To ask what you can actually cook for 30p/meal?

[Porcupineintherough]

Following on from the comments by MP Lee Anderson I was wondering what I could actually make for 30p/head. I'm a pretty good thrifty cook but all I could come up with were:

beans on toast (budget brands)
tinned tomatoes on toast (budget brands)
tinned mushrooms on toast (budget brands)
egg on toast
cheese on toast (ditto)
some kind of veggie stew/sauces w red lentils (if cooking for more than one) to eat w pasta
stir fry noodles w a few shreds of veg
bowl of basics cereal

I'm not counting things like baked potatoes where the ingredients are cheap but the energy costs to cook them are high.

So what am I missing? What skills and recipes are this food bank teaching? Wild foraging? Poaching? Shop-lifting 101?

i@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g indeed. PPs may not believe but I recall when a single wage earner working at Tescos for example could provide for a family and genuinely buy a decent house with a mortgage.

Only some Labour scallywag might suspect the Chancellor will listen when the queue is large and loud enough of the Chief Executives of large consumer goods firms and other large corporates whose sales might crash due to belt tightening. Until then, Labour must have asked the government to fully insulate everybody from all the effects of inflation as the Chancellor had to take time out of his busy schedule to refute this unreasonable request.

I’m not sure there was necessarily a time when all single earners could support a family. My grandfathers had manual jobs (one a miner, one on the roads) and my grandmothers still worked to some degree (one was a seamstress, the other a cleaner). That wasn’t unusual.

It’s not necessarily helpful to rose tiny the past. Or to ignore the many things that have changed since then.

Don't recall saying all single earners. Wonder how many shop floor staff at Tescos can support a family and get a mortgage now, single-handedly?

I got married in 1970. My husband was a supermarket manager, took us 3 years to save a deposit and we only got a mortgage by including my earnings. It was a 2 up 2 down and my mother cried when she saw it.

When could a supermarket worker buy a house on one wage and where was it, we weren't in London or the South East by the way.

Just to add when I was on maternity leave there were days when the only reason we had a decent meal was because a rep had given him a sample of something to try and I do remember being thrilled when he was given a large box of a new washing powder, can't remember what it was called.

Edinburgh, mid-60s, my parents. My Dad was a manager in retail and he and my Mum bought a flat. It was a huge struggle to pay the mortgage and my Mum did a bit of supply teaching, which helped a bit. He got a new job in a different place where it was easy (at the time) to get a council house to rent, and that made all the difference to our family's finances for a few years. Flat was sold off, mortgage repaid, finances back on an even keel, and a few years later they got another mortgage to buy a brand new house in the north of England. At that point my Dad had a better job and my Mum had no job at all. A long time ago!

I think we can probably conclude that for sizeable portions of the uk population, it’s never been that easy.

However, given it’s 2022 not 1822, I think we should probably be able to ensure that no one is forced to feed a family on 30p each a day.

So Zilla saying someone working in Tesco's could afford to keep a family and pay a mortgage on a decent house on one wage wasn't true in the 60s, your mum had to work and it was a flat, and it wasn't true in the 70s, I had to work and it wasn't what anyone would describe as a decent house, and we are both talking about managers not an average supermarket job.

I wonder when it was true that one supermarket worker could keep a family and pay a mortgage on a decent house?

It was a 2 up 2 down and my mother cried when she saw it

I don’t get this-why did she cry? Because it was lovely or rubbish?!

I remember when you could support a family of 4 with a paper round. And if you managed to bag the weekends especially Sunday you were quids in.
Well I bought an xr3i, delivering the Sunday people..
😂😂

She couldn't believe I was going to live in such a dump. It had rotten window frames all had to be replaced when we saved up, rising damp so needed an injected damp proof course and new floorboards in some rooms, a filthy kitchen with a sink, nothing else other than a dirty frying pay with rancid fat in it. It also needed to be rewired, no heating at all.

The big kick in the teeth was we bought at the top of a bubble and after spending alot of money making it fit to live in it was worth less than we paid for it.

It wasn't one of my better decisions.

What about The News of the World? Did you get extra for that.

I remember it being my gran's secret vice, no one was supposed to know she read it. Oh the scandal.

Not a paper round, but you could get a mortgage in your 20s for a modest house earning the average salary for that age group in the 1960s. My parents never earned more than the average salary throughout their lives.

I don't understand your point, my parents bought their first house for £2000. There was at the time apparently some kind of help with the deposit.
I know my dad traveled and worked long hrs in construction. Sometimes he literally had to fight for his money.
Mum took on cleaning work to supplement the family income.

They lived in the same place for over 35 yrs, they now have a good life in retirement after putting the hrs in.

The problem with these threads on social media is that it's like the 4 Yorkshiremen sketch, competitive poverty. It's all a bit sad. Others are calling for state control, my DP grew up in a state-controlled Soviet country.
www.rbth.com/society/2013/10/16/a_look_at_the_old_ration_system_in_russia_30163

Houses were relatively cheaper because there was good quality council houses available

Complete socialism is no better than complete capitalism

What worked in the 60/70s was the balance

Once you got insufficient council houses ( sold off ) and profit seeking private landlords ( not people buying a home for life ) it went wrong

It’s interesting that the rose tinted myth that it was somehow straightforward to
buy a house on one low wage back in the day just doesn’t match up to the reality in people’s actual stories.

There are couples scrimping and saving to eventually buy a really gritty flat that they scrimped and saved to do up over time, before upgrading. Their quality of life (and expectations of what was acceptable) increased over time too.

There are men working extra hours and their wives taking on work to supplement the family income.

I guess for already comfortable, middle class families it might have been a case that they could simply get married and buy a house with one salary. But the majority of families in the country didn’t look like that.

My grandparents struggled (and always lived in council housing) and couldn’t live on a single wage. My parents never lived on a single wage - they did better than their parents by going to college and becoming a teacher and a quantity surveyor. Still they struggled to buy their first house at the end of the 70s. Lots of scrimping and saving and, when it came to it, they moved to the other side of the city from their family because the £2k difference in house prices was an enormous one.

Sure, they both (now separated) look comfortable now. But it wasn’t some golden age where you could earn 50p a week and buy a 3 bed semi. That never happened.

I think the increase in expectations for quality of life really does translate through into the perception that it is so much more difficult for everyone now to afford life. Many people expected to be cold, damp and to eat poorly in the past. My parents grew up with no central heating. My dad’s family slept with coats on top of them to be warmer. Once they were old enough, my dad and uncles spent all the school holidays working on the roads with my grandpa to bring in extra money. My aunt did cleaning with my Gran. They grew up eating quickly so no one could steal the food off their plate (3 hungry boys and a tight budget) because they’d finished before them. That wasn’t unusual for life on a peripheral housing estate in Glasgow in the 60s and 70s.

Obviously it’s a good thing that we have moved past that and don’t think anyone should be in that situation. Still, it’s not helpful to imagine that there was a golden age where life was easier for everyone and the current situation for poor families is an unprecedented abomination.

It actually a good thing that many of us are horrified at the attitude that ‘these people’ should just learn to budget better to make their £6 a person food budget stretch further. In the past (even in the 80s and 90s) there’d probably be much more generally acceptance of that kind of poverty in society. It would seem much more ‘normal’. It certainly was the reality for loads of families in the 70s.

Council houses at the time were built to a fairly high standard, when right to buy came along there was a discount based on how long you had lived there. OH bought his dads council house for him (3 bed with big garden), he says he would have paid more for a decent second hand car and even a a small new car would have been dearer.

The idea of right to buy was we could all become property owners and where social housing was needed the private sector would step up providing cheaper and better housing than the councils could (that worked well!). I think that the monies the councils got was initially ring fenced for housing but at the same time they weren't allowed to build new housing (private sector were going to do that).

Houses were relatively cheaper because there was good quality council houses available

Not always. There was a great deal of really poor council housing out there. Much of it hasn’t survived to see this century.

What replaced the Victorian slums was often not that much of an improvement, certainly not in the longer term.

There is still quite a lot of substandard local authority housing out there. And even more in the private rented sector (since the balance has shifted back that way from the massive expansion in public housing in the mid 20th century).

There is an element of survivor bias to how we think of council housing in these kind of debates. We think about the relatively nice estates of semis that were almost all bought as soon as the government made it possible. We don’t think of the grotty tenements and high rises thrown up to replace Victorian slums, and which fairly rapidly became slums themselves.

Or the streets or grim, damp terraces that local authorities went through a phase of selling off for about a fiver (if they didn’t just clear them entirely and sell the land to private developers).

The big post-war estate near my in-laws has now been demolished as the housing was of such poor standard.

Not always. There was a great deal of really poor council housing out there. Much of it hasn’t survived to see this century.

What replaced the Victorian slums was often not that much of an improvement, certainly not in the longer term.

There is still quite a lot of substandard local authority housing out there. And even more in the private rented sector (since the balance has shifted back that way from the massive expansion in public housing in the mid 20th century).
There is an element of survivor bias to how we think of council housing in these kind of debates. We think about the relatively nice estates of semis that were almost all bought as soon as the government made it possible. We don’t think of the grotty tenements and high rises thrown up to replace Victorian slums, and which fairly rapidly became slums themselves.

Sadly a lot of those grotty houses were actually significantly better than what went before.

Both DH and myself were brought up on estates and they were great, school was within walking distance, doctors nearby, shops and a play park. Regular bus service into town (not many had cars). Actually better than most estates now.
DH's room in his parents house was a single room and it was bigger than my parents double room. The house was built in the late 20s, decent size room and gardens. Most starter homes now seem to have tiny rooms.

Up until the late 80s if you weren't married and bought a house on a joint mortgage you both got tax relief. When that ended (1988) the house prices tumbled.

I’m sure the grotty houses were an improvement on what they replaced. But they often were not great. The estates that have survived are not representative of the quality of housing provided.

There are still many places in the country where you can buy a house on an average salary. It might not be a great house or a great area. It might be further away from your family than you’d like. You might not be able to run a car and pay your mortgage. You might never go on holiday. But it was ever thus.

In this region, you can buy a small house for under £100k in many places. Much less in many areas. Not in the more desirable areas - and likely to be a flat in the more desirable urban areas. And probably not in brilliant condition. Things are very different to the SE here.

On the other hand, the sought after areas are not cheap. Cheaper than the SE maybe, but not starter home prices (even where the houses are tiny). Some of these areas used to be pretty rough so people who grew up in them are priced out (mostly by healthcare and university staff moving in from elsewhere). They then feel like it’s unfair because they have to move further than they’d like (and to somewhere a bit rougher than these areas are now).

But that’s not necessarily new either. My parents couldn’t afford the nice area in west Glasgow they actually wanted (having grown up in one of the large estates in the west of the city) so they moved to the other side of the city where they could afford a house near decent schools (my mum was a teacher). It wasn’t an uncommon tale even in the 70s.

When I grew up, I was looking for a different kind of job that required relocation much further afield.

I guess my point is just that it doesn’t help to rose tint the past. Life was very hard for a great many people. Housing was often shit. It’s not a good thing that this is still the case for anyone. It never was a good thing.

You are right and I think people cherry pick the bits that suit them or the bits they remember. I had it harder in the 70s than my kids are having it now, the younger two are late 20s early 30s, have nice houses they bought without much of a struggle, went to good universities and have firsts plus post grad qualifications. I wanted them to have more opportunities than I did. There are almost certainly people who would say the opposite, they found it easy to buy a house in the 70s and their kids are struggling. Both things can be true.

I planned alot, probably a bit mad but as a new mum at 18 I took out a saving policy for 10 years to buy my son's grammar school uniform when he was 11 as I wasn't sure I would be able to afford it. Well he did go to grammar school and I could fully kit him out with the savings plan that matured, same thing happened 3 years later with the next one. I don't think my kids have any idea how hard it was in the 70s, the eldest certainly has no idea that when he was picked for county level in a sport he loved I sold my engagement ring to buy him the kit he needed. Would be funny if he was on here saying what a comfortable childhood he had in the 70s.

Yes @ancientgran. He probably does perceive his childhood as much more
comfortable than it was because he just wasn’t aware of the struggle (and you were able to do things to mitigate the issues).

I know that my mum really struggled throughout the 90s after separating from my dad. She worked 2 additional jobs alongside her FT teaching post to keep the house in an era of ludicrous interest rates. She scrimped and saved and used all her abilities to cushion her children from the problems. So it felt a lot more
comfortable to us than it felt to her.

She also very much encouraged educational and career aspiration so we would always be able to pay our own bills (barring the kinds of unforeseen circumstances that anyone could experience).

BUT… my mum was a specialist teacher, with the ability to take on tutoring and even start a business. We weren’t right at the bottom of the social heap with no education or skills. We were all healthy. My mum had resources to draw upon to help her to survive (and even thrive). It’s not like that for many people.

Life has always been bloody tough right down there on the breadline. It’s always been terrible.

it is kind of progress that more people are not willing to just accept that’s how it is for ‘the poor’ and reject overly simplistic narratives about learning to budget for 30p per person.

I just thought I'd post this as a reality check for the Tory/Lee Anderson apologists on this thread. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/19/britain-cost-of-living-crisis-carer-universal-credit

But you'll probably say nah, that never happened.