how can she afford this???????/ another possibly classist thread.

[christmaslovingbluealien]

i am perplexed.
a woman i know, single mom with three kids. only income is child support, and the money the dadss give her, which comes through the csa, how can she afford december.
she has all her kids birthdays in december as well as christmas. she says she spends 200 pounds each per child on their birthday. and hten there is christmas on top of that. she also smokes and has fake nails. and she drives. how does she afford this lifestyle?

no nutty, that was to me. about dh and money

why not nutty? ( pension better job chance)

He doesn't have a pension scheme with his job and we cannot afford for him to pay into a private one.

No better job because he is too old now I reckon and has no qualifications etc.

never too old to learn something nutty.

Oh i quite agree, but he won't he can't be arsed.

ahhh lol

She probably saves all year round via a christmas club or something. A girl I used to work with used to save £10 a week or month or whatever and then she got a lump sum. This woman could collect all her tesco clubcard vouchers and use those also towards toys. She's a shrewd saver anyhow. She may well be exaggerating the amount but at least her kids are not being forgotten. I am such a money waster (when I have any) that I am always in awe of how people manage on restricted budgets.

i think being a single parent helps as well.
for example, wheni have tried to cut down on the grocery spend and meal plan etc. the kids an d dh have all complained that there is no food in the house, and dh has gone to tesco and done a shop, getting all the expensive stuff. also, as a single parent, she can prioritise stuff.

arent i a smart cookie, i have answered my own question

cl blue alien, I really now don't understand the title of your thread.You've just referred to another poster's comments as really nasty.

It doesn't add up; you started off from a certain point of view - "how can she afford this/another possibly classist thread"

Classist - how?

mercy, i started out asking about something. and was a bit worried that i would be called classist., so thought id pre empt other people accusing me of being so by including it in the title. {althought dont credit me with thinking things trhought very clearly }
the person i said called me nasty called me snobby. i dont think that wondering about someones finances is snobby. nosey yes, but not snobby. also, i am embarrased by the fact that i know so little about our own finances, and always feel ashamed about this, especially when chatting to other women who are the big bosses in the partnerships. i feel like a kept woman. and coming from a line of very independant women, i feel doubly embarassed about this. and since i had to admit to this, then this woman comes along and calls me a snob? well. i didnt like that. and dont think it was called for.
does that explain things?

Ok I understand what you're saying. But not everyone has the time to read/digest every single post - sometimes it's just a kneejerk reaction!

"The quality of mercy is not strained"

(Happy Christmas War is Over - if you want it)

best wishes

sorry I've had a few wines

being a single mum helps?? Ha ha, never heard that before. If I was still with my ex partner I would have no financial problems!

I do agree with rickman here, it always sounds like, oh that poor single mum is on benefits, she shouldn't be allowed to have fun/smoke/drink/buy new clothes/go to cafes etc. I am sure you don't mean it that way, I hope, but that is how it sounds.

Well I was on benefits - totally - as a single mum and I managed. I wasn't minted and I don't spend more than about £50 on dd for birthday/Christmas. But I did manage to get her nice clothes and go on nights out etc.

I think people tend to prioritise different things. People save better than others. My grandparents go on holiday at least 2 times a year but they are poor... do I rant? No, I am impressed that they have cut back elsewhere to allow themselves that luxury.

Now I am at uni I get less benefits and feel totally screwed financially I must admit. I don't have the money for my daughters nursery and I am currently racking my brains to work out where to get it! But I think that is just me being disorganised and not being used to my new financial situation.

Most people on benefits are poor. I am at uni because I don't want to be poor. I want to have a fulfilling career, provide for my daughter and myself, a pension and so on.

Sorry to go on!!

weesaidie, good luck with your plans. studying with a child is a zillion times harder than it would be otherwise.
as a single parent, you can prioritise what you spend money on. as i mentioned eaarlier about the groceries. i wanted to save somemoney, so cut back on groceries. but dh through a fit that there was nothing to eat in teh house. theri was, he just didnt want to eat it.git. so he went to tesco and bought a load of shopping. but he did things like buy tesco finest bread. and cheestrings. and finest fruit smoothies. stuff that i never ever buy unless on offer. i do online shopping so is easier to resist theurge. so basically no money saved!
we are having thehouse decorated right now. total waste of time and money in my opinion. but not my decision iyswim.

Decorating - has taken me years to help DH understand that to decorate a room yourself takes about 4-8 hours labour and £30 in paint. Or you can pay someone a few hundred quid to do it.

Helps if you have someone in first time to line walls though (capital investment!) and just paint regularly afterwards.

we have a pretty healthy household income (for the moment - redundancy looming) but i would never spend £200 per child on christmas presents.

having said that, agree with all the other posters who have said that (1) that amount is probably an exaggeration (2) keeping up appearances can be important to some people - i.e. at the expense of other things that some of us would consider essentials and (3) outsiders can never know the whole story about about family finances!

e.g. if i am made redundant it will be "how can they afford that house" - er, by having tesco value beans for every meal! - i exaggerate but you get the gist