Am I stupidly poor? Or living in the real world?

[Chunkythighss]

Just off the back of another post…
people commenting that they will have to live off £1900 AFTER paying the mortgage and how this is going to be a struggle.

nearly £2000 a month extra.

This is more than I earn a month and pay rent, bills, etc… yet people are saying they’d struggle to live on this after bills?

Am I massively poor or is this normal? 🙈

Re: earlier reply. £1900 inc benefits (does this also include Child Benefit) as a FT Police Officer indicates a person on the lowest rung as a Constable
. if they also have several children, they are not a recent graduate and aged approx 23. So maybe they re[trained as a PO, which is commendable. And with this amount of income, their budget is extremely tight and only survivable by having NO frills and treats. And probably not even survivable then. , But it's unusual to be on the entry level rung of a profession when you already have several children, so many other POs will be better off than this.

Because the solution should be a collective endeavour not an individual's adaptation. You need everybody on every income demanding better than this, not people being defensive and thinking, 'a bit of hardship(subjective) will teach them a lesson or two!' that is a regressive attitude and helps no one.

Not in so many words, but accusations of ‘insensitivity’ do suggest that anyone with the audacity to complain about suddenly not being able to afford things they previously comfortably have been able to afford, should indeed shut up. Or only speak when they’re allowed to.

Not wanting to read something does not mean that someone else shouldn’t be free to express it. At what point is your discomfort your own problem to manage, rather than the responsibility of other people?

Of course people can moan all they want.

But you can moan without being totally oblivious to how to privileged you still are.

@whumpthereitis my point is that people
could at least appreciate how privileged they are, even if they are having to cut back on a few things.

I'm not saying people can't complain or find it hard, but let's be honest - giving up a private tutor or riding lessons isn't remotely comparable to giving up buying food or other essentials.

I absolutely agree with you. It's not about teaching people a lesson, quite the opposite, it's about teaching EVERYONE that we live in an extremely unfair country. A huge amount of people have been struggling for a long time. It is depressing that those who were not struggling had to get to the point that they were for it to register but here we are. They cannot ignore it anymore. We are all struggling. Collectively we can make a difference. Hopefully in the future they will see that ignoring massive deprivation because it doesn't affect them, doesn't mean it wont affect them one day.

This is what happens in a 'sod you I'm alright' society. Pretty soon you're not alright anymore.

Our costs (4 kids) NOT including: food, travel, mortgage, cars, clothes are €21k/year. So basically just bills, house taxes and school costs.

This situation was so predictable. Up to a couple of years ago most people were financially comfortable and didn’t give a shit about people having to use feedbacks. Now feeling the pinch is moving up the income scale and suddenly the scales are falling from eyes.

Op you are right. £1900 is a fair amount to have AFTER mortgage. We have two kids dog and cat. Total for all bills after mortgage including petrol & diesel and food is around £1450. Our kids also have clubs included (hockey, athletics and swimming so not expensive hobbies) .We have joint income of around £55k so far from rich but we don’t struggle. The issue is people have bought things on tic as we live in a culture where people don’t want to save for things they want to buy now pay later. It’s all about looking good but in reality most people don’t own half the things they have. We have a decent car and van but saved up to buy them. I don’t have any sympathy for people that say they can’t afford to live on £1900 after a mortgage they clearly have poor money management. Living in the real world will do them good.

No one said it was the same. The only posters drawing parallels are the ones complaining about ‘the privileged’, not in fact ‘the privileged’.

Why do they need to acknowledge it when it’s not in fact relevant to the point? Any reference to wealth doesn’t need to be prefaced with ‘of course I know I’m privileged’ for the sake of performance.

Do you also owe someone 90k on top? That made massive difference on that thread to jus "1900 after mortgage"

Our joint monthly net income is £4,715.00.
Bills including mortgage come to £2,467.90
We put aside £1,151.00 into sinking funds that cover annual costs including car maintenance, Christmas, holidays, clothing for kids, dentist costs, house insurance and savings.
We give ourselves £100.00 each a month for personal costs.
We are then left with £896.10 a month for food, fuel and anything else that crops up.
It's tight and we rarely have anything left at the end of the month.
Even after you pay the mortgage, £1900 is not money in your hand if you factor in annual expenses and other bills.

@AxolotlOnions is depressing that those who were not struggling had to get to the point that they were for it to register but here we are. They cannot ignore it anymore. We are all struggling.

Not everyone is struggling, there are plenty of people who are completely unaffected.

It's nothing to do with performance and everything to do with having a bit of humility and humanity.

Of course I don’t owe someone 90k I have good money management. I don’t borrow what I can’t afford I wasn’t brought up that way.

Exactly this. It's interesting to see how the tone on these threads has (mostly) changed over the last twelve months!

Why did I say feedbacks? I meant bloody foodbanks!

That was why people on the thread OP is talking about were like "noooo not enough and you shouldn't overstretch like that. Buy what you can afford" + their bills were close to that 1900 anyway iirc

Totally agree with both comments here.

Arguably so has not demanding that other people, also stretched but in a different way, either shut up, only speak when they’re allowed to, and only speak once they’ve made all the correct self-effacing statements about privilege. Not everything is, or has to be, about you.

The poor in this country are wealthier than the poor in, say, South Sudan. Quite reasonably, the poor in the UK country aren’t expected to acknowledge their privilege before they post about their difficulties.

View that are different from yours, reflecting different experiences that yours, are "far from valid"? How?

Honestly don't waste your time explaining. Some people don't care, they just see the gross figures and call you over privileged.

Fair enough but that's a different thread.

People very concerned about that should start threads on it, not derail every single thread where someone (admittedly in relative privilege) is struggling temporarily. They should also be able to talk about that. If it bothers you, you don't have to read it. But you also don't have to derail every single thread.

And if you started a thread on it, you're likely to get a lot of sympathy. I've seen threads where people are very sympathetic about people who are struggling and it's not true to say everyone refuses to listen or shuts it down.

You can see on this thread it's the less well off that tend to drown out anyone better off who's currently struggling. I don't see why they can't have some sympathy too.

I have a friend whose DH suddenly gave up work. She had to give up her house and move into a flat and work minimum wage jobs. Her life has been turned upside down. She's still relatively privileged but I have a lot of sympathy for her because of how she's been affected through no fault of her own. All her friends are too.

Would you say that you aren't entitled to any consideration because there may be people more hard up than you? Because there will be. No, of course not.

People very concerned about that should start threads on it, not derail every single thread where someone (admittedly in relative privilege) is struggling temporarily.

And when they do the thread is invariably filled with people demanding the OP outlines their incomings and outgoings, and then queue up to question why they aren’t working full time, why they’re claiming benefits, explaining they aren’t doing “poor” properly because they dare to have Sky or take their kids to soft play once every so often. They’ll explain how they can survive on lentils, and why have the heating on at all. Some of the “helpful” replies are disrespectful and demanding.

There really is little room for anyone (rich or poor) to just say “I’m really struggling with how hard it is to make ends meet” without attracting a power of judgement.