3% of families in the UK

Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19, 19s and six, result happiness.
Annual income £20, annual expenditure £20 ought and six, result misery.

- Mr Micawber

It's so simple isn't it? :cautious:
 
I was on a ‘ seeing is believing’ tour in East Midlands recently.
The great and the good of the business community touring Nottingham looking at food banks and community larders (where people can buy food cheaper)

it was staggering to see those in foodbanks.
I had conversations with most of these business leaders.

A senior director of a National bank - I read about this stuff and think I’m aware. Then I work with people like me and socialise with people like me. Today it has hit home.

Senior Lawyer - the amount of people I have seen who are clearly in work (lanyards showing) is so upsetting.


What are they spending their money on?
Rent
Mortgages
Caring for family members

It sad that someone wants an itemised list of expenses - why?
These people, in the main, are humble and skint.
Let’s help them
Is that all they spend it on? Rent, mortgages, caring for family members?

There are people (not me) who say that people are using food banks who also spend money on less essential things like holidays, cigarettes, cars, alcohol, takeaways, mobile phones, TV, etc etc etc. Wouldn't it be a good idea to disprove it rather than just shout down the questioner?

(And I'm not at all sure that food bank users are all good budgeters. We hear far too much about parents who can't afford to buy breakfast for their children and so schools need to have breakfast clubs. Bearing in mind that a breakfast of porridge, or toast and jam, can be had for £1 per week, it isn't just budgeting that's the problem.)
 
dsr-burnley

For those working - rents have been rising at around 8% and wages by 3% - over 10 years the rent takes more and more of the income.

A 1 bed flat in a average area costs £650 to rent plus set up fees - someone on £9.59/hour takes home about £1,150 after income tax, national insurance, minimum pension contribution.

That leaves £500

Take off monthly costs

£100 transport
£100 energy
£15 phone
£40 broadband/line rental
£20 water
£80 council tax
£14 TV Licence
£10 haircut
£40 clothes/footwear
£20 gifts
£30 house contents/furniture etc
£20 Toileteries/cleaning products


Leaves £1 for food. if my maths is right if this person can't claim any working welfare benefits. They also have no money for any social life or holidays. There is no alcohol or cigs.
 
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Newy - I agree the Food bank figures are terrible, but we are no longer the fifth richest country in the World

I would put the UK at least 24th on capita/head - behind (as a guess) the following:

USA
Canada
Japan
Singapore
Australia
New Zealand
Germany
France
Norway
Sweden
Denmark
Switzerland
Finland
France
Holland
Belgium
Saudia Arabia
Kuwait
Qater
UAE
Luxembourg
ROI
Austria
 
Is that all they spend it on? Rent, mortgages, caring for family members?

There are people (not me) who say that people are using food banks who also spend money on less essential things like holidays, cigarettes, cars, alcohol, takeaways, mobile phones, TV, etc etc etc. Wouldn't it be a good idea to disprove it rather than just shout down the questioner?

(And I'm not at all sure that food bank users are all good budgeters. We hear far too much about parents who can't afford to buy breakfast for their children and so schools need to have breakfast clubs. Bearing in mind that a breakfast of porridge, or toast and jam, can be had for £1 per week, it isn't just budgeting that's the problem.)

This is one of the most passive aggressive posts I’ve ever seen and it is pathetic.

Some people (but not you of course 🙄) want others to be satisfied with simply existing rather than living.

Oh look, they had a takeaway so it’s their fault they can’t manage. I saw him having a pint, they can’t be struggling etc etc.

People who work full time deserve to have some money left over for luxuries.
 
Is that all they spend it on? Rent, mortgages, caring for family members?

There are people (not me) who say that people are using food banks who also spend money on less essential things like holidays, cigarettes, cars, alcohol, takeaways, mobile phones, TV, etc etc etc. Wouldn't it be a good idea to disprove it rather than just shout down the questioner?

(And I'm not at all sure that food bank users are all good budgeters. We hear far too much about parents who can't afford to buy breakfast for their children and so schools need to have breakfast clubs. Bearing in mind that a breakfast of porridge, or toast and jam, can be had for £1 per week, it isn't just budgeting that's the problem.)


Let’s just expand on this
Today 4m kids are at risk of going without a meal.
Let’s just say one of their parents has a mobile phone
Another smokes
And - they’ve had a camping holiday this year
They just about managed.

Then the government doubled their energy bills and embarked on a number of policies that put their food costs up 20%.

It’s the families fault - let the kids go hungry.



’Have you got some change for a hot drink please’?
Can you show me your bank statement first
 
I was on a ‘ seeing is believing’ tour in East Midlands recently.
The great and the good of the business community touring Nottingham looking at food banks and community larders (where people can buy food cheaper)

it was staggering to see those in foodbanks.
I had conversations with most of these business leaders.

A senior director of a National bank - I read about this stuff and think I’m aware. Then I work with people like me and socialise with people like me. Today it has hit home.

Senior Lawyer - the amount of people I have seen who are clearly in work (lanyards showing) is so upsetting.


What are they spending their money on?
Rent
Mortgages
Caring for family members

It sad that someone wants an itemised list of expenses - why?
These people, in the main, are humble and skint.
Let’s help them
He doesn't want an itemised list. He is a ****. For the benefit of the swear filter a c u next Tuesday.
 
At risk of banging my head against a brick wall, if people are skint and can't afford food it is because - by definition - they have spent the money they have got, on something else. If we know how much money they have coming in, and what it's being spent on, then it would be easier to know what to do about it.
It sounds like the banging your head against a brick wall was done a while ago mate!

Yes, they may well have spent their money on something else. Have you seen house and rent prices?

Do you know how much energy has gone up? Are you criticising people using food banks for also wanting hot water?
 
The thing that bothers me about these selfish people is that unless they are independently wealthy they are one piece of bad luck away from being in the same boat.

Financially we are doing ok but I still try to help others and advocate for those less well off. I could easily be in that position if I suffer ill health, or my employer restructures etc.
 
Can anyone come up with a case study of someone who is collecting all the benefits they are entitled to and cannot afford to buy food? We hear all these numbers about how people must be desperate, and how nurses on full time wages and free childcare and family credit still can't afford the basics of life, and who am I to doubt it. But has anyone got a proper set of figures of an ordinary hard working family's income including benefits, and a list of what they are spending it on, just so those of us a bit better off can see in detail what the problem is and perhaps what we can do to help?
It’s not that people are spending it on the wrong things.

People lose jobs and have thousands worth of financial commitments that can’t just stop, and the support safety net is miles behind what it needs to be.

Benefit claimants are sanctioned for the most ridiculous things leaving them with no income.

Or it could just be a case of someone previously working full time in a decent job, suddenly had their mortgage increased £300 every month and also had a £200 increase in energy bills whilst the price of food practically doubled overnight. No surprise they suddenly can’t manage

It’s not a case of people being stupid enough to be spending hundreds on sky then suddenly not be able to afford food.

The best thing any of us can do is donate to the food banks and don’t vote Tory
 
The thing that bothers me about these selfish people is that unless they are independently wealthy they are one piece of bad luck away from being in the same boat.

Financially we are doing ok but I still try to help others and advocate for those less well off. I could easily be in that position if I suffer ill health, or my employer restructures etc.
Yeah this is true. I often walk past homeless people and think, there but for the grace of god... It nearly happened to me once and it could easily happen again. As could it to most of use who don't own lots of assets
 
Homeless people?
“ Aren’t they the people you have to step over coming out of the opera?“
According to former Tory Minister Sir George Young 😡
 
From Gordon Brown's article in The Guardian:

Poverty will last until doomsday if this Conservative government is all that confronts it. The so-called “budget for growth”, more accurately titled the “budget for growth in poverty”, has done nothing for our 271,000 homeless people, the 400,000 children who tonight will sleep without a bed of their own, the 14 million condemned to damp or substandard housing. Nor will it prevent suffering for the 7.5m UK households who are in fuel poverty.

 
Its not just about losing your job and then struggling anymore.

My example was someone earning the full adult living wage (March 2023) and working full time earning £18,451 gross pay.

We used to have nearly 40% of the population in social housing with subsidised rents, say in 1979.

Now its probably down to less than 15% of the population and its causing real problems, because wages for years have failed to keep up with inflation for people in low paid and quite a number of middle paid jobs.

If I started off as a College lecturer now I would be paid about £24k - in real terms thats a cut of around 25% from the mid 1990s
 
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