It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

Siebrie

I remember when I moved to Brussels, and had to pay the deposit on the studio, I had €50 left (at all), until I got paid about 30 days later at my first job there. I had brought a sleeping bag, a small blowup mattress and a blowup pillow, 1 cutlery set, a plastic cup/plate/bowl, a carving knife and a small lightweight carving board. The landlord and -lady lent me a camping table and camping chair until I could get my furniture out of storage and across the country border (I had to rent a van for that, so had to wait until I got paid!).

I bought a steamer for €23 and had to live on €27 for the rest of the month: food, transport, phone prepaid top-up,... I read the steamer's instruction booklet from front to back and followed the instructions to the minute to make sure there was no wasted food! I quickly figured out that the posh head office I worked at often had leftovers from business lunches, and made sure I kept any small plastic boxes to transport food back to the studio for dinner. I ended up with a severe iron deficit, because I was using a lot of energy walking everywhere, and (unknowingly - I had taken precautions!) pregnant.

After that first month, things improved quickly: a secondhand gas stove, IKEA furniture (a 15-minute walk and a 20-minute tube ride away, I lugged every unassembled chair individually on a trip), a small washing machine...

I read any leaflet I could lay my hands on, local newspapers, etc, just to familiarise myself with a new country, a new social system, available courses, subsidies, taxes/benefits, etc. I've lived here for 14 years, and there are still things I don't know, organisations I don't know, insurances that cover different things than I expect from the name, etc.

Just 2 months of living at this absolute minimum (the 2nd month I spent most of my money catching up) has created something in my psyche: I never want to be there again, but realise I was very lucky; I also know that I can manage, at least for 2 months, and that I need to take care of a more balanced diet if I do.

EssexHebridean

It absolutely is privilege. Privilege can be something you are born with, or something you have worked to earn. As an example - me, a 40-something white able bodied female. I have privilege purely for being white, for not being "old", and for being able bodied. None of those things I have asked for, but regardless, I have advantages handed to me purely for being those things - no effort required. My husband is even better off - he has the absolute perfect scenario - white, male, from what would be seen as a middle class background, able bodied - before you count ANYTHING else into the equation at all he is literally the most privileged demographic possible. We have no mortgage to pay - we worked hard to pay it off early, and went without a LOT of things to do so - it's still privilege to have no housing costs - we may have worked hard to put ourselves i that position, but regardless - having no housing costs is a privilege. I'm on a low income, relatively speaking - if I were living alone I would struggle on my income, living in my area, and would possibly be entitled to some level of UC or similar. However, I live in a two-person household where one party earns a reasonable wage - even if we had housing costs thrown in, we could still afford to pay all our bills, eat, cloth ourselves adequately and put some money into savings - that is privilege - not just for MrEH as the higher earner, but also for me for being in that household position.

Dr Joshua Wolrich is an "influencer" and NHS doctor who's doing a lot of work around the HAES movement, and is outspoken on the subject of privilege and socio-economic factors in health, weight and lifestyle choices - or lack of them. He's well worth a follow for anyone who's interested in such subjects - and I've learned a huge amount thanks to information he's provided links to over the years. A lot of what he says is an eye opener for the many people who've had a degree of privilege in things like ability to drive, and run a car, (or ability to cycle to save on costs of running a car, or indeed access to other forms of easily usable transport) adequate - even if not "good" income, cooking ability, facilities and tools, and most of the other things mentioned in the FB post copied in by ladyholly above. 

The access to cheap food thing is far more of a problem than folk realise I think - even in the UK (that FB post is American in origin, I think). We tend to presume that everyone has easy access to a supermarket for example, but without their own transport that's definitely not the case. Some of the more deprived areas in the Hebrides, as an example, can be literally miles from the nearest supermarket, linked by perhaps just a couple of buses a day. Cycling is an option, but often particularly in the winter, the weather is not suitable for cycling - and by that I mean "not safe" rather than "you'll get cold and wet". Essentially, up there, the ONLY realistic option is to run a car. And before anyone says "oh, but online shopping" - nope, not available across an awful lot of the islands. Even in some urban areas it can be wholly impractical for someone to get to a "cheap" or even standard supermarket - so the "local shop" with it's higher price tickets and more limited stocks is the only viable option. It's not an easy one to fix, either, even once we acknowledge that the problem exists. 

TheAble

Plenty of white, able-bodied 40-somethings are poor. It's not in and of itself a sufficient condition to put you on the road to wealth. I think it's fair to say that most people get to enjoy all those nice things that the poster listed through good honest hard work and diligence.

Granted - many folks are dealt a bad hand and struggle to get past it, but also, there are plenty others who overcome adversity and go onto success. And conversely, so-called "privileged" types born into wealth, given good educations etc who squander it. And everyone in between.

Siebrie

My white-ablebodied-female-(then)thirties privilege meant that when I asked someone if they would buy a postage stamp off of me, they actually did, and I had 85 cents in my wallet to buy food. Whereas if I did not have those privileges, they probably would have ignored me, or even called me names.

-taff

Not sure about 'most people' wh get ot enjoy them. Your words are dangerously close to the stupid idea bandied about that through hard work and diligence anyone can overcome poverty. A stupid idea because this is simply not true at all. It may be possible but there's a lot of luck involved. Imagine you turn up for an interview you can do standing on your head playing a ukelele but only have a suit you could afford to purchase from a charity shop, or not even a suit, a ripped t-shirt and a pair of joggers along with uncut hair because you can't afford it and holey shoes. Do you think an interviewer would give you the job? No, they wouldn't. They would expect you to look smart, be groomed, and that in itself is a privilege.

Yes, there are many social situations ranging from extreme poverty to extreme wealth but the point is that there is a lot of privilege going round and it's easy to demonise poverty as belonging to those who deserve it based on some idiotic centirues past idea of the poor just being too feckless to work hard.. No one deserves it.

EssexHebridean

TheAble said:

Plenty of white, able-bodied 40-somethings are poor. 

Correct - but they still enjoy privilege, regardless. Were they black, and disabled, they would be in a worse position than your white able-bodied example.  That's precisely the point. 

@Siebrie an excellent example - I'd add "or, assume you'd stolen the stamp in the first place" to your list of alternatives, too!

timehastoldme

There was a study done, outlined in the book freakonomics that looked at job success based on names. People with white sounding names were 50%  more likely to get job call backs than those with black sounding names having the same qualification's.

Systemic privilege isn't negated by individual circumstance. Yes, some white able bodied 40 something's are poor. I'm a white able bodied 41 year old who has the privilege of being poor partly by choice. I earn below my capacity because a nervous breakdown taught me that thrashing myself at a job that doesn't love me back just isn't worth the time. I grew up poor, in a poor part of the Midlands and was lucky enough to get to university. I did a masters degree after and on my first day  met a girl of Indian background, born in the UK, her dad was a GP and they were comparatively wealthy. 

That first day, I had an admin ask my name, it's very white Irish, then say she knew I'd be less trouble, eyeballing the browner students. (She got trouble from me). Later in the year my friend got accused of plagiarism and when she asked for the evidence, their evidence was that she had an Indian name and the quality of written English was too good. My privilege is that I won't be eyeballed as trouble because I look or sound foreign. I won't be accused of cheating because of the colour of my skin. I was broke, living in a rough area and living on air and black coffee, but still had insane levels of privilege.

ladyholly

Personally I think one of the greatest privileges that people can have is a decent education. I don't mean private school. I do mean that you can read, write and do basic arithmetic to a resonable level. With these skills you can, to a certain extent educate yourself. There are too many people who for whatever reason lack these skills. 
Budgeting without them is tough, getting a good job is almost impossible, not getting ripped off because you can't read t & cs is possible.
No matter what those of us on here have or don't have we all have this privilege. 

TheAble

-taff said:

Not sure about 'most people' wh get ot enjoy them. Your words are dangerously close to the stupid idea bandied about that through hard work and diligence anyone can overcome poverty. A stupid idea because this is simply not true at all. It may be possible but there's a lot of luck involved. Imagine you turn up for an interview you can do standing on your head playing a ukelele but only have a suit you could afford to purchase from a charity shop, or not even a suit, a ripped t-shirt and a pair of joggers along with uncut hair because you can't afford it and holey shoes. Do you think an interviewer would give you the job? No, they wouldn't. They would expect you to look smart, be groomed, and that in itself is a privilege.

Yes, there are many social situations ranging from extreme poverty to extreme wealth but the point is that there is a lot of privilege going round and it's easy to demonise poverty as belonging to those who deserve it based on some idiotic centirues past idea of the poor just being too feckless to work hard.. No one deserves it.

It may be your opinion that it's stupid but I don't think it's stupid at all. I do believe most (*most*) will do well through hard work, education/self-education, living below one's means, saving and investing and so on. You've given an extreme example there of going to an interview in a ripped t-shirt and joggers but that's just not true of most people.

Calling this stuff "privilege" is I know popular in the current times but it's too easy to do so and to a degree lazy. I.e. "He/she has done well and therefore the reason for that is because they have privilege. I am not doing well and therefore the reason must be that I don't have privilege - not my fault."

EssexHebridean

Could I ask TheAble - for transparency, would you be willing to provide some details of your demographic group/background etc? Obviously nothing identifiable, perhaps just the basics, skin colour, gender, class and a rough idea of age?  On the question of -taff's point about the interview - I'll give you a slightly different take on that one. The person concerned has managed to get a charity shop suit - it's out of fashion - clearly dated, but it's clean and "just" fits. They haven't been able to have a haircut, but it's clean, and tied back. The money has run out before getting to shoes though - their only option is a pair of trainers. How much better do you think they would have to perform at interview to get the position over someone who turns up looking immaculate and with well polished formal footwear on? Assuming all things are equal in terms of performance, how the interview goes etc - who do YOU think would get the job? 

As a side note NOT aimed at anyone in particular - it's quite common for those with innate privilege to be resistant to the idea that they have it, and it's entirely understandable - if something has always just "been there" then we simply take it for granted - it's part of us in the same way that our teeth, nails, hair etc might be. It's only when something happens to shake that assurance, or when it grabs our interest in a way that means we're keen to learn more that perhaps we start to understand that privilege is definitely a thing - and no, not just an invention by "millenial wokeists", either!