Race to the bottom on MN

[coulditbeme2323]

Due to all 3 kids now at school I have gone from a bit of a lurker to a poster, and can't help notice that there is a race to the bottom mentality on MN when somebody asks for financial help.

Now let me prefix this by saying I think there is great budgeting posts and advice on here that help people - that is not what I am talking about.

It's the "get rid of Netflix" or " eat meat once a week"

I mean perish the thought that somebody with not much money who doesn't have holidays, days out, etc - gets to watch the odd boxset or have a bacon sandwich!

There's like three people in the UK paying for Netflix. Everyone else is using their details

Well that's a bold but naive statement.

Tbh, life isn’t 'supposed' to be anything. It just is what it is. And often it's miserable. You just need to switch on the news to see that.

I think that it just makes you miserable if you think about it like it should be this it should be that.

What?
If the budget doesn’t stretch, something has to give. How miserable that makes you doesn’t change that simple fact.
You’re taking nonsense.

So what would be your advice for someone who can’t pay the rent? Or afford to put the heating on In January?

Surely it’s more miserable to be in debt? I really don’t get this attitude that you NEED Netflix otherwise you’re miserable. Plenty of people don’t have Netflix because they can’t afford it and it’s a stupid thing to get into debt for.

Oh well the people on the bones of their arse who are asking for this advice can just carry on doing what they've been doing and dig themselves further into their financial hole then. That'll help.

£6 Netflix won't make a difference if someone can't pay their rent, which I assume is more than £6 a month. They'd have to save that £6 for several years to get anywhere near a months rent.

The solution is budgeting and tracking(which should be taught in schools) not coming out with the same old 'cut down on netflix and take away coffees' lines. If everyone understood where their money is going they can make adjustments accordingly.

On another thread, posters were saying that anyone on UC should not have Netflix (which is £6pm), and instead have "normal TV", which is £15pm for the TV license 😆

The vast majority of threads on here about pleading "poverty" are from higher earners who, once you see the breakdown of their spending, you can see half of it is just keeping up with the Joneses.
There was a thread where OP was on over £100k, and was building up the courage to tell her kids that Netflix will have to go.

One that really stuck with me was where OP was on a low income, and someone suggested she just not eat for 3 days a week because of the perceived health benefits of autophagy.

You can't do that anymore.

It’s the general feel now in this country. Demand everyone has less to level down. Rather than ask why everyone can’t have more.

Expensive energy. Sit in the dark and start walking 76 miles everyday.

Expensive food. Eat nettles from your garden.

Can’t afford a holiday. Watch planes take off from your window. After all little people don’t need to fly. Let the virtuous ones have holidays.

Need new holidays. Whatever for?

Want your neighbourhood to be tidy. Nope. Untidy, overgrown is good for the environment.

The only source of entertainment? There must be at least 30 free channels you can watch, surely there is something on one of them you would like to watch?

The "free" channels still cost £15pm for the TV license.

But and it's a but.... there's a radio 4 programme called you and yours, a consumer programme which has a weekly phone in. About 10-15 years ago it was about debt. A guy rang in £30k in debt. He blamed the lenders. He lied about his earnings, he's actually on benefits, it was too easy to get credit and to cap it all "my kids deserve nice holidays"

So people are deliberately getting into debt. We live in a society which is completely disposable. DFS sell sofas to be replaced yearly, phones sold on the latest model, cars leased for 3 years then changed....it's a complete consumption overload and people are deliberately overspending because they feel they "deserve" it.

So telling someone to not buy a coffee....that's £15-£20 a week if you buy one every day 5 days a week. Telling someone to cancel Netflix and save a few quid. People need to start to think how to save money.

For example I am a multi millionaire, I still batch cook from scratch, mainly using slow cookers every week. Like I did when I was skint. I put on an extra jumper if I'm cold rather than the heating. I boil 2 liters of water first thing and put it in a flask for coffee during the day, if I need more I only boil what I need. I buy a new car every 3 years, never over £20k, because it's cheaper than leasing AND if life were to go tits up I've got something to sell and no debt. I use cash back credit cards, I shop in charity shops. I invested in solar panels and a battery to save money on the long term.

Why do I still do all that, because I've been skint and don't want to go back there....I saw it happen to my parents, dad earned fantastic money, but his health gave out at 40. Mum had no education or skills....so we lived on benefits from the time I was 10.

You are completely right that schools need to educate people about money

You lost me at "I am a multi millionaire"

How long ago were you broke? It is so different now.

😂I hope every time someone comments something like this a UC claimant goes out and buys a scratch card and a buzz ball.

I'm a coward and pay for mine but a good number of people make a game out of refusing to pay their TV licence.

Well what financial advice are poster's expecting MN to be able to give?

If you have the time to look out of the window then you're definitely a scrounger. Why don't you pick up some shifts in a supermarket instead of expecting a free ride from me, the only person who has ever had to pay income tax?
(😉)

There was a thread where multiple posters were aghast that someone on UC could have the occasional steak. Someone created a new username of "GovermentFundedSteak" 😂
Someone else said she made the point of buying a steak once she got paid, because she was so pissed off that people were saying she was not allowed.

You can get a steak for less than £4 in supermarkets. If someone on UC is not allowed that, then what are they actually allowed?
Funny that no one could answer that.

My tax money pays for a lot of things I don't like, but if any of it goes towards making sure that kids in low income households get to have a bit of fun or have better opportunities then that's great, to be honest. Life is hard enough.

Yes, my DF was one. Kept on about the BBC being "full of pedos", yet he would happily watch a lot of BBC content. My DM paid for the license, but told him she was not.

If that’s what you took out of my comment you clearly missed the point. It was the one luxury we had. And you know as well as I do that the majority of terrestrial telly is shit - or certainly was 20 years ago. I don’t recall there being as many as 30 free channels back then either. At least with Sky we had the kids channels if needed, and we had our favourite US shows - which was about the only thing keeping us going. We weren’t behind on the mortgage, but day to day living was a struggle. At best the £20 a month might have gone into a savings pot. But it would have been less because we got a discount of phone & broadband because we had the tv package - so it might have been £10-£15 a month it was actually costing us.

There is something wrong in the world where two adults are working full time on higher than minimum wage (although not much higher) and the only luxury in life they can afford is a tv package, but that’s how it was. I suppose I could have stopped my pension payments, but my Dad drilled it into me that you don’t neglect your pension from when I was 18, so it just didn’t occur to me - even if it was tiny amounts!

Also a lot of posters with limited understanding of the variations in cost of living based on age / stage.

Yes, this is frustrating!