Can we start a poverty solidarity thread?

[Welcometotheterrorzone]

It often feels like MN is a different world and I can't actually talk to anyone in real life as people either don't get it or assume I'm trying to gain sympathy or ask for money.

I cannot wait until payday. Things I am doing without right now

• petrol
• squash
• milk
• biscuits
• shampoo

So worried that I'll need to drive somewhere and have to explain that I have no petrol. Currently walking everywhere. I know it's partly my fault as I went a bit far on the last payday and bought a shed, but obviously no one is going to offer me a 0% interest or repayment scheme due to my credit. Wish I could budget better. I think these dry spells make it worse though. You live with weeks with nothing and then my wages come in and I go a bit crazy. Another downside of being skint. Could ask father of children but I can't take the smugness. He took them out for pizza last night and they brought some home! Ravenously ate it in the kitchen whilst they weren't looking. It's mad that this is the reality. No one knows. I have a full time job, nice house, car in drive, dress well (charity shops), the kids look ok. How no one gets what it's like, waking up to nothing in the bank, dry cereal, panicking about if there's a non school uniform day. Please let me know what's going on for you so I don't feel so alone!

That was hard reading. Some of you should be ashamed. OP good luck

Likewise people are forgetting this is an AIBU thread! To spend £200 on a shed and leave yourself unable to provide milk or shampoo for your kids is, in many people’s opinions, unreasonable. If the op wants to ask if it’s AIBU to think it’s horrible to try and live in the current climate on a low income and horrible to be a single parent working full time and trying very hard to make ends meet then she would have many people empathising with her as that’s what lots of people are having to do.

On what planet is milk a luxury ?
And many/most people need petrol to get themselves to work - not many people live in walking distance of their workplace . And generally if you can't afford milk then you can't afford bus fare .

And to those still banging on about the shed . It cost £200. if your money is pretty much fully spent each month it's difficult to save even a small amount , and with rising prices and the expectation of being worse off in a few months perhaps it was easier to get it now .

Another thing is that there's a lot of sanctimony around the idea of buying other things and forgoing food. Obviously no one should need to do that, but in our society it's just an ugly truth when you're poor for a long time. Food is not the only necessity - for instance, if your one pair of work shoes wears out, then you need another pair, and if that means going without dinner for a week or two, then that might be what you decide to do.

Also, for lots of people, the grocery budget is the only place within the budget where there's any flexibility at all. You can't just not pay your rent, council tax, etc., for the month, so if you need something else that's not food, then where else is that money coming from? If you're buying other things instead of needed food, you're not going to be in a situation where you can just cut down on your savings contribution or going-out budget for the month. Something has to give, and often it's food because that's where the only wiggle room in the budget is.

It's something that people say as though it's so completely out of the bounds of acceptability ("I would never go without FOOD for x"), but the sad reality is that that is sometimes a choice people find themselves making. I certainly have made that choice in my life, in the past. To me it shows a lack of familiarity with living in ongoing poverty, rather than showing the poster as any kind of authority on it.

When you say a week of frivolity what do you mean exactly?

What I would do if I was bad with money is make sure all bills are paid on payday and then I would do a months shop.

Obviously you wouldn’t be able to get a months worth of fresh veg/meat but you can get plenty of frozen ( which is sometimes cheaper) and dry goods to fill up the cupboard. I don’t know if you have one but Iceland do some really good deals.

You can buy UHT milk, pasta and rice to last.

Pasta and rice are ideal to buy cheap and you can base quite a lot of meals around it.

At least by doing this you will at least always have food.

I agree with you 100%.

There are some really nasty people in this thread .

If someone is feeling down and asking for support from other people who understand where she's coming from , why would you stamp all over her ?

We have had several scrap men come into our back garden and steal stuff. We now have a high back fence and gate and the gate is padlocked. I am not sure OP said her back garden has a locked gate has she?

Sounds like you aren’t in this position and haven’t been for months and months like OP.

So your ‘what I would do’ is purely hypothetical 30p Lee lecturing.

Op, why was the shed so important?

and how can you not have any money for shampoo!?? It costs less than £2 in Aldi / Lidl. Do you use a particularly expensive shampoo?

Read the whole thread before posting your judgemental answer.

Shampoo may be cheap, I have 46p to my name, would cheap shampoo help me?

Sorry, didn’t mean to sound judgemental. It’s reasonable to expect one to spend on needs first and then on wants.
OP needs shampoo, he/she had the money for it, but decided to spend it on what she wanted.

Yes, I’m sure it was like that

This. You need proper budgeting OP. If you can’t afford certain things, you can’t afford them. If you buy them anyway and go without basic necessities for rest of the month - it’s entirely your own CHOICE!

If you spend more than you earn, you’ll always be stint.

This is how the government gets away with all the crap it does. We are too busy bickering over the scraps they drop to look up at what is really going on and demand change.

I will repeat; someone working full-time should be able to afford a small and still manage basics for the month.

It was a £200 bike shed not a fucking mansion in her back garden.

I'm on a low income like the OP and this is what I try to do as well. I find it very helpful. I stock up as best I can soon after payday, and fill up the car. If I spend the money on essentials first then I have food in the cupboards and fridge-freezer and a full tank of petrol. I find it is easier to budget for weekly food with the smaller amount left, and I am less likely to spend it.

This is how the government gets away with all the crap it does. We are too busy bickering over the scraps they drop to look up at what is really going on and demand change.

I will repeat; someone working full-time should be able to afford a small and still manage basics for the month.

It was a £200 bike shed not a fucking mansion in her back garden.

^^ agreed this isn't about nitpicking over budgeting. The standards of living in this country are abysmal

The point is that someone working full.time shouldn't need to watch and record every single penny.

That someone working full time should be able to live without constantly thinking about money.

That they should be able to make the occasional small capital purchase, school shoes, winter coats or even a shed, without then meaning they are left without food for the month.

It's exhausting always thinking about money and not having anything spare to do anything.

Let alone daring to think about having fun

And this is someone who, on all the rhetoric, is doing the right thing. She's working full-time and raising children.

In a civilised society her life should not be this hard

OP may have decided to use dry shampoo instead of hot water to wash her hair to save on utility costs, perhaps she is trying to reduce her gas and electric bills.

The simple fact that she buys a shed for bicycles without planning for how she will pay for essentials fkr the rest of the mint is pure financial irresponsibility. She prioritized a bike she’s over being able to eat and you’re trying to justify it.

There are two issues here, one low income which she will have to work on though I’m sure you will come back with the wow betide me how dare you say she should earn more excuse, and second she has very very very bad financial management skills. You can try making all the excises in the world but with simple basic budgeting she can make better decisions, and guess what she herself admits she is crap at budgeting.

We’re now so good at making excuses for people which may be nice but all it does is keep people stuck in their circumstances.

Exactly this.

It is absolutely financial irresponsibility. Splashing out £200 quid because you are tired of looking at bikes in your kitchen and then not being able to pour milk on your child's cornflakes.
No excuse in the world for this. None. No use looking out at a shed when then there is no bloody milk in the fridge and nothing to wash your hair with. No justification. Of all things you can make yourself literally destitute for...a shed to put bikes in. Those of you justifying and sympathising with this are worse.

Would YOU do it? Would you leave your kids like that for a shed?

In all honesty the OP is actually taking responsibility to a certain extent and saying she is shite with money and there are all you telling her she is not and she is right to buy the shed.

I despair.

Dishwasher - In an ideal world everyone should be able to afford a shed and then not struggle for the rest of the month, but reality isn't like that. Everyone has different priorities and some people, like the OP has admitted, are poor at budgeting. There are always going to be families that struggle with money.

I do think that rents are too high in this country, but even when rents were lower guess what some people were still struggling due to poor budgeting. For too long now people don't want to take responsibility for their choices, there's always something or someone else to blame.

Yes it's a well used tactic. Meanwhile the super rich become even richer. Funny, that.

I will repeat; someone working full-time should be able to afford a small and still manage basics for the month

You are absolutely right. No question.

But the reality is they can't. Through NO fault of their own they cannot because of our shit government. That is the reality. A reality they are all too aware of. The issue is they are AWARE of the reality and went ahead and bought something that was really, in no way, a necessity and put themselves into a position where they are hungry, cannot wash their hair properly and are giving their children dry cereal. That is a choice. They made the choice. The majority of people living in the same position as the OP would not have made that choice. Therein lies the difference.

The point is not whether a person SHOULD be able to afford a shed to house bikes but the fact they KNOW they cannot but do it knowingly anyway to the detriment of their themselves and their children.