I love it when the Daily Mail do articles like this

[Voidka]

here

Ooh Alpine, you are norty.
Ah, posed by models then? That's classic. Can you imagine the brief for that? We want a family of four who look still vaguely pony and tennis-ish, where the dad looks astonishingly wet, and we want all four of them to look sorry for themselves. On the count of three everyone!!

I'd be happy with the £125.00 a day- the company I work for part time are looking over the edge of a very high cliff, and none of us know how long it will keep going for, so each month I don't know if I'll be paid......

It's grim, but it could be worse and is for a lot of other people. I hope this isn't meant to be a serious article, silly woman - she sounds so trivial and whinging. A long hard look at the real world required for someone I think.

Ditch the cleaner - ditch the skiing holiday and summer holiday and buy a tent ! Ditch the horse riding, ditch the cricket - get DH to do some volunteer ! or get another job yourself .

Can't remeber thet last time I went to the cinema.

Couldn't be arsed to read all the article.

My heart bleeeeeeeeeeds for them no it doesn't. My father was out of work for years during the recession in the 90s, took on whatever work he could. Despite having a Masters Degree, worked as a delivery driver for ages. We did without new clothes, vacations ... many other things. I don't remember my parents whinging as much as these people are.

There's no frikkin way bus driving pays £125 a day. I s'pose it might just if you did every single graveyard shift on the night buses but otherwise, NO WAY.

Avantia - a friend did precisely that after being made redundant - he couldn't sit on his arse so he started volunteering for a charity and after a while got taken on in a paid role. It's a pittance but he loves it.

I have to say this feature freaks me out slightly as my DH is about to be made redundant again for the second time in 3 years and I'm terrified. FOUR YEARS?! God I hope that we wouldn't wait 4 bloody years to find something, his self-confidence would be in the gutter. It was hard enough last time
I had to give up private pilates lessons and stop putting gold leaf on the lamb casserole.

Joking aside we got all the teacher comments last time and researched it thoroughly but also found that it's not that easy to get work. Except that I read on MN recently that they need physics teachers?

He's obviously not that good a strategy manager or he's have got a job by now.

Good old DM. I liked this comment under the article:

She should go on the game

• sogs, keighley uk, 27/9/2011 16:43

£125 per day as a bus driver compared to £65 per week on JSA.

MustControlFistofDeath He's not claming JSA, they're not working class you know.

I read this before leaving for an agency appointment this morning. I wanted to punch my laptop. And get the number for the bus driving job.

''The kids have learned to do without expensive clothes and electronic gadgets; the paint is peeling from our windowsills. There?s a long list of things we don?t buy any more: books, clothes, magazines, handbags. Lucy proudly boasts of the money she?s saved when she goes shopping with her friends.''

''We still have a cleaner once a week, we buy Christmas presents for the kids (but not each other), we treat ourselves to a night out at the cinema every week. ''

Stop the cleaner and the weekly cinema trips and get the out of work husband to spend the money on paint for the windowsills !

wompoopigeon - "If we changed the genders around then no-one would bat an eyelid."

Can you IMAGINE the slating you'd get if you were an SAHM in that situation and came on here complaining of being short of cash?!

"Well, get rid of your cleaner, you dozy cow! Your kids are at school, WTF do you do all day?!"
"But I can't possibly scrub my own bog, I went to Cambridge dontcha know!"

Who wants to start the AIBU thread?

Hail to the busdriver, busdriver, busdriver
Hail to the busdriver, busdriver man.
He drinks and he cusses,
And farts on the busses,
All hail the busdriver, busdriver, busdriver
All hail the busdriver, busdriver man.

Only trouble is this one is too privileged to try

how very odd

I had that song as an earworm all afternoon

Having a husband who has lost his job three times in the last 18 months and having had to sell our house without the money to buy another...
Luckily dhs need job seems to be a goodun but of course its not that simple is it, within two months of having bought a new (second hand) car for him to use for work he was driven in to and is now having to miss lots of work for medical sppointments.

So forgive me if I have fuck all sympathy for them

(and I was so trying to be a nicer person)

Haha - Someone start the AIBU:

AIBU to want to keep our cleaner?
AIBU not to want DH to be a bus driver?
AIBU to sell my story to the Daily Mail?

I did wonder about that photo - the girl looks much older than the story and the Dad looks bemused.

I see now its posed by models.

The uniboob story is pretty grim - she cant close her eyes either

These articles are a massive wind-up, and the kind of life supposedly lived by these people before the recession is not typical of the average Daily Mail reader at all.

File along with "cancel Christmas, I only earn £500 a week now" and "can I survive for a whole weekend eating only food from Poundland."

Boulevard
you misunderstand me! (i think!) What I was trying to say is that the Daily Fail makes a story out of "man out of work, woman's income supports household". It would be a total non-story to them if the headline was "wife out of work, household supported by man's income". Indeed, that would be their ideal scenario.

Thanks for those links JLK. I laughed all the way through the first one.

The picture is posed by models and they are obviously earning a good wage with her writing to be able to do the basic essentials like keep a roof over your head, eat, horse ride, pay the bills, play tennis, buy clothes, pay a cleaner and go to the dentist

I remember the first story!

"These days, I am lucky if I earn £500 a week"

And the fact that she doesn't seem to have thought of saving Christmas decorations from one year to the next. No wonder they "suddenly seem oh-so-­expensive"

Woopigeon, i do get you - it wouldn't be a story.... but it'd still be a great AIBU!

There was an 'Are you secretly poor?' thread on mumsnet last year which was truly scary reading

There was an 'Are you secretly poor?' thread on mumsnet last year which was truly scary reading
Scary in what way? It must have been bad because the whole thread was deleted.