AIBU to be sad and shocked by this article?

[LittleDorrit]

Have just been reading this:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/18/child-poverty-labour-eradicate-promise

and I am shocked by the conditions this family is living in, but in particular how little/what sort of food they are able to afford.

It's not so much an AIBU issue, but just wondered whether others in similarly difficult circumstances think this is typical, or whether the mother could try to buy other types of food (e.g. rice, lentils, etc.) or perhaps be able to afford to spend a bigger proportion of her budget on food... £20 is very little.

Well it's nice to know that you would make a so much better job of raising two small children on benefits Nancy. Maybe you should swap places with this young woman for a few months. I'm sure you would be an example to us all.

So she should forget about her existing debts, and take out more debt??

agree with LittleDorrit (appropriate name for this thread!!). Looks like she's not got anyone in her life who can say - I'll look on freecycle for a table/cupboard for you and collect if for you. re:phone credit - I imagine she's very isolated with 2 young children and where a bus trip to her mum appears to be a rare treat -she probably needs a fiver's worth of call/texts to keep her sane.

having a phone is an essential part of every day life - if the kids are sick how do you call a doctor? If you've got debt problems how do you get in touch with help?

Yes of course you could cope without a phone short term, but to live day-to-day you need access to communication.

Anyway - an extra £5 a week isn't going to seriously improve her food shopping is it??

I admire her for coping so well, for not turning to illegal activity to try to get more money, for trying to get qualifications. Good luck to her

having a phone is an essential part of every day life - if the kids are sick how do you call a doctor? If you've got debt problems how do you get in touch with help?

Yes of course you could cope without a phone short term, but to live day-to-day you need access to communication.

Anyway - an extra £5 a week isn't going to seriously improve her food shopping is it??

I admire her for coping so well, for not turning to illegal activity to try to get more money, for trying to get qualifications. Good luck to her

she says she's paying back a loan to the council (which I assume was a budgetting/crisis loan) if they say she can't afford to pay back anymore, then they won't give her anymore.

I see no mention of a computer in there, so freecycle can be tricky, and getting a vegetable garden going when you live ina flat can be ermm, slightly tricky to say the least.

And there's not exactly an abundance of allotments to be had around Hartcliffe last time I was in the area.

Think your suggestions are really unrealistic tbh. How would she even have heard of freecycle if she doesn't have access to the internet or read the papers, etc? And if she reduced her repayments, it would take her YEARS to pay back the debts, for what? - another £4 a week?

If she used Freecycle she'd have people wondering how she could afford a computer and internet

She obviously does budget carefully - I presume the children recieve free school meals which would help her during term time to keep her shopping bill down.

We were never poor, but my mother would have never let us have thingshe considred a luxury like oven chips - it was alway potatoes /rice/ pasta and everything was filled out with lentils.

If everything else is already paid for - gas elctric food shopping done - does she really need any money during the week? In January DH had paid for every thing essential, but I had £0 for a month, so not a good example in my opinion, to bring home what poverty is really like.

admire her too

A budgeting loan is free...... She could use that to pay off her expensive debt which is building up with added charges?

I honestly didn't mean to provoke a fight about this !! I guess I was hoping that people might say that it is possible to have a better life on that amount of money. But I was probably being naive.

READ the bloody article some of you.

She can't "tidy up" because she hasn't got any cupboards.

She DID buy potatoes, but she bought them in Iceland, not in the first shop because they were too expensive.

I thought she was doing a fab job.

You're all heart, aren't you...

You know what, I use freecycle, have an allotment and live in a town centre where I can walk to a library and all the shops. If I want to use freecycle I have the means to do so (a phone, a car to pick stuff up and drop stuff off, a computer to communicate) - she does not.

She lives in some godawful sprawling estate with no computer, no landline, has to get a bus that costs £4 to get somewhere and lives on the smallest amount of money I've ever seen.

My life is shockingly priviledged in comparison to hers. Poverty is not just food it is also where you live and I'm lucky enough to live in a town centre in the south-east. If I had no money for heating I would go to the library.

I wouldn't lecture her for a second for how she spends her money. She copes way better than I would.

she has a "loan from the council" - that generally means she's already got a budgtetting loan. If they say she can't afford anymore, they won't give her anymore.

She doesn't have a bank account now, so would presume she doesn't get any more charges. And like FAQ says, not everyone can get a loan.

Exactly LD - there was loads of publicity (probably mainly in broadsheets..?) last year for getting your bank to cancel charges. There was free advice online and a letter to copy on the BBC website. Most people then got fobbed off, but if pursued it through the small claims court (costing about £50 I think) then got all their money back, and anything they owed from charges cancelled. My little bro (a univeristy student) clawed his back. People in her situation should have had help and support to get out of the charges.

It is a bit shocking - though have to remember this is 1 journalists pov, and one with a liberal agenda. Journalists aren't always honest, and they are trying to elicit a sympathetic response from the reader. Hope the Guardian paid her for her story, and it was enough to pay off the debts.

I have to say though, it backs up my feeling that one of the best things we could do for children on low benefits is to give their parents slightly higher benefits but in the form of food or coupons... can you imagine if the mother smoked - how little there would be left for food and clothing?!

Her kids should be very glad to have such a supportive mother. She should try to budget for bus fares to the library weekly.

in terms of the diet - even she were inclined to go down the lentil/rice route, she would probably be deterred by not being able to afford to "waste" food if the kids didn't like it.

Do you seriously think she doesn't need any money during the week . As sole carer for 2 children she needs a safety net - imagine if she had to go to A & E with the children one night after the buses stopped running and get a cab back?

Gosh, how depressing. I take my hat off to this girl; she is doing as well as anyone could in that situ and better than most. She is clearly quite bright too - wonder why her gcse grades are so poor?

I have been in that situation before. It's depressing and feels like you will be stuck like that forever. Which if you let yourself you will be. But it doesn't have to be that way.

I don't think she is lazy just disheartened and stuck in a rut. There are plenty of things she could be doing to help herself, i.e. open uni, proper uni, taking a pt time job in a supermarket or fastfood chain and aiming to work her way up to management.

I have always said that single parents need more support both financially and emotionally.

And as for the phone and tv. I would imagine her phone is her lifeline. And I had a tv like that when all I could afford to eat was a couple of lowfat yoghurts each day because all my money went on baby food/gas/electric/baby clothes. I still have that tv actually. My grandad gave me it when he got a new one.

More needs to be done to help these people see that there is more in life than what they have.

this was me in the 1990's it's bloody difficult to get out of even when you have got an education

Debt repayments - to social fund/bank/rent arrears/pre-paid gas and electric metres take up a hell of a lot of the budget

op- yes, it's pitiful that motherhood is valued so low in this country.

She can go back to college for free.... most adult gcse courses fit in with the school day.

I think the real problem is complacency. I admit, I just skimmed the last bit of the article...its shameful that council flats aren't adequate But it seemed near the end that it was saying that where you are from = poverty/no motivation.

JEsus wept.

Of course the place will be untidy (or will look untidy) - she has no storage.

No means of drying clothes outside.

No garden to grow her own vegetables.

The television was probably bought when she was in a relationship and her exp had a job.

And people are bemoaning her having a mobile phone?

I think is terribly sad that children still live in poverty in this country. Thank god for free school meals and free education - perhaps the school should be doing more to make uniform available to children on benefits? Is shocking to see the statistics regarding educational attainment slipping for children living in poverty.

She's IS doing courses during the day !

What I found most shocking was that she only knew a very small number of people who had jobs - and one of them was just someone she'd heard of, not a friend...