Foodbank - 3 cars

[TalkToTheHand123]

Am I being unreasonable to think a family with 2 cars and a big fancy house shouldn't be using foodbanks regularly? No disability issues.

Cross post while I was looking for 🦈 😆😆

Of course not. I don't give to food banks.

Actual food banks you need to prove you're poor to use. There are also community fridges that anyone can use. It's probably a community fridge

I can beat your shopkeepers - I saw Joan Collins and Gwyneth Paltrow at my local foodbank last week - cheeky cows.

Do you actually have a mortgage. If you did you'd know MANY people who do are on the bones of their arse due to interest rates rising on their mortgage and the cost of living increase. Actually interested in what the programme is that was talking about these people going to a food bank and also about their luxury holiday. Please share.

Shop keepers go to stock their shop up with a couple of bags from a food bank really🤔
It must be a very small shop stocked with whatever random items they can get this imaginary shop.

So what happens when the wiggle room you've given yourself still isn't enough?

You've obviously never had a mortgage because if you had, you'd know that mortgages are stress tested anyway.

What is this comment 🤣 if they have kids they kinda need a house or should they put their kids in a bin?
They're probably using the community fridge that anyone can use not an actual food bank seeing as you have to prove you're broke to use a food bank. All this outrage over nothing

No one should be left to go hungry. The only people who know the real situation with this family are the family themselves, and perhaps the food bank. All sorts of issues could be happening for them that you won’t be aware of.

But at the same time, there should be a general expectation of taking responsibility. That households prioritise saving for a rainy day, and or taking out insurance to cover some lost income, rather than splurging on a bigger house and cars on lease.

Some lease agreements are really expensive and tie in the lease holder for a long period. Benefits are barely enough to live on, if you qualify for them.

It is easy to get into debt and trash one’s credit rating following a shock such as job loss, if your lifestyle is expensive and you have no cushion.

So don't donate
You remind me of my Mother (RIP) who asked me how I could be sure that everyone who visited the Street Kitchen I sometimes help at on Sundays was "genuine"
Who cares really? I am there to help not judge anyone

I saw Kate Middleton trample 2 disabled grannys for an out of date Tesco sarnie at ours last week

Food donations are substantially down as people are hit by falls in wages, high interest payments, rise in cost of living etc etc.

Many of the people who use food banks are unable to think clearly how to get out of their crisis situation - they may owe money to loan sharks ( upto 300% charged on loans! ) IME they are often traumatised, fear of assault etc. if they can't pay. One of the most important things we do at our food bank is help people to restructure debt.

It is a scandal that we still haven't limited the amount of interest that people can be charged ( unlike most other countries in Europe eg.)

Many of the people who donate are themselves close to or in poverty. People who have experienced crises themselves are often the most generous givers. They don't need to imagine what it is like, they KNOW!

🤣

This is one of those Freudian projection threads that says more about the OP than anyone else. When you are the type of person who would use food banks when you don't need to, you assume that everyone else is the same. As the saying goes, we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.

As if someone who was buying £300 handbags, expensive cars, a house, and going on fancy holidays could fund that by living on a diet of free baked beans, tinned fruit and Cocopops.

I know enough of the ins and outs not to want to subsidise folk living beyond their means.

Shop keepers use food banks to stock their shops?
Yeah.....I don't think so 🤔

so don't donate, nobody is making you

It wouldn't be your decision to decline them. You just ask questions and record the answers they give. You can't just look at someone, declare they're a liar and send them on their way.
Plus you need to be a medical professional to be an assessor. I'm hoping you're not one as you lack compassion to an astonishing degree.

And I'm laughing at how you think a £200k house is fancy. You wouldn't get a bedsit for that round here.

How much is your house worth?

@TalkToTheHand123 You'd be welcome to take food from the community pantries to save money so you can have better holidays. 🙂They are officially there to reduce food waste, though those who run them are very aware of who's also using them because of need.

Of course there will always be CF's around but like so many things, appearances can also be very deceiving.

Being disabled often means loading and unloading vehicles makes me very visable.
I'm publicly berated by a neighbor (who isn't very good with their finances or choices, and is a regular food bank user) for being seen taking large quantities of food from a couple of community food pantries (open to all) and a food bank, (referral only) and showing my face easily as frequently as they do..

Neighbor has no idea some of their and their kids free meals are prepared by me, and shouts all sorts of slurs around to make themself feel and in their opinion, look, better to others.

I do (internally) question if they couldn't divert their energy to sorting their life out, rather than abusing others. But, I know the kids would still be taken abroad regularly, because their parent expects to go (along with many other things that are luxuries to me), but they'd just be hungrier in between trips.😕

I'm actually a community cook, collecting excess and rejected food, to cook up and turn it into re-heatable vegetarian meals in containers, some of which are then transported to both community pantry/food bank freezers, and the big ones are for the street kitchen I'm part of.
The community pantry has a main table that's take all you can use please, and is for all, others that are rationed, and behind the counter items and prepped meals which are for those who specifically ask for them, or are known to need them and asked if they'd like them.

Meals aren't always as nutritious as we'd like, but I'm good at making something filling and tasty from little, can cater for vegans and religious requirements, and can cook on scale. The meals I make go to anyone who requests them and I don't have any issues over who they are, how they live, or why they take them. The vast majority are people in need, one way or another.

I with others, help feed a small army of street homeless people every week.
It's incredibly difficult to sort your life out when you're running on empty and constantly malnourished, whether you've fallen on hard times or you're the author of your own problems.

They too are a huge cross section of society and a couple of them have managed to hold onto cars. There are people in high quality tents, people in festival level tents, basic benders, cardboard shelters, and or just a tarp or a plastic sheet, and those without even that.
In amongst them we have the odd one who is 'just' precariously housed, or so low on funds that the lure of a free hot meal will draw them, and we get the occasional person who turns up, who we suspect has no need of what we offer at all. We rightly question no one.

I had a job that involved issuing foodbank vouchers.

The most common scenario was complete destitution. Usually because the family didn't have the right to claim benefits in the UK. These guys would get a voucher every week for months until they were eventually able to resolve their situation.

The second most common situation was someone on a low income who'd had an unforeseen emergency. We'd see these guys once and then never again.

The situation OP describes is less common and is what I used to call the "newly skint". People who might still have the trappings of a nice life......but won't in a few months time.

Tbh...I used to find these guys the most difficult to deal with because they aren't fully reconciled to their situation, they don't know how to survive and you almost have to teach them how to be poor. All the while, knowing better than they do, how much worse things are going to get for them.

These people often provide a cautionary tale about not over extending yourself in the good times, because they often have financial obligations that are an enormous hassle to wriggle out of when things go bad.

So don't then. 🙄
I'll keep on donating. Might throw in an extra pack of biscuits next time just for you 😁

I have a family member who owned a house and had it repossessed after their employer went into administration and they couldn't get anywhere near their formal income. It was an incredible stressful and sad time for them.

As for the cars we lived in a village where a bus only came 6 times a day (3 into the nearest city, 3 coming home again) and it was kind of expensive. The idea that you could do anything without a car was impossible unless you didn't mind waiting hours to come home again after food shopping/ brownies/ school. You'd cling onto your cars for dear life if you could. We were pretty strapped ourselves but had two cars because my dad needed one to work and without it my mum and us kids would have spent all day in the house.

So I don't feel like you are maybe being fair. A house for £200k suggests its in an area where wages are low/ there is high employment. That's the sort of price you'd pay in Middlesbrough or Hartlepool. In these areas food are significantly higher as a proportion of your take home pay as a supermarket charges the same for the whole country.

I have a neighbour. He's single, early sixties, and hasn't worked for years as he has savings and a lodger which, "Gives me enough to live off without working," he says.

I work behind the bar in a pub in our high street a couple of afternoons a week. This neighbour comes in at midday, sets down two shopping bags filled with food, then spends the entire day drinking Stella Artois at £6 a pint.

The shopping bags, he's happy to tell anyone who will listen, are filled from the local food banks. When he's been asked if he thinks that's a bit unethical he just laughs.

I think some of the comments on here display a rose-tinted view of the world. Some of you ladies really need to wake up to reality.

Maybe they are collecting for other people.
I know a social worker that dose this a few times a week its not for her its for them she is helping.
Also know a health visitor that dose the same.
Or just maybe they have hit a hard time.

I had to laugh at the house being a luxury comment 🤣 theyve got kids what are they supposed to do sell the house and live in a bin lmao.

They're probably using a community fridge not an actual food bank anyway, people really need to start minding their own business