To wonder how people will financially survive?

[Cupcakeicecream]

To think that many people are struggling already. Food price rises, gas and electric costs. The general cost of living due to inflation from either brexit since the pandemic and Ukraine war. But come on some people were struggling before any of those factors. Financially people will be pushed to breaking christmas will be off the cards general life will stagnate no meals out leisure activities cinema socialising new clothes treat foods. The threat of blackouts and wondering how we will pay bills to keep warm or keep a house running. Never mind buying food the price of it plus the large gaps on shelves. Winter will be miserable. It's becoming impossible to live in this country.

I've done a number of jobs in my life from cleaner and carer to relatively high flying executive and I can tell you that the 'lower paid' jobs are the ones in which I worked hardest.

Apart from my recent stint as a cleaner, where I was paid the same hourly rate as I get for doing admin work for the same employer, this has been my experience also. You can have an admin job and do stuff all and yet be paid more than someone who does physical work for 8 hours. I have also worked with executive staff who seemed incapable of doing the simplest thing right - and yet were paid an obscene amount of money.

Minimum wage jobs were meant to be the starting point in life. Even at uni as a waitress I progressed to supervisor within a year. You constantly keep reskilling, learning, getting better at your job.
this is actually what I think is enormous issue people just wanted to do the minimum and you can’t. If you want to do a job that pays minimum wage you’re gonna have to do two of those and as of the people of said you’d work a damn sight harder for the £800 a week doing it that way so they wont, theyll earn £400 and then when circumstances permit the government will top up the difference to a survivable level. The problem is the government isn’t gonna do that forever I’m in the circumstances change you’ll be too old you won’t have the energy to do the second job.

Some people are not capable of progressing. To be a supervisor you have to have reasonable social skills for example.
Someone who is capable of doing a university degree should be able to progress beyond a minimum wage job. Not everyone is capable of doing a university degree.

And some people with mental health problems can not cope with added responsibility. I saw this with my mum. She did very well in a basic office job and was very well thought of. Kept being urged to go for promotion, but did not want it. In the end, was more or less pushed into promotion. Within a month she was crying at home every night and ended up long-term sick. It took her a few years to get back to where she had been with pretty stable good mental health.

I find ambitious people often do not understand why some people do not go for promotions. It is never as simple as laziness as the lowest paid jobs you tend to have to work very hard in, but in some do not have high levels of responsibility. My mum had an admin job and answered phones and was incredibly busy, but her actual level of responsibility was fairly low.

There are also a lot of people in Britain, who are functionally literate. A promotion may be beyond them. So they may be fine waitressing and writing orders, but being a supervisor and doing staff rotas may be beyond them. I am observant and have noticed people working around what I suspect are literacy issues in jobs.

It's a question of as above, so below. In the same way [this] society is chasing never ending "growth", so the little people are expected to chase "progression". (Which mysteriously always involves making other people rich).

There's no place for someone who is happy doing what they do with no desire to "advance".

The whole thing was examined in much better detail in "The Peter Principle". Which has only become more relevant since I first read it over 40 years ago.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle

(The only reason such a fundamental truth has been ignored is it's too well written)

Whilst I’m not suggesting there’s no place for people who don’t chase progression, the reality of it is they’re not going to live the same lifestyle as those who do. that isn’t so hard to understand is it?

Press return too soon, to go back to my point it’s either progression or double the work load, one is far easier than the other but the option of staying at the bare minimum and working 40 hours a week, 30 for some people and 16 for others was never sustainable.

Stumbled across this thread. I used to feel at home in MN but not any more. I didn't expect ever to read here the sort of right wing Thatcherite bullshit such as the Daily Express would be proud to print.

I've no idea why people are entertaining such obvious nonsense and allowing it to derail the topic of this thread.

Everyone knows that someone on minimum wage can not live the same lifestyle as someone on a high wage.
But everyone working full time should be able to have a basic standard of living. A roof over their head, food, heat, clothing, a bit of a social life. That should never be out of the reach of anyone working full-time.

And it’s not, we need to stop catastrophising.

I don't know why this seems to be so difficult to understand either.

Catastrophising!
I would get banned if I said to you what I want to say.

I am not sure why it seems so hard for you to understand that people are worried they will not be able to heat their houses or feed their families.
And that people do expect that they should be able to do both.
The government are setting up warm hubs, places people can go because they know they will not be able to heat their homes. Foodbanks are already struggling for donations.

@NashvilleQueen me too. Although I only use mumsnet cause netmums collaped. Its full of middle class's tories. I'm sure the tories use mumsnet to get their ideology across. I'd love to start up a mums site for the lower paid or at least those who don't look down on us.

Without catastrophising MN would whither on the vine...

@antelopevalley I think it is understood but it's a concern shared by all: even those on £100k+ salaries will be impacted and struggle, £5k extra is a lot of extra money to have to find recognising people build their financial commitments around what money they have coming in independent of what that is.

The issue is that many of the proposed "solutions" are for the government to "help" by providing extra handouts, often financed by "taxing the rich more" whilst simultaneously excluding them from from support. this grates certain people as:
-they're also facing the same challenges of providing heat, warmth, shelter for their families
-they're being asked to put more into the coffers whilst likely feeling they already contribute a lot, with others not pulling their weight (Independent of whether they are or aren't, it's how they may feel)
-they're not getting any extra out and are "on their own"
-the only reason they aren't being helped is because they've bothered to work hard, sacrifice, etc to get themselves into this position

All of which leads to the question of... why bother trying to work hard, progress, develop of all it results in is more daylight robbery of their hard earned money and being left on their own to fend for themselves...

That doesn't take away from the hardship of others neither does it detract from their frustration at being targeted and left to get through the issue alone

I know. It’s utterly depressing.

Here are the energy calculators

www.which.co.uk/news/article/energy-price-cap-rises-to-3549-how-will-it-affect-your-bills-aZkHR2p2t2P7

www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-are-the-price-cap-unit-rates-/#tool

@TakeTheOffPisteRoute I know your type. Would rather let people starve so that rich people do not feel hard done by.
And if you are on £100k you are very well off.

The solutions are to do what other EU countries are doing. Our country is doing fuck all while some companies are making a lot of money.

There has been a total failure by Conservatives to invest in infrastructure. Money wasted on stupid stuff like a Garden Bridge instead of power generation. And they criminalised those protesting for the government to make sure homes are properly insulated, rather than just having schemes to proper;y insulate homes.
Instead, it was all short-termism.

Our country has been appallingly run for at least the last decade.

MN has been taken over by too many rich people who think the poor are to blame for their poverty.
If they lived in Dickens's time they would be lecturing Dickens on how we can not expect rich people to pay taxes to educate the poor as there would be no point in them trying to be rich anymore. And that all the poor people had to do was get better jobs and prioritise sending their kids to school.
I am at heart a centrist. When I see some comments on MN I want to join Class War.

MN has been taken over by too many rich people who think the poor are to blame for their poverty.

Hardly surprising when we were indoctrinating out kids with reactionary shite like this

The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

Like standards, the great thing about religions are there are so many to choose from. If you can't find one to justify your world view, you're probably a bit dim.

They don't call Mumsnet "Prosecco Stormfront" for nothing.

I this was the first thread I had read in signing up I think I would've have backed straight back out again.

Some people are not capable of progressing. To be a supervisor you have to have reasonable social skills for example.
Someone who is capable of doing a university degree should be able to progress beyond a minimum wage job. Not everyone is capable of doing a university degree.

this ^^

not everyone has the same IQ but that doesn’t mean they don’t work hard.

someone has to wash the pots and pans, someone has to empty the garbage - they may work very well, hard physically and be satisfied with the job they complete.

if the pot wash doesn’t come to work then it’s not a job that can be ignored & surprise surprise the chefs nor the waiting staff aren’t jumping at the chance of doing that particular job

Whilst I’m not suggesting there’s no place for people who don’t chase progression, the reality of it is they’re not going to live the same lifestyle as those who do. that isn’t so hard to understand is it?
I don't know why this seems to be so difficult to understand either.

there is a difference between having a a just about comfortable living standard and being destitute even though your working hard.

if the workers weren’t needed then the strikes wouldn’t matter nor effect anyone