when you reach breaking point

mrsrwallace

Thanks Spirit, that is true. This year has been the worst year ever for us financially and we have always paid our way but this year has just been horrendous. I can honestly say that if it were not for my parents helping out, my children would now be sitting malnourished and underweight. That is awful in the 21st Century and coming from a background where we were not loaded but comfortable to now having nothing. I aso agree with some posters who have said about not speaking out about this.... not very many people in my "real" life know of my circumstances and I would not feel comfortable telling them either as although I know it is a widespread problem nobody talks about it freely.

GreyQueen

Lots of very interesting POV and my heart goes out to so many posters who are in dire straits. I have serious health problems which limit the amount of work which I can do (the amount of anything I can do) and have been warned that they could catastrophically worsen at any time. Plus, as a single person, there isn't a partner to pick up the slack. Just grateful I only have aging parents and a disabled brother to worry about, not a brace of growing children to feed and clothe.

I've read some very interesting stuff over the years which points to the fact that in the UK and USA, growth in real incomes for most people ceased in the early 1970s. What masked the stagnation of incomes relative to expenditures were several facts; the widespread presence of married/ partnered women bringing in a second income, cheap goods from under-developed countries, insane house-price inflation and a culture of debt. A lot of that is coming unravelled about now.

I was chatting to a lovely bloke from Lithuania last year, with excellent English and good qualifications, who'd migrated into the UK with his wife and their two pre-school children. He could find work but not work paying enough to support his family at even the most modest levels. I had to explain, very gently, that it has not been possible for most people to raise a family on a single wage in this country for about 30 years. And we have the most expensive childcare in Europe, so it's equally hard to work when you have children who need constant supervision.

I don't do migrant-bashing but I have considerable concerns about the safety of people who have come into the UK in recent years. If the economy gets much worse, and benefits are stopped or reduced, some of the more loutish elements of society might see them as easy targets for their rage. We've had some very nasty incidents here already in my city, and hate crimes against incomers are increasing steadily.

The gulf between the richest and the poorest in Britain has been steadily widening in my lifetime and the division was only widened under New Labour. We are now back at levels of inequality last seen in the earliest years of twentieth century. It's absolutely sickening. And our Soveriegn Wealth Fund from North Sea Oil, where is that? Other countries in Europe haven't been so profligate with their resources. And I've posted elsewhere on OS before about the unutterable idiocy of Mr Brown flogging off our gold for so little.

The more unequal a society is, the more unstable it is, the greater mental distress experienced by individuals, and the greater crime perpetrated. Britian is the world's 6th largest economy at the moment, and we're sliding backwards into harsher times than many of us will have known before.

When I look around at the economy, I can see that a lot of the businesses are based on selling non-essential goods and services and these are going to be vulnerable to the belt-tightening which so many of us will be doing.

In my 60s-70s childhood, a childrens' party was about a dozen kids at the birthday child's house, jam sarnies and jelly, pass the parcel, musical chairs and a homemade cake. We never had playbarns or party bags, a lot of stuff I see parents doing was either not heard of, or was done on a much smaller scale in-house, as it were. You can extrapolate the concept across a lot of areas from personal grooming (nail bars, tanning parlours, pluckers and waxers etc) to processed food and packed lunches.

It's going to be pretty darned rough on a lot of people and I can only hope that we'll stand together and help each other as and where we can.

ETA rising, bus services inside this city are extortionate, so much so that pretty much the only people using them are those with free bus passes. I walk within the city centre and bike up to a couple of miles out. Three years ago I could get to my parents' town (30 miles away) on a £5.20 return. Costs £14.20 now. And there have been no pay increases to mediate that increase.

missindecisive

An interesting thread, reassuring to read that as a family, we are not on our own. Dh has had a job change through no fault of his own and we now find ourselves on the same wage he was earning in 2009. The household is run on a strict budget, with hardly any room for unexpected expenses that could crop up. W e never have treats, like takeaways or meals out. Always use coupons where we can, wear second hand clothes, cut our own hair,seem to have cut back on absolutley everything we can. We havn't had a holiday this year and probably won't for the next few years. The kids have more money than us to spend on themselves, from their birthdays etc ! every utility bill has been examined/changed to a cheaper tariff, im really beginning to wonder where we can cut back next, theres nothing left to cut back on !
just remembering years ago, when it was just me, dh and the dogs, we didn't have a care in the world. if we wanted to go somewhere, we just got in the car and went, without a thought for our fuel or how many miles we were going, or how much it would cost us! We were carefree and never gave money a second thought. Now I seem to spend my entire thoughts thinking about money, and how we will manage to get by. its sad.

Syman

we moved from london to the burbs due to my getting a new job. The job thing was planned and discussed at great length with the wife as the basic wage and extra costs meant we would be at least £5K per year worse off. the pay off would be a much better quality of life in relation to the areas we lived, and where we are now. Previously we had a tesco within walking distance and used it like a corner shop, getting fresh veg and whatnot daily. Now we have to do a weekly shop. When we first moved a year ago, the shop came to about £80-90 on average, now we average £110 - 120. which is an increase of 25% or thereabouts.

This increase was not factored in when we did the sums, but we can survive relatively easily, just not able to save as much as before.

My main gripe is about public transport (locally, Greater london is another issue). To go to town with DW and DD would cost over£7 by bus, I could drive and park for up to four hours for £3.

sophlowe45

bluebag wrote: »

Travel is a big cost for us, I really don't know how you get around that. You can't subsitute anything for petrol and don't get me started on public transport costs. Since deregulation it's gone into orbit!

Blubag - only thing i can think of is get a bike. I've seen places where they do bike repairs for free, to rescue bikes that would otherwise be thrown away. Projects where homeless people repair old bikes for example. I'm sure more people in Greece and Spain use bikes now but have not looked into statistics.

Or even a scooter, they use less petrol then a car.

Rural areas make London travel look cheap!

Rainy-Days

mrsrwallace wrote: »

I aso agree with some posters who have said about not speaking out about this.... not very many people in my "real" life know of my circumstances and I would not feel comfortable telling them either as although I know it is a widespread problem nobody talks about it freely.

I suspect it is more to do with an element of shame. I mean shame in the nicest possible sense of not wanting to hang their dirty laundry out for everyone to see. That actually you are coping on the outside, even though on the inside it is anything but. Years ago I recall my late mum saying that you don't know what goes on behind someone's front door, it is more true today than it has ever been. While we, on the face of it, have more than our parents ever had, we are - according to economists - having a tougher time of it. I see no end in sight of this belt tightening.

Prepareathome is right, people are car booting, selling stuff on Ebay and generally cutting their cloths even tighter than before. I rememmber when I first had my mortgage back in the early 1990's and it was at 15% interest rate, my mum loved it because it meant her savings were in boom time - I hated it because I was paying out shed loads of money on my mortgage - but you know what I coped. It was hard, but I did tick over and I was able to buy myself the odd nice thing.

I don't think people are able to just keep the wolf from their doors now, I think the wolf is sitting at their dining table licking his lips. What we have is a situation called Stagflation which means stagnant economy and rising inflation, it's a nightmare to control. No one seems to want to talk about it. One of my good friends is pretty honest and open when we do discuss finances and they are scrimping like mad. Both of them work, but money is tight. The one thing that comes out of our conversations everytime is her saying "you know what I am sick of it, really sick of having no money".

If I go into town I find car parking spaces where I don't have to pay to park and have a longer walk into town, because that extra £1.60 parking does make the difference to me. I have the car tax this month and two new tyres are needed on the car - that may have to go on the credit card and I pay it off next month. I don't like having to do that, but it goves me a four week breathing space and I am doing a car boot next week so that will go some way to the car fund. When I got a tax credit that was swallowed up with stocking the freezer up. Things are really bad for allot of people and whether it is this stiff upper lip of we don't discuss things like this, but everyone - if you listen to what they say - is cutting back in some way. Colleagues are not having the flash holidays abroad this year, settling for a cheaper foreign holiday instead. If you look and listen you will see we are far from alone, the breadline has already happened for allot of people.

I will give you a big clue as to how things are bad. Two years ago a peg manufacturer and washing line/rotary line manufacturer said that their sales had shot through the roof recently and that sales of their goods were at an all time high. They suspect that people had ditched the tumble driers and opted for the cheaper way of drying their clothes outside on the line. Now I know this to be true, because one of my colleagues always used to have her tumble dryer on the go, then last year she let slip that she had left her washing on the line and hoped it didn't rain. Now I was surprised by this, but someone else beat me to it and said "I thought you didn't have a washing line"? To which she replied that they had to cut back and the cost of running the drier was an area that was costing them substanially. She never gave an indepth reason as to what was going on, but clearly money was tight. So there you go, what may seem affluent on the out is anything but on the in.

Ada_Doom

"I don't do migrant-bashing but I have considerable concerns about the safety of people who have come into the UK in recent years. If the economy gets much worse, and benefits are stopped or reduced, some of the more loutish elements of society might see them as easy targets for their rage. We've had some very nasty incidents here already in my city, and hate crimes against incomers are increasing steadily. " Spot on Grey Queen

When times are tough there is always an element of looking to place blame and our British Media are happy to fuel this with stories of immigrants who live in mansions with 10 kids. This is a tiny minority of benefit claimants but people latch onto these stories and regurgitate them as the cause of our economic woes.

We live in a rich country where the rich have got richer than ever in the past few years, while child poverty is rising. The government should feel ashamed that working people are not paid enough to support themselves and their families without having to rely on benefits to top them up. Raise the minumum wage to a living wage for a start. And we should be angry that there are people on these boards who limit what food they eat and how often they have the heating on in winter because they live in poverty, it is Dickensian. I have read of adults who only eat one meal a day, or don't allow any CH on in the middle of winter. These are not the folks who have money but just get a kick out of not spending it, these are people living on the bones of their !!!!!!.

My heart goes out to all those in need, and with Universal Credit coming in next year to replace benefits it is going to be impossible for some, especially the disabled. We need to be angry, and we need to be angry with the right people....and it's not immigrants!

bluebag

sophlowe45 wrote: »

Blubag - only thing i can think of is get a bike. I've seen places where they do bike repairs for free, to rescue bikes that would otherwise be thrown away. Projects where homeless people repair old bikes for example. I'm sure more people in Greece and Spain use bikes now but have not looked into statistics.

Or even a scooter, they use less petrol then a car.

Rural areas make London travel look cheap!

Sadly I can't even bike it , old sick body too crocked out! LOL.
Not bad enough for mobilty payment stuff, but still too duff to cycle.
I just use shank's pony and me old battered tartan shopping trolley. I get there but I'm at the opposite end of the transport spectrum to the limousine.

Onwards and upwards one and all!:)

Popperwell

This will sound so political and it is but this thread is the "Real World" the "silent majority" talking, the real population of the UK...Hello media and politicians care to see how ordinary people who are unemployed(but looking for work as most are)the sick, the vulnerable...

As said elsewhere as most are on the NMW they are struggling too(A new foodbank has just opened 7 miles away from here)how many more will we see and more to the point how many of those donating will be able to before they need help? Or the soup kitchens open?

Depressing but at least we did have two documentaries showing the skewed and twisted tests the sick have to go through a few weeks a go and one showing people using the food banks...that should've dispelled the idea that its always the unemployed that use them...

I have long term health troubles not unlike GQ and Lame wolf and I do wonder what the future holds and I am single too...

And yes, it's true about the public transport costs and it is not available much at weekends or evenings so without your own transport you are more or less a prisoner in your home...no wonder people feel isolated...

My food store is my own version of a food bank I guess...

Popperwell

Ada_Doom wrote: »

"I don't do migrant-bashing but I have considerable concerns about the safety of people who have come into the UK in recent years. If the economy gets much worse, and benefits are stopped or reduced, some of the more loutish elements of society might see them as easy targets for their rage. We've had some very nasty incidents here already in my city, and hate crimes against incomers are increasing steadily. " Spot on Grey Queen

When times are tough there is always an element of looking to place blame and our British Media are happy to fuel this with stories of immigrants who live in mansions with 10 kids. This is a tiny minority of benefit claimants but people latch onto these stories and regurgitate them as the cause of our economic woes.

We live in a rich country where the rich have got richer than ever in the past few years, while child poverty is rising. The government should feel ashamed that working people are not paid enough to support themselves and their families without having to rely on benefits to top them up. Raise the minumum wage to a living wage for a start. And we should be angry that there are people on these boards who limit what food they eat and how often they have the heating on in winter because they live in poverty, it is Dickensian. I have read of adults who only eat one meal a day, or don't allow any CH on in the middle of winter. These are not the folks who have money but just get a kick out of not spending it, these are people living on the bones of their !!!!!!.

My heart goes out to all those in need, and with Universal Credit coming in next year to replace benefits it is going to be impossible for some, especially the disabled. We need to be angry, and we need to be angry with the right people....and it's not immigrants!

Thank you, so many times I have said what you have. Where are the living wages...many employers are able to get away paying the NMW and letting the Government still pick up the slack so you work but still claim from the State...