Money Moral Dilemma: Should someone who earns a decent wage use food banks?

Ed264

You describe this person as 'someone I know' which doesn't say she is a friend. You could offer to try to help with her finances if you're able to and you're comfortable with that, but other than that I wouldn't say anything - you could well fall out with her. Surely it's down to the food bank to ascertain if their 'customer' meets the criteria.

Bonnypitlad

These “situations” are all hypothetical and if you post a response that is any way “controversial” the “Be Nice Police” at MSE will delete it!, so what’s the point in responding?
”let them eat cake”

Thomas_Holding

Ed264 said:

You describe this person as 'someone I know' which doesn't say she is a friend. You could offer to try to help with her finances if you're able to and you're comfortable with that, but other than that I wouldn't say anything - you could well fall out with her. Surely it's down to the food bank to ascertain if their 'customer' meets the criteria.

In my experience it is very hard to help people manage their finances sadly.

pumpkin89

Should I tell her she's being selfish by potentially denying people in greater need than her, or am I judging her too harshly? 

IMO it's not so much that she is taking some of the food, it's more that seeing (or hearing about) people who appear to be well off using food banks is likely to put others off donating to them.  Perhaps it's uncharitable, but when I donate I am intending to help those who don't have enough resources, not those who misuse them.

annieshb

This is why ai no longer donate to Food Bank. Always donated when people had to be needy to get help.

arnoldy

Bonnypitlad said:

These “situations” are all hypothetical and if you post a response that is any way “controversial” the “Be Nice Police” at MSE will delete it!, so what’s the point in responding?
”let them eat cake”

Hopefully (as long as posts are clean and polite) MSE wont get into cancel culture and thought police land, where only certain views are allowed and any sophisticated debate of opposing opinions suppressed. TBF they are quite good.

dipsy_lewis

arnoldy said:

sarah1972 said:

Our local food bank and community store requires proof of benefits to ‘try’ to help those more in need 

They are often the ones who are better off than many! housing (repairs and maintenance) paid for, and if they have been signed off as "disabled" then more money, plus X-claiming carers allowance for each other etc, plus £1350 cost of living + free TV + Warm front discount, all index linked, and plus this and that.

Meanwhile the grafters get little - working all hours and battling on, I just wish they could be rewarded and recognised. You know who they are, taxi drivers, cleaners, bus drivers, hospitality workers, shop workers etc

How do they get "free TV"? 

To be getting disabled benefit 99% of claimants have a disability, (might not be obvious to the untrained eye but some disabilitys are not phycially obvious, but DWP do assess and actually those that should get it often have to go to tribunal to get it, they don't just hand disability benefit out to anyone - its super hard to get)

How do you know what they are claiming?  and where is the £1350 figure coming from

You have to be on UC to get the COL payment not disabiltiy payments,, or are you wrapping different claims into one. 

To get warm home payment you are either qualifying on low income threshold or age 

If someone can't feed themselves or their family then they should access food banks, no one in this day and age should go without at least one meal a day :-( 

Maat

You can never truly know what is going on with someone. There can be issues you know nothing about. A friend of mine, for instance, borrows money off me not because she needs it but because she's been helping out her daughter who, in turn, is being rinsed by her godawful father. There can be mental health issues at work, too. I'm autistic and have terrible trouble with budgeting. Even when I could really do with doing it I simply can't. Some years ago when I was on Jobseekers Allowance I was offered a food bank voucher, and I really needed it at the time, too. But my mental health was far too poor to enable me to even get to the food bank. Being autistic and agoraphobic meant I could neither budget nor go and get food for myself.

I believe Moneysavingexpert has advice on how to create a budget. It could be worth sharing that with her and offering to help if she needs it. If she felt more in control she may be better able to cope with quite a few things.

elsien

annieshb said:

This is why ai no longer donate to Food Bank. Always donated when people had to be needy to get help.

sarah1972 said:

Our local food bank and community store requires proof of benefits to ‘try’ to help those more in need 

Define needy and how you assess that?
I usually donate pet food to the food banks - cue the comments about people shouldn’t have pets if they can’t afford them. 

We none of us know when our circumstances will change unexpectedly and aside from anything else, has anyone tried rehoming a cat of late when all the shelters are full?
Appearances can be deceiving. 

bondgirl44dd

i go to a foodbank every 2 weeks in my works capacity to try and help point people in the right direction for benefits they might be entitled to that they are unaware of. Quite a few "regulars" started bringing friends and neighbours and i suggested to the foodbank which is run  by church volunteers ,that they ask people for proof of benefits and that they have been stopped (as this is what a few were saying). Once this had been put in place, there was a reduction in the amount of times these people were coming. I'm all for people using them who desperately need to, however many are on more more than i earn, so they do need to learn to manage their money better. In my job i go through people's income/ expenditure and it's often the case when they tell me they have no money left, that actually once the main bills are paid for they do have quite a bit more disposable income than they thought. I will suggest they look at phone and tv packages to see if they can get better deals