You will never get people who choose to think the worst of everyone to believe in the need for food banks. They choose to make unfounded accusations of people selling on e-bay or smugly stating that there is no need for the food banks. Well I can tell you from my own life , that things change and I have never taken things I dont need. When I started working FULL TIME in overseas telegrams in London, I earned the princely sum of £11 a week doing shifts, and speaking 3 languages, and in those days the PO had the cheek to pay you by how old you were up until you were 24. I lived in a bedsit, cooked everything from scratch , could not afford to go out to anything that cost money, but I was learning my skills learning 5 unit tape and codes etc. I used to keep pasta in, dried not fresh because if friday was the end of the week I had no money to buy food on thursday. I lived on what I had, couldnt make any savings as for a start the tube bill for the week was £2.50. So I scraped and struggled, and not through drinking or drugs or such things. Later in my life when my son was very young, we checked and worked out if we could afford to buy this house in the Manchester area. We totted up our income and outgoings, and decided to buy it, and we knew it would be difficult. But what we could not have known was that when we had been in the house for a couple of months the mortgage rate went up to 15% , yes 15%!!! However people think they are hard done by with the mortgage rate now , they should look at that time. We struggled to get by for months, as I could not go out to work with a very young child, and there was no overtime for my husband. I walked round the house with my coat on, and a one bar electric fire went on in one room when my son came home from playgroup. Carried on, helping in playgroup, running brownies, later did Meals on Wheels, where I saw some people who needed them as they were unable to cook for themselves through illness, but met many many people who had worked hard and thought that they had made savings for their old age. I paid full stamp, then went abroad, paying even more for nothing, when I retired spent 10 years of 3 days a week doing volunteer ambulance car , so again met very many people struggling and in need of the food bank. Not one of them that I met, had wealth at home, and many were very proud and only finally came to the food bank when they literally did not have enough to pay for food. When you are coping with chemotherapy you feel the cold, and you are not well enough to go out exercising. Also trying to eat healthily is difficult, when fresh ingredients are so expensive , and the price of things go up weekly. I bought something for £1 one week and the following week the same item was £1.10!!!and if you dont have a car and live in a rural area So now, many women who did not have a full pension, because of their caring roles or having to have gaps looking after others so that their pension did not amount to much. So if the pension age had to be raised, they could have said that people now working would have to pay that, but when you have budgeted carefully, that your pension will be paid at age 60 and then it is just moved further and further away with no way that you can make up the money. So now, it will be very difficult for many people, me included, to not have the winter fuel payment to help with heating. I have cancer and feel the cold and my back is very bad so I cannot do the equivalent of "get on my bike"!!! Up until now when I worried about the cost of fuel, knowing that I would have the winter fuel payment helped my anxiety. So now I lose either way. Too much pension to get the fuel amount, yet when I tried to change my bank account to a better one which paid a little interest the bank said that I did not get enough a month to be able to have that account!!!! We all have to make choices, my way is that I only shop in charity shops for any clothes, apart from underwear. My biggest luxury is to have a car, because with my back etc and health issues, I could not stand at a bus stop, for long, cannot walk the length of my high street etc etc. When anything happens to this car I shall not be getting another one. I go shopping with a sort of list, but it depends what is in the reduced basket , or how much more has been put on the price since last time. I will manage, as I always have, and pay my bills like everyone else, but to read ignorant comments about people selling things on e bay or that people only use food banks because they have the opportunity, whilst it may be true of one or two selfish and greedy people. the greater majority are using them because they NEED them. I am sorry to be on a rant on christmas eve, but my goodness Charles Dickens would recognise these charactors who want to say things are unnecessary etc. My name is not Oliver Twist so I shall not be asking for more, but my feelings will warm me up anyway!!!!
