tightening our belts

4allweknow The ones in the shopping malls are the ones that have the money, those who are desperate for every penny, needing to use food banks, worried sick about paying their rent and fuel bills and those just above that level do not frequent shopping malls, and do not flock to the nail bars there.

At a shopping mall you are seeing a skewed sample of the affluent population, not a random sample including everyone in the population.

There will certainly be people who are struggling. As most ordinary folk will be cutting back I still find it hard to understand how people have managed to buy very expensive phones, pay £40 a month subscription when there are packages for £6.00, have nearly every tv package you can imagine. I visit a mall about twice weekly and the nail, eyebrow bars are mobbed. I do not live in an affluent town, quite the contrary and yet without fail I see people, even children, with takeaway cups from the well known coffee shops. There is a way of life now that a lot see as "essential" whilst others deem to be extravagance. Bought 1st house (a doer upper) @ 8% interest and that was normal. Lived with the 15% very early 90s. No government aid was offered then. It's the fuel and food costs that the majority ofpeople need help with but a little bit of learning to make do wouldn't go amiss for some.

Cooberpedi no don't apologise you've raused a good point. I agree that over the years it's become a land of plenty and unlike people of a certain age some don't really know what it is like to manage on basics and low income.
Some need help with understanding the concept of managing on very little, home cooking and budgeting.

I think there’s a balance to be sought here. It is true that many people today consider things “ necessities “ that were once counted luxuries. Cell phones, food variety and just an abundance of things and clothing. All of which were either absolutely unavailable or simply out of reach for most folks 40 or 50+ years ago.

And there are many who have reached adulthood in an era of easy credit and low interest rates which has encouraged spending beyond our means.

But it isn’t possible in every case ( or even many cases) to go back to the vegetable garden/penny punchibg/ austerity measures of bygone days.

I’ve helped my own children find ways that they can economize that suit their lives as they are instead of the life I led at their age. Each generation must find its own way.

geekesse

Smoking takes the edge off hunger, and is easier to access than prescription medications for stress and anxiety. I’m not condoning a nicotine habit, but I understand why those in poverty may choose to smoke.

The cost of smoking:
10 a day costs over £38 per week / £165 per month.
20 a day costs over £76 a week / £330 per month.
No-one in poverty could possibly afford this.

People going on strike are saying rightly that unless they get a rise above inflation it will still be like a pay cut. What about the elderly who are on a very low pensions and if they are on a work pension might be also very low ? If we have a little money invested we are probably just earning 0.05 interest. We have no means of taking a job to help as too old or jobs would rightly go to younger people.

Who is fighting for us ? We can’t go on strike.

The people I really feel for are pensioners and the disabled on a fixed income. Younger fitter people can always get themselves some kind of side hustle to add to the family income. This avenue may not be open to older people and those with mobility issues.

jane1956

how many who "are struggling to feed the family" have smart phones, get nails done order from deliveroo etc???

I believe that if you are claiming benefits you need a smart phone (or a laptop/computer with internet access) to do so

The gap between rich and poor in this country keeps getting wider. Social mobility is more difficult than ever. The media, both social and otherwise shows us the super rich being profligate with their wealth and spending to excess. Yet across the world people continue to die of malnutrition. One might say ‘twas ever thus’ as my mother used to, but we have a very different world than when many of us were children. Our solutions to its problems both individual and in a wider social and political context, will be different. I personally don’t know how it will all pan out but I am quite sure that similar problems will exist when I am no longer around! I just hope for a fairer, kinder future for the world and its people.

Smoking takes the edge off hunger, and is easier to access than prescription medications for stress and anxiety. I’m not condoning a nicotine habit, but I understand why those in poverty may choose to smoke.

I agree with most of the comments above, many are truly struggling, the trouble is outside the food banks the people waiting to go in are often smoking, surely these cost a fortune these days and the cost could feed a family for a couple of days. Of course not all are smoking, and are there for good reason

That was to jane1956 in case anyone thought I was defending Truss. ?

Making a villain out of a victim is a bad look.

Grantanow I agree with you and I think Truss might be even more punitive than Johnson

how many who "are struggling to feed the family" have smart phones, get nails done order from deliveroo etc???

There never was a golden age for the poor. Look ahead and get the Tories out. Truss cutting taxes and NI won't help the poor - they don't earn enough to pay tax and poor pensioners don't pay NI. She's against 'handouts'. She's a continuation of the disgraceful Johnson.

When we were first married, in the 70s, our mortgage interest rate was over 10% - and we thought we were lucky because we were on a scheme that was 0.25% lower than the commercial rate!

We've had many years of things being much easier and therefore younger people haven't had to cope in the same way.

That doesn't make it any better, though, especially for those people who are really struggling. We have a collection in our, fairly affluent, village for the local foodbank but few people donate. I think they can't have any empathy at all.

The government ran a mortgage protection scheme from January 2009, and, in the further past, mortgage interest was claimable on income tax and could be claimed, like rent on precursors of Universal benefit.

I don't remember governments giving support in the past.

If you couldn't keep up your mortgage repayments you lost your home.

And no we are not in normal times and UK is certainly not the only country in a mess.

The poor and those on a fixed income with no resources like savings, suffer most in recession.

One would normally look to the government to give support to these folk.

The trouble is that we are not in normal times.

I think also it can be hard to put yourself in someone else's shoes
I can still remember a cooking programme in the 1960s when a titled lady was saying how it was possible to feed huge numbers cheaply (the soup kitchen idea) so why did these profligate paupers waste their money on chocolate biscuits and things with no nutrition.
My mum, a widow who suffered from depression, said that the poorer she was the more she wanted to eat treats and drink away her sorrows.
Mum told us sad stories about the poverty of her own youth. Her dad lost his job in the 1930s and never got another one. He died in his 50s of a broken heart

During WW2 my great grandmother in England was sent food parcels from her daughter in California, and she wrote how grateful she was for them. She also wrote 'We have so much to be thankful for when we think how good our heavenly father has been to us'. Despite great sorrow in her life and deprivation during the war she still managed to be thankful for what she had.

cooberpedi
My DH was a small child during WW2 in the UK and he remembers his Australian aunt sending him food parcels during those years of food scarcities and rationing. He really looked forward to them.
He said just the other day that he wonders now how many of those parcels ended up in Davy Jones's locker.

You are seeing it through the eyes of a child. It sounds like you had very good parents that made you feel happy and kept you fed and clothed through what must have been hard times. They must have had money worries but kept it from you.

cooberpedi Do not apologise. You have every right to introduce this thread and to have the view you do, but as anyone who starts a thread on GN knows, however rational you think your view is, at times it will get shot down. it happens to all of us now and again. It has certainly happened to me a number of times.

I think there are young/middle aged people today, who have got used to a comfortable way of life and low interest rates who are getting a nasty wake up call and suddenly finding that they need to think and plan how they spend their money and how to economise, but over the last few decades the gap between rich and poor has grown and there are a growing number of individuals and families, that prosperity has passed by and have been barely getting by all their lives.

For this group the current crisis, is not just a question of planning their expenditure and cooking cheap and nutritious meals for their families, but of not having any food to cook, nor often now, a secure roof over their heads.