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? 🙈

I'm aware that NHS dentists are difficult to find, but I'd prioritize a once a year cleaning and a check up at least once every couple of years - as not doing this would almost certainly end up costing more in the long run.

@BeetlesForever People just lose their teeth. Walk around a poorer area and you will see a fair number of adults with obviously missing teeth.

@BeetlesForever And where I live you can't get a private dentist on this basis. If you want a one-off appointment they will insist on check up, x rays and cleaning. They will not simply clean your teeth.
Its easily £200 for that. So 4 people in a family £800 for a once a year clean you suggest.

Well no, you just put up with toothache and your teeth fall out.

Had mine "fixed" last year after a few years of problems building up and a 'windfall' of getting owed holiday pay from a job I was leaving. Couldn't have afforded it otherwise.

Obviously it cost more, but the money just wasn't there initially, and as the law of sod dictates, most of them started during covid.

But as for the money, it would at that time have meant something else not getting paid, and I'd already run up some debt at the start of COVID being initially furloughed but having to wait 6 weeks with no income except child benefit, and as I've already said (about gym membership) no one's going to be sending bailiffs round if I got toothache - they do when you don't pay your bills.

Rather have toothache tbh, and prioritise payment of bills and rent, of course I had a choice, not much of one though.

Most private patients will see their clients' children on the NHS.

In any event it is perfectly possible to see a private dentist and/or hygienist for one off checkups and cleaning. My son who works abroad does so whenever he is home for a visit.

I'd sooner cut back on most other things than dental care

Sooner have bailiffs trying to get in and levy your stuff and taking it to pay your debts and their extortionate fees, your amenities cut off and/or evicted?

But at least your teeth are ok right?

People live like this, in this country, people who work. They can't prioritise stuff like this because they have pressure on ensuring they prioritise other things.

I haven't seen a dentist for over a decade now. Take my kids regularly. I don't have a NHS dentist.

If you’re not registered with a dentist at all you can access NHS dental clinics, they only do emergency things like fillings and pulling teeth.

Cost about £24 to get a tooth out a couple of years ago, so can’t see it being much more now.

So, no, it doesn’t work out cheaper to go once a year.

@tabulahrasa Here you get assessed for that. You only get seen if the pain and inflammation is bad enough.

It’s emergency stuff, yes, but that’s what people do if they don’t have a dentist.

They don’t wait and then suddenly get a whole load of work done at once that would cost loads, and so it would in fact be cheaper doing yearly appointments.

They wait till something is urgent and just get it pulled - even if a regular dentist would have done something else.

On the face of it, it does sound quite generous. However, it depends very much on what other outgoings that person has. Childcare, for instance, is very expensive and can amount to the the whole, or almost the whole, of a person's salary. There may be unusually high commuting costs or the need to buy and maintain a car for work purposes.

Without knowing a person's individual circumstances, I think it is difficult to assess whether they should be able to manage very well financially or not.

Isn't it the case that everyone needs decent cars but some people can't afford them though?

as not doing this would almost certainly end up costing more in the long run.

That's the problem though. It's expensive being poor. If you have very little money to start with, you get what's cheap to start with. And yes, that costs more in the long run. You can live more cheaply if you have more money.

The reality is that as you earn more money your lifestyle changes and your life will more necessary things in your new lifestyle than in your old frugal lifestyle. It’s not to say that having £1900 isn’t a lot of money just that that money will have a different purchasing power dependent on your lifestyle.

That is not compulsory, it is a choice.

I've said that on a previous thread. I really got dragged down the toilet for even suggesting it.

I was called every name under the sun and accused of being 'jealous' for the most part.

We have always kept records of our outgoings over the 27 years we have been together.

Twenty years ago our outgoings including childcare for 1 child in nursery PT and a very small mortgage on a house worth at that point about 125k were 1k per month. Our outgoings with zero childcare and mortgage paid off are now 1k per month, the house is now worth 320k.

This is house only and no calculation for cars, holidays, hobbies or socialising.

Inflation makes it worse £1 in 2003 is now worth £2.02.

I love how people justify luxuries like gym memberships by saying things like “people need them for health reasons.”

No. We could all benefit from them for health reasons, but you can only justify them if you can afford them. If you can’t, then you can do exercise at home, out and about, for free.

When I had heart surgery I was told that I needed to regain my fitness. I went for twelve weeks of cardiac rehab, and then I was told to make sure that I kept up some form of exercise where possible. And then we went into lockdown.

I didn’t have a gym membership anyway because I couldn’t afford one.

I would have loved to have bought a peloton or a treadmill like seemingly the rest of the world did, but I A, couldn’t afford one, and B, didn’t have the space.

I would loved to have gone for a walk, but due to my health I was shielding.

So, I walked 10000 steps a day, around my house. When on the phone, when listening to audio books, when waiting for the dinner to cook. And I did it, every day.

No, most people aren’t that nuts dedicated. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

I was absolutely determined that having spent several years with 0 mobility due to being in heart failure, I wasn’t about to let my opportunity to regain my fitness slide. And I didn’t. And it didn’t cost me anything.

So while people will miss their gym memberships, the fact they can afford them at all is a luxury.

Sad that they can no longer afford them, of course. But it’s still a luxury which can be cut.

@BeetlesForever LOADS of people do without the dentist?! We couldn’t get an nhs dentist for my son who has MIH so has to see a dentist regularly or be in constant agony- luckily my mum pays for him to see the dentist.

I haven’t been for 10 years and my wife has seen a dentist once in her life. None of my friends see a dentist, it’s too expensive.

@tabulahrasa is right @BeetlesForever - you wait until you are in agony then pay £25 for an emergency extraction (or wait for it to fall out itself or pull it out yourself if you are really desperate). Doing this once every 5 or 10 years is clearly cheaper than any other option.

Our bills excluding mortgage are over £1900 including commuting costs and childcare costs, plus CT, gas/electric (£400 a month) car repayments for VW family car, could go on!

I think people tend to spend up to their income. If you're on lots of money it probably does seem impossible to live on less, but the big mortgage and the nice car etc etc that are all lifestyle choices. Some financial obligations are harder to get out of than others, of course, but it's all relative.

No you can’t

Apologies I was assuming it was a uniform.