again?

@Georgeskitchen

A bank is a business just like all others. They don't give money away free. If you went to tesco and had no money to pay for your shopping would they let you have it free? Arrange an overdraft with your bank. You only pay when you go into the red and its much cheaper

Yes you are right but it makes me laugh that people always go on about pay day loans, they charge a high APR, rip of merchants etc etc

But go £1 into your unarranged overdraft and its a £30 fee even if its for a day. The APR on that is eye watering, it makes the pay day loans look reasonable for what they charge, but because they are a brand - Barclays etc they have a veneer of respectability, its deemed as ok.

And they dont HAVE to let the DD go through that pushes you into your unarranged overdraft or let you draw out money that pushes you into it either, but why would they stop it when they can hammer you with a £30 fee and charge you daily fees.