Who on this forum considers themselves poor.

alanthemanc

According to some sort of " study group", they say if you are without an income of £350.00 per week, you are living in poverty, therefore I am living in abject poverty.
There must be millions of others, who else, and where did they get that figure from. Alanthemanc

tjt6768

Is that per couple or person Rkid :shock: if it's power person I'd better get mi begging cap. Couple, still not sure we are there...
I get bugger all and the rent comes out of that for a start..

traluvie

When i think of poverty i think of the children in Africa and many other countries..
I do not think the majority can class ourselves as poor.
I have been in situations many a times when i am down to my last £1 till payday(and i've worked all my life untill now) and even then i can't say i was poor as i had roof over my head, food in cupboards, gas electric, tv /cable/phone and mobile phone contract..That doesn't sound poor to me..
At the moment my OH has got himself a good job(temporary till work runs out) which gets us over the 350 a wk, but we still do not lead an extrazagant life, we don't even go out as we cannot afford to waste money, now the children are back at school we have alot more expense..So although i do not think we are poor i do believe the majority of us live just within our means to provide a comfortable life for themselves, now adays we can not be as generous as we once were due to recession and many other things, but aslong as my kids are loved, warm clothed and they have a roof over there head i'm happy, rich, poor or inbetween..

tkachev

I feel far from poor. I do worry about the heating bills, but mostly on other peoples behalf.
I have savings and no mortgage but also no pension so it is then that I probably will struggle big time.

Elizabeth

alanthemanc

Mel/ Elizabeth.traluvie
It does seeem strange to say your in poverty on £350 per week..... however, once youv'e taken your essential bills, food etc, you would probably be borderline broke. Alanthemanc

tjt6768

It seems I am now invisible to Alan. Have I offended you in some way?

alanthemanc

tjt6768.
Sorry Tony, I forgot, I was too busy eating my impoverished meal of beans on toast for my tea. Alanthemanc

tjt6768

alanthemanc wrote:

tjt6768.
Sorry Tony, I forgot, I was too busy eating my impoverished meal of beans on toast for my tea. Alanthemanc

Lol, you are forgiven matey... Hope that you enjoyed the lavish meal
I hope that you didn't splurge and buy 'brand' beans :eek: :eek:

dreamdaisy

Am I poor? In financial terms yes. My little business is getting ever closer to ending due to my health (I earned less than £150 over the summer holidays which made life tough) and it's not picking up much now we are in term time as my clients are feeling the financial strain of the current climate. I am fortunate, however, in that Mr DD continues to work, seven days a week sometimes, and that is keeping various wolves from our door.

Thank to arthritis I am time-rich (as it takes longer and longer to achieve less and less) and thanks to AC I am friend-rich. Life is not easy, though why I think it should be is beyond me. DD

valval

we both work and we are poor but rich in love val

NinaKKang

We'd probably be better off if I had less shoes... as my OH would say. We're quite fortunate, really, I count my lucky stars. However, we have what we have because we're careful with our money and don't splurge ridiculously: we're not paid HUGE amounts of money, but we earn good wages, both of us.

Tracy, I couldn't have put it better than you though.

Nxx

barbara12

It does get harder has time goes on...mostly down to paying bills...but we are not on our own
Like Rehab says how have the government got the cheek to tell us to tighten our belts and pull together when they are living in luxury.
I wont mention what else he said...ooooh

jillyb1

My hubby had to give up work a few years back to care for me ; so yes , we're not wealthy ( carers' allowance doesn't go far ! ) , but I am very happy , have a fantastic husband , 3 loving kids a son in law and 2 daughters in law . I am very fortunate indeed . Jillyb

joann1

Im living in total poverty then!!

rondetto

I'm so poor I have to wait for my wife to eat her dinner, so I can have the teeth to eat mine.

Melrymax

According to that figure. I am also poor. I wouldn't say I was in poverty but I wouldn't say I was comfortable either. Just about getting by I suppose.

Stu69

rondetto wrote:

I'm so poor I have to wait for my wife to eat her dinner, so I can have the teeth to eat mine.

Does the good lady clean all the food from them first though? My Wife would - never one to miss an opportunity! :roll:

Stu69

This is an interesting topic really.

Some wealth is inherited, some - pure luck. Some wealth is from grasping opportunity, and accordingly means an element of risk that many folks - me included - can't or won't take. Some get theirs on the back of financial investment like bricks an mortar for example. Some is won too.

But if you work hard for low income and can't make investment or didn't get a silver spoon, or can't afford a house, or didn't take that risk way back when, or didn't win the lottery, then wealth was never there for the taking or making. This applies to the majority, IMHO.

Now, my situation is of my own (un)doing. I bought my first house at 19 years old! A divorce at age 27 and the crash on the housing market put me 25k in debt!

Jobs have always been blue collar for me so I was never going to become rich, or really comfy come to that without helping myself, which to be honest, financially I never really did either; couldn't really afford too! Mis-sold endowments - mis-sold pensions. Some of it my mistake, no?

I've never been one to be out of work unless I just simply couldn't get anything... I mean, I was a brickie until the 80's crash and day rates went from £140 a day to sometimes £30 or £40, if any work at all, so, I took a PCV license and drove coaches and double deckers for 3 years. Then I got back into a good(ish) job working nights for London Underground, as a sign fitter, but then got made redundant from that so I took up my hackney license in Hastings and went cab driving to fill in. That lasted 7 years - never made my fortune on that for sure, but I could have left earlier looking for a better paid job too, couldn't I? My fault!!! So, currently, I've been lucky in having this last job for 8 years and it pays OK but my Wife has to work full time too just so we can make the large (ish) mortgage on a humble EOT house so we have bugger all left beyond food, bills and what-not. Certainly, savings are impossible ATM.

Regarding the mortgage, I married for the 2nd time nearly 11 years to an amazing girl, but we couldn't buy a house, so we spent dead money in renting for a while before finally getting a 100% mortgage when they were still possible 7 years ago. Yup, right at the height of the last housing market 'peak'. We cleared our respective 'divorce' debts debt by taking a combined loan/mortgage package and now the house is worth less than we paid! Our fault, or timing, or both, or what? In fact our boiler has just broke - the car failed MOT at same time but is needed for Wife's work so the boiler won't be repaired until next year - seriously!!

I'm not griping at all - we have a home, and a 14 year old crappy car and a busted boiler but on the face of it with a combined income of over 40K before tax we would look comfortable-ish.... but we haven't had a holiday together for years either... again - no griping from us and surely things will get easier in time as long as this fricken RA doesn't make my employer see any cracks in my ability to do what I do, and I have done some bl00dy stupid things in order to actually roll in at 8.30 every morning to keep earning enough. Oh, and in regards to RA, we can't afford me to take a day off sick as I have no sick pay scheme either. One day off is almost no food for the week for the family. I love the challenge sometimes... NOT.

What the gist of my long-winded post is, is that I made some crap decisions, got an equal amount (as everyone does) of bad luck, and didn't make any luck 'happen' either. Actually, I dunno what the gist of it was now, but I honestly feel that a lot of my own decisions were not the best but I always tried to keep earning. Now for loads of folks that is impossible, or work isn't there anyway.

So, we 'look' poor but the figures look OK! Go figure?

*edit* ^^^ sounds like a rant - not meant to be, honest! :oops:

joanlawson

That was a very interesting post, Stu. I think you speak for many people who work hard all their lives, but sometimes things happen which are not their fault. Crashes in the housing market, mis-sold endowments, mis-sold pensions, redundancy, unemployment etc are all things beyond your control. I don't think you can blame yourself for bad decisions: everyone does the best they can at the time and no-one knows what lies ahead. I don't know how you can make luck happen; it either does or it doesn't.
We started married life in a tiny rented flat, and with £13 between us when we came back from honeymoon, but I do think we've been very lucky and are now happily retired with our pensions.

I think that more and more it's taking two people to earn enough for a decent standard of living, especially if you have a family to support. I hope that you and your wife can manage to scrape together enough to get the boiler repaired as I hate to think of you shivering through the winter.

Joan

Stu69

Hi Joan,

Yours sounds a very similar story to my parents actually... they married (as my mum is fond of telling me) with nowt but 3 quid to their name and a pack of lamb chops for their tea. Oh, and I came along after the lamb chops were a distant memory - the flippin cheek... I LOVE lamb chops... got to be rare though, just not 42 years out of date!

I feel sorry for young people now too - I mean, we have a daughter now in 3rd year at uni and we can't afford to subsidise her beyond the odd food parcel and her room back when she needs it, although she's met a nice chap and they now have a cute little flat in Brighton and he has a good job with amex since graduating with a chemistry degree! :roll:

We're relatively happy in all manners but obviously asset and cash poor, but have a nice home we've worked on, and the car can wait another year or two and I'm sure things will improve but again - we just don't moan, but then we don't or haven't tried working for ourselves, which is something we both have the intelligence for, but not the cash to start up or indeed the want to risk the safety we have and tread or jump into the unknown... yet!

The boiler will be OK. Wouldn't mind but I spent £350 getting a repair done 4 months ago only for it to blooming fail again... a 7 year old boiler which was new(ish) when we moved in! I'll buy some panel heaters from B&Q and the water is on immersion now so it's alllll goooood! I mean, central heating used to be a luxury didn't it! Just don't EVER buy a ruddy Potterton Promax boiler - that's all I'm saying! :roll:

Anyhoooo...I work as an estimator in the building trade now so am fortunate that I do have a friend who is a reg'd gas fitter who is trying to get to the bottom of the fault with the boiler so it may be that I can get the flipping thing at least working until we can afford to replace it next year.

Stu.

frogmorton

Great thread Alan.....

and Stu and Joan

My Mum and Dad had a similar start too....they married and had a shilling between them (they met and married in 4 weeks), they treated themselves to a cuppa and a record on the jukebox in a cafe and that was it about 6d left. They stayed married and managed 42 years before my Dad died.

My Dad was a Hungarian immigrant and he worked hard, got 100% mortgage in about 1967. We moved house many times while they reduced that mortgage (buying wrecks and doing them up)They paid it off by 1976. My Dad was a hard-working risk-taker.


I have had my share of eating the kids left overs for definite and things are not that bad now so no l do NOT consider myself poor at all. very lucky in fact. Not as lucky as the 'fat cats' Rehab describes of course.

I am not happy that my MIL has an ever decreasing amount to live on as her saving are paying out less and less interest due to this recession. I do not feel even slightly responsible for this recession as l have NEVER lived above my means or had a credit card. Neither has my MIL :x

Shut up Toni :oops: .

Love

Toni xx

dreamdaisy

Is income an indicator of happiness or success? People with massive incomes are perfectly capable of being sad, unhappy and depressed, just like those with tiny incomes. Money does not guarantee happiness (which is vastly over-rated anyway, contentment is far longer-lasting).

In our materialistic society some people apparently feel 'marginalised' if they do not have the latest Iphone or Ipad, super-duper all-singing-all-dancing computer, a new car (or preferably two) sitting on the drive, at least two holidays abroad every year, the latest in kitchens and bathrooms etc etc etc. We are losing sight of being satisfied with the basic essentials of life. I realise that that statement is a sweeping generalisation but there are some grains of truth in it! Alan's original premise that one can be regarded as 'poor' with a weekly income around £350 is accurate: how much of that goes on rent/mortgage, utilities and tax? A helluva lot would be my guess. I think this is more to do with being satisifed with one's lot and if not then it is up to the individual to improve said lot. DD

skezier

Hi Alan,

That's a question that somebody who is poor wouldn't say yes to I think.

We h\ve so much poverty this way and its so easily seen in the run down way the streets and general area has become.

Camborne especially has real poverty issues, its never really recovered from the mine closing and well do I consider my self poor....

I am not really at all materialistic so its not so easy to gage.

i have been very poor... never claimed state benefit cus well its not what you do is it?! Well not from my generation anyway I like Stu cam unstuck big time in the 80's but it also gave me the riches of my own way of life and the joy of being at one with nature... hell i sound like a real hippie but.....

If the figures you say mean the poverty line is that high well 7/8th of Cornwall qualifies as poor....

Mind it was named as the second most poor place in the EU..... Those figures I think most the UK is poor to be honest. I am broke most the time but never poor cus we have riches of a different kind I guess....

I so agree with Tracy there is true poverty in this world and well compared to them I am a millionaire.

Are the poverty line figures really that high? Good thread but still say a poor person is not it going to say they are. Cris x

Stu I been cold a lot in winter and you need to have heat so I hope so much that your either can get the boiler done or find an alternative. People being cold worry me. Cris x

Ankyspond

I wouldn't say we are poor but we are struggling, three kids one at uni and two more going. I have had to go to working three days a week due to Arthritis and life is very tough at the minute for eveyone. Easy to say you earn so much but everything costs so much more now.

I believe I am the wealthiest woman in the world as I have three wonderful, healthy kids and a lovely husband so although life gets tough sometimes no money could buy that. xxx (thats my sentimental moment for the day)

frogmorton

Cris

you are right l think being cold can actaully kill you :shock:

At least get hats all round eh Stu?

We have some of those electric halogen fires which use very little electricity (recommended by someone off here . I use them when l am here and the others aren't. and we have an oil filled radiator as well.

Love Toni xx

tkachev

Oh Toni how lovely. Music, a cuppa and gazing into each others eyes. Did he ever return to Hungary for a visit?

E x