Jack Monroe again

[scabbers44]

Has anyone seen the recent tweet about her pawning/selling three diamond engagement rings? Aibu to think if you are pleading poverty and asking the general public to donate money one week and then showing off pictures of three massive diamonds you own the next, it's never going to go down well? Especially when you are already being challenged on lying and grifting?

For a long time I thought JM was nothing but a force of a good but I can't understand how she can be so tone deaf. It can't be deliberate but equally how can she not realise how it looks to produce three huge rings just a week after claiming she's so skint she needs handouts.

Apologies if there's already a thread on this.

Why did she buy bags for life, if she took her backpack?

Has she moved in another love interest already? The last one was living there within a couple of months, going by how she said the car was parked outside everyday since January in one tweet.

The kid must wonder who he's going to be living with every time he's on his way back from his father's.

Bags for life and an avocado.

surely I’m not the only one here who refuses to buy 1 fucking bag, never mind 2 of the things for such a tiny amount and has strolled home handbag bursting and playing jenga with the rest?

someone’s hit the nail on the head with “performative” for me. The entire shtick hasn’t sat right with me from day 1 and it’s been purely for the enjoyment of the “Islington lot”, not for those with nothing.

she’s “palatable”, attractive and articulate.

anyone want to champion a toothless junkie from easterhouse who knows how to make 15p last £1?

Also why is she shopping for 3? when she is now single again and her Son is very much co-parented by her ex partner and spends 50% of his week with his Dad.

Indeed. And if she has a partner, presumably they can contribute something to the weekly food shop.

Yes it's totally performative.

And one minute her bones are crumbling to dust, and the next she's carrying two baskets (instead of a trolley?) round Asda and basically doing an advert for them, (despite Aldi or Lidl being much better budget supermarkets). She says her wheely trolley has a busted up wheel but, haha, silly her, she hasn't got round to fixing it yet. Surely if you're suffering arthritis to the extent she claims to, you fix your aids & adaptations as a priority?!

Spending 40p on bags out of a £20 shop.

It gets me quite cross that she's done this again. It's totally playing into the hands of the "low income people just need to budget better" crowd.

She also did this whilst living with the Head of Channel 4 news. Said they only gave exactly half for bills. So £10 a week.

Never appears on channel 4 news does she?

Failed on calories, delivered on money. People can enjoy wellington with potatoes and gravy (recipe off asda site) for mere 71p a portion.

😂
Can i get a patreon?

Wellington part would be about 120g plus 50g potatoes 😁

So now you've strayed back into the "let's rip her to shreds" territory.

Criticising her for having a new partner and buying plastic bags is just a ridiculous level of scrutiny that none of us would come out of well. She bought plastic bags because she couldn't fit everything in her rucksack. She bought bags for life not the cheaper disposable ones, which is better for the environment and cheaper in the long run. This is absolute trivia and nobody would survive that level of critical scrutiny.

That doesnt mean that there aren't bigger questions that need to be answered.

I guess the bags thing is that if your WHOLE THING is knowing about grinding poverty and costing everything out to the penny and doing £20 shops you would also realise that on a £20 there’s not a chance in hell you’d spend 40p on bags and you’d rather use an old box from the shop or - more probably - bring enough bags with you in the first place. Or plan your shopping over time so you spread out the heavy things and didn’t have to carry them all at once (this sort of mental gymnastics is part of what is so tiring about being poor as well).

No one is criticising her having partner. More like the fact that that shop is NOT for 3 people. Either there is one person in a house or there are 3 hungry people.

Frankly at this point it's more people thinking she is making the 3 people there 7 days a week or 5, depends on whether 42 meals include breakfast, just so the shop can look like it could feed a family.

But then again she has so full pantry, she would have no issue feeding 7 people 24/7. But that wouldn't be such a preformance admiting this is just a top up shop, not a weekly shop. Because that is what it was. Midweek top up shop essentially.

Bags for life and an avocado

Avocados can be bought cheaply. The bags for life are a non issue. As Bishysays, focus on the real concerns about her.

I agree that the idea that those two bags of shopping can make 42 meals is misleading, unhelpful and possibly harmful. Keep the focus on that sort of issue.

Does anywhere actually do the cheaper disposable ones at the checkout anymore? I thought supermarkets only do 20p bags for life these days.

I do think, (obviously cos I said it 😀) , it's a fair to complain about. I mean she's giving herself a budget of £20, going under that budget, while pretending it's a full shop for 3 people for the week. 40p is equivalent to a tin of something.

There were few people on twitter saying it made them feel shit about not being able to feed themselves on 20 until they were told she had full pantry and freezer. Now they are not ashamed, but angry. That's her target market she is making feel shit by not being clear (on purpose) with "weekly shop" etc. Just say ehat it is. It's a top up shop.

But then where's her USP? Anyone can pop into a supermarket and chuck a load of budget stuff in a trolley for £20 for a top-up shop.

She's kind of painted herself into a corner.

Totally agree. Also, as others have said, it is grist to the Tories' mill and their whole "undeserving poor" narrative.

So now you've strayed back into the "let's rip her to shreds" territory.

Criticising her for having a new partner and buying plastic bags is just a ridiculous level of scrutiny that none of us would come out of well

Normally I would agree, but they're fair points here. She's stated in the past that she can't go to Lidl or Aldi because her backpack would be too heavy to carry for an extra 20 minutes, yet now she's apparently bought so much at Asda it's full and she's had to buy two bags for life? It's lies (the backpack is another whole weird performative thing btw). She has a strange loyalty to Asda that many genuinely poor people can't afford and she refuses to even contemplate shopping at real budget supermarkets.

As for her new partner, she's the one breadcrumbing that someone else is living with her again, despite the fact her landlady apparently doesn't allow overnight visitors. It's just more evidence of her inconsistency and bullshit, quite frankly. And that's before you even get into the food she's bought feeding 3 people for a week.

There are lots of people doing shops that have meals at the end of it. All this feels like she is trying to get Asda’s attention, wanting another collaboration? It’s not even slightly useful.
She only ever shops at Asda as well. She never talks about many of the cheaper shops about because it’s ‘too far for her’.
The reality is that people plan their shops in using friends or taxis, because they can’t carry a family shop home.

That receipt doesn't even attempt to look like shopping intended to produce actual meals, let alone a weeks food for an indeterminate number of people.

I could be wrong but wonder whether the current gushing over the Asda budget range (which I'm sure is fine, BTW) is in the hopes of some sort of paid gig with them.

My point about the 40p on bags is that it is more than another can of chickpeas or peaches. And that if you really, really only have a £20 budget for the week, you would not be wasting 40p of that on a bag.

@JubileeTrifle cross post

I agree with PPs and the "performative poverty" angle, in fact I think it goes deeper than that.

She reminds me of someone who has "Munchausen's by Proxy though in her case it is "Poverty by Proxy".

So would Jamie Oliver’s leg of lamb be okay and in fact a budget recipe if it was already in his freezer?

She's just tweeted a list of ingredients that she's going to be using to make stuff with today...none of which was on her shopping list yesterday.

Avocados DO matter when you’ve spent 10% of your alleged weekly budget on avocados and bags!

I’ve got £15 until Tuesday. When I nip out tomorrow for milk I won’t be looking at avocados!

steak, blue cheese and red wine! 😂 duck me, I feel quite the cunt now thinking about what I donate to the food bank.