Panorama( Young families Struggling)

[dottydodah]

Did anyone see this last evening? A lady with 2 small DC and a husband working as a Research Scientist was struggling with bills .Another young Mum in tears as her energy bill was so high.A third lady (working as a Nurse) not able to run a car. How will they manage to keep going? Surely Govt could do more?

What very sad, mean little lives we seem happy to think are okay.
The cheapest food (not to mention lack of nutritional value) everything 2nd hand. No money to do sport or leisure activities. Cant afford to have friends round for tea. Not able to heat your home.
Where's the joy in that?
My god I must give myself a good shake - I think I'm going soft in my old age.

@Eviebeans

What very sad, mean little lives we seem happy to think are okay. The cheapest food (not to mention lack of nutritional value) everything 2nd hand. No money to do sport or leisure activities. Cant afford to have friends round for tea. Not able to heat your home. Where's the joy in that? My god I must give myself a good shake - I think I'm going soft in my old age.

Yes it totally depresses me the amount of people saying that kind of basic existence should be all poor people should want. They should be absolutely fine with that, and if they aren’t - well how very dare they the cheeky feckers!!

God forbid we should demand any better for those who are struggling in our society. Oh no! They might forget their place!

I felt for all of those families. But I did wonder where the father was of the single parent. I think we as a country should properly clamp down on men (and yes it's usually men) who don't provide for their children.

How many kids could we lift out of poverty if we actually made those blokes find their children?

Are they paying a lot each month for a phone...?

The basic assumption behind that comment is that the poor are both stupid and feckless.

I am right that society has not progressed or become in any way enlightened since the days of the workhouse.

Our energy bills have gone up by 200/month. I am not surprised ppl are struggling. We earn well but will need to look very closely at all our outgoings in the coming months and will need to save less to cover the bills. Its a mess.

Our household income ranks in the top 9-15% of the country according to IFS. We have no car and no children. We live in London but our mortgage is 23% of after tax income so that is well within parameters suggested by most financial advisors.. we are cutting back i.e. always bringing lunch to work and having small bites in restaurants rather than full blown meals (which we used to do twice a week). Buying the majority of groceries at Lidl with only a few purchases at Waitrose. I buy more of my clothes second hand these days.

So yes while 10% of the country has more money than me, they also probably have larger homes to maintain (I am in a 2 bed flat), cars and kids so would have larger outgoings so I think most people would be cutting back even if in top 5%. Of course a large percentage of wealth is derived from assets rather than traditional income and maybe older people may have savings and investments that fund their lifestyles (and zero mortgage) so they are in a better position. This is not reflected in the IFS figures. Which may explain all the shopping and holidays that people seem to be indulging in despite the cost of living crisis.

But for people who derive their income solely from work and small business owners, I do things will get harder

@Smileyaxolotl1

I don’t doubt that it is going to be very difficult for people with rising fuel and food prices but the nurse worked 3 days a week. It’s not surprising that she couldn’t run a household on that few hours and as usual no sign of a man anywhere to support the three kids.

And the idea that the people are worse off than miners in the 20s? Do you realise how dumb you sound? I’m sure if miners had been spending money on cars, internet, trainers, take aways etc then they would have been hungry too rather than on a couple of bits of coal and some meat and vegetables.
Unfortunately there are far more things that we all see as essential now which take up large parts of our income and the difference is that we don’t expect to have to live frugally like they accepted then. Things like internet and phones have become essentials.

Exactly, essentials now are different. Very hard to cope without a mobile phone and InternetA nurse working 3 days would be 36 hours as they work 12 hour shifts, so actually that's nearly full time.

@Eviebeans

What very sad, mean little lives we seem happy to think are okay. The cheapest food (not to mention lack of nutritional value) everything 2nd hand. No money to do sport or leisure activities. Cant afford to have friends round for tea. Not able to heat your home. Where's the joy in that? My god I must give myself a good shake - I think I'm going soft in my old age.

Amen to that. I don’t think I’m going soft in my old age. Having struggled in the late 70s as a single parent I’ve always hated seeing other people go through it.

That poor nurse who has £80 a week had to spend 35% of it on new school shoes. I bet there was a lot of beans on toast that week. It’s shocking.

[quote MissyB1]@mydogisthebest
No not all people in low incomes or who are struggling get free school meals, that’s a common misconception. You see I was that struggling single parent nurse once. I didn’t tried to get help, I asked for help with my rent and for school dinners, got turned down for both. Got shouted at by ds headteacher because I couldn’t afford the charge for school swimming or day trips. I was told parents like me spoilt it for all the kids because the school might have to cancel those things altogether.
And my kids were dressed in clothes my colleagues donated from their kids. Don’t you think kids might like something new sometimes though? Or do you think that’s cheeky and entitled?
And no you can’t “eat cheaply” if you don’t have the money in the first place. Can I also point out that if you don’t have a car you can’t bulk buy, so you pay more than people who have transport.
It’s easy to blame the poor for being poor.[/quote]
I wasn't sure about school meals but I know my neighbours' children get free meals and both parents work full time.

You can eat cheaply if you eat things like lentils, chickpeas, beans etc. Me and DH are vegetarian and the majority of our meals are made with these. We eat tasty meals which also happen to be pretty cheap.

You can bulk buy if you get your shopping delivered. I quite often get shopping delivered and the most I have ever paid for delivery is £2. Usually it is £1 or even free.

Secondhand clothes are still "new" to a child and you can often get items that look unworn in charity shops. Or, as I said, shops like Asda, Primark, Morrisons have childrens clothes dirt cheap.

I guess older children may not like the idea of secondhand clothes. It's never bothered me - had secondhand clothes as a child and am quite happy to still have them now. Most brand new clothes for adults are silly prices that I am not prepared to pay.

@RedHelenB my next door neighbour is a nurse and she doesn't work 12 hour shifts so not all nurses do

What has happened to this country? I can't even watch the news anymore, it just frustrates me.

The lack of empathy is astonishing, it really is.

I'll accept the excuses of 'global fuel prices' and now the war in Ukraine as reasons for children going hungry when the rich are impacted too - don't tell me nothing can be done when those at the top have become significantly richer in the last 12 years whilst those at the bottom have been crippled with austerity/covid/brexit. Seriously? Fuck off.^^ Poverty is a political choice.

Absolutely shameful that we accept this.

And whilst we're discussing whether the nurse was unreasonable not being able to predict the future when she had her third child - can we remember Boris Johnson abandons his sperm all over the fucking joint? His child-count is at least double that nurses - he's added (at least) two to his brood during the pandemic alone. Then he lectures everyone else about climate change seriously fuck fuck fuck off!!!

Ok so these people just weren’t trying hard enough to be successful at being poor - righty ho naughty them 🙄🙄

@sjxoxo

What’s shocking is we still have an elected Tory government. Poverty is a political choice & as many pp’s have said; the Conservative party do not give a f* about normal people. There’s a reason politics isn’t compulsory at school - if everyone understood the system we are all in, they’d never vote conservative. For capitalism to work; you must have poor people. I’m not advocating extreme socialism, but it’s an outrage and un-humanitarian this is the state of the UK in 2022. Please consider alternatives to the Conservative party xo

I 100% agree, children at private school are taught this stuff, children in state schools are not, they are made overcrowded and the curriculum is stuffed with so much crap, and stuff the government should be dealing with, so we have no time to teach the kids any of it. Which leaves a vast amount of people getting their 'knowledge' from right wing rags who make it their business to misinform and divert people from the real problem at hand.

These threads are always took over by sanctimonious nobbers who preach to the poor how they should do poverty better.

@lemmein

These threads are always took over by sanctimonious nobbers who preach to the poor how they should do poverty better.

Ain’t that the truth.

@mydogisthebest my MIL bulks buys without a car (uses a trolley) and managed to feed 4 kids despite earning below minimum wage on a single income. But she wouldn't be able to do it today in 2022 and would probably struggle to feed herself if she had to pay full market rent on even a studio apartment. Her mortgage on a
3 bed house in London is £300 (only reason why she has a mortgage is due to a divorce which meant she had to give 100k of the equity to her ex who never worked) and a big part of it is because she bought it in 1997 for 100k.. no young family can pay rent of only £300.

[quote mydogisthebest]**@RedHelenB my next door neighbour is a nurse and she doesn't work 12 hour shifts so not all nurses do[/quote]
The fact this nurse can only work PT to afford childcare indicates she very likely does some form of shift work.

One of my SILs use to do shift work until her children got to secondary age simply because only then in her speciality were there jobs in the community that were basically 9-5.

In my SILs case she relied on her husband (my brother), paid for childcare and a friend who lived around the corner for regular childcare. In an emergency more people helped out including me.

@Eviebeans

What very sad, mean little lives we seem happy to think are okay. The cheapest food (not to mention lack of nutritional value) everything 2nd hand. No money to do sport or leisure activities. Cant afford to have friends round for tea. Not able to heat your home. Where's the joy in that? My god I must give myself a good shake - I think I'm going soft in my old age.

Some of the cheapest foods are things like lentils, chickpeas etc. Good for you and no way lacking in nutritional value.

There are tons of cheap meals you can make using those and they are all delicious. Far more delicious than most meat based meals.

Potatoes are cheap. A jacket potato with a 3 bean chilli or a lentil bolognaise is cheap, tasty and filling.

Veg is pretty cheap in most supermarkets. I got a very large cauliflower in M&S (of all places) for 85p last week. It wasn't reduced, that was the price. I have made cauliflower cheese with it, a cauliflower and spinach curry and still have some of it left.

@lemmein those having three children balance out those of us who only have one.

Even then there isn't enough young people to balance the old people who are living longer than before.

Oh and they probably had their children too young which is why they had three and I had mine too old which is why I had one

@mydogisthebest how much was the cheese and milk? How much did cost to cook the cauliflower cheese in the oven? How much did it cost to cook the dried lentils and dried chickpeas?

It's not just buying the food any more due to the rise in energy prices it is the cost of cooking it when you only have a few pounds left on your pre-payment meter.

@lemmein

What has happened to this country? I can't even watch the news anymore, it just frustrates me.

The lack of empathy is astonishing, it really is.

I'll accept the excuses of 'global fuel prices' and now the war in Ukraine as reasons for children going hungry when the rich are impacted too - don't tell me nothing can be done when those at the top have become significantly richer in the last 12 years whilst those at the bottom have been crippled with austerity/covid/brexit. Seriously? Fuck off.^^ Poverty is a political choice.

Absolutely shameful that we accept this.

And whilst we're discussing whether the nurse was unreasonable not being able to predict the future when she had her third child - can we remember Boris Johnson abandons his sperm all over the fucking joint? His child-count is at least double that nurses - he's added (at least) two to his brood during the pandemic alone. Then he lectures everyone else about climate change seriously fuck fuck fuck off!!!

It's absolutely disgusting that Boris Johnson has so many children but what has he got to do with this?

It's not a matter of being able to predict the future when you decide how many children you have. Why not stop at 1 or 2? Just why not?

No one, absolutely no one know what the future hold and it is bloody obvious that the more children you have the harder it will be if something bad does happen.

Bloody hell, that cauliflower’s like the MN chicken.

[quote RedWingBoots]@lemmein those having three children balance out those of us who only have one.

Even then there isn't enough young people to balance the old people who are living longer than before.

Oh and they probably had their children too young which is why they had three and I had mine too old which is why I had one [/quote]
Oh the rubbish about some having 3 children to balance out others. Why not trot out the garbage about how it's ok to have as many as you want because of more women choosing not to have any?

We need less people in this country not more - a hell of a lot less

[quote RedWingBoots]@mydogisthebest how much was the cheese and milk? How much did cost to cook the cauliflower cheese in the oven? How much did it cost to cook the dried lentils and dried chickpeas?

It's not just buying the food any more due to the rise in energy prices it is the cost of cooking it when you only have a few pounds left on your pre-payment meter.[/quote]
The cheese was not expensive. I never buy expensive cheese, only buy it when on offer. It was strong cheese so didn't need to use too much either.

Milk is dirt cheap, far too cheap in fact but then the farmers just get ripped off.

I didn't cook the cauliflower cheese in the oven - not sure why you would. I cooked the cauliflower, made a sauce and poured it over the cauliflower and then just browned it under the grill. Didn't take long at all.

The mother is obviously feeding her children some food so why not cheaper more nutritional food? She was using the oven so it doesn't seem like she can't afford to.

I soak chickpeas in bulk, cook and freeze. Lentils don't take long to cook especially red ones

@Blossomtoes

Bloody hell, that cauliflower’s like the MN chicken.

So a large cauliflower can't do 3 meals. I was stressing how big it was and only 85p to dispel the fallacy that all food is expensive