Eating on a budget

[grubbyhands]

I'm not watching but if you're on on minimum wage food and rent is priority above everything else. Interested to know what families are spending money on in addition to food. Hopefully not fags, drink, sky tv and mobile phones etc.

I'm watching the BBC1 follow on programme "We all pay your benefits" and I fear that some of this does go on. It's a question of priorities I guess but top brand trainers and an Apple mac top lap top whilst living on benefits does grate a little let alone exotic pets. I think I work very hard yet I can't afford some of these things. Gotta go now and get myself another tattoo ( awaits the inevitable flaming)

 

[Barrel of Fun]

I volunteered for Fareshare for a little while, whilst looking for work.

An incredible amount of food goes to waste, more would be lost without such a valuable charity.

I think it is 50% of produced food is wasted. We throw it out when many, many millions are struggling to find enough to eat. Scandalous.

 

[16 bit 44.1]

Yes, it goes out for disposal. They aren't allowed to sell it, nor give it away.

Thats not true. My old office used to be next to Fareshare in Brighton. They take delivery of out of date food from lots of outlets that is still edible and redistribute it to various other charities, homeless etc. I believe there are many such organisations. It's a shame that more and more people have to rely on this type of charity but the fact is they do and the people that run it and work there do a bloody good job!!

 

[Westdene Seagull]

That's what happens when individuals/families care more for material possessions than buying food.

Moron !

 

[MissGull]

These 'full time parents' on benefits really rile me. Since when was being a full time parent a job? The kids go to school 6 hours a day. Working parents have to find the time to run the house and hold down a full time job, and still end up with less money in some cases. Seems unjust.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

I'm watching the BBC1 follow on programme "We all pay your benefits" and I fear that some of this does go on. It's a question of priorities I guess but top brand trainers and an Apple mac top lap top whilst living on benefits does grate a little let alone exotic pets. I think I work very hard yet I can't afford some of these things. Gotta go now and get myself another tattoo ( awaits the inevitable flaming)

But the Apple Mac laptop can be used to find out job vacancies and apply for them...

 

[Spun Cuppa]

I'm glad some mental health charities get given some of the donated food. I had a friend with multiple personalities. It's more common than people think, and crops up in unlikely situations

 

[easynow]

Any evidence to back up this tory boy statement?

How about the fact that they may have bought their material possessions when they were better off. Now thanks to this farce of a government, they still have the same amount of income, but now it is worth so much less.

No, because it is self-evident.

I'm not blaming the people who find themselves in a 'food crisis'. Not at all. I am blaming the cultural mindset that's always ringing "buy this now/ buy everything". Generation after generation are being brought up with little knowledge of personal finance, family planning and good old logical/mindful thinking. Everywhere I look I see people being shit with their money. I was once crap with money, now I am not. Guess what? I have some decent savings!

 

[Spun Cuppa]

No, because it is self-evident.

I'm not blaming the people who find themselves in a 'food crisis'. Not at all. I am blaming the cultural mindset that's always ringing "buy this now/ buy everything". Generation after generation are being brought up with little knowledge of personal finance, family planning and good old logical/mindful thinking. Everywhere I look I see people being shit with their money. I was once crap with money, now I am not. Guess what? I have some decent savings!

Verstehen

 

[albionalex]

Is it true that supermarkets have a secret location where they chuck food away that's out of date but probably still edible?

Tesco at Broadbridge Heath send their bakery items to pig farms.

 

[grubbyhands]

But the Apple Mac laptop can be used to find out job vacancies and apply for them...

I take your valid comment on board BUT it wasn't his only computer and curoiusly he couldn't be seen to wear anything but top notch trainers nor could he take any old job and was happy for his aunt to pay half his I-phone bill. Seems to me like a case of mixed up priorities dontya think?

 

[MissGull]

I just heard him say: "working four/five days straight is too much, don't fancy that."

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

I take your valid comment on board BUT it wasn't his only computer and curoiusly he couldn't be seen to wear anything but top notch trainers nor could he take any old job and was happy for his aunt to pay half his I-phone bill. Seems to me like a case of mixed up priorities dontya think?

Certainly does. Is he the kind who'd be the first to complain about foreigners taking 'our' jobs?

 

[Zebedee]

It struck me as just a tad disingenuous that the couple featured in the programme (with 4 children) both had full-time jobs, one a software engineer, and lived in a large detached house with a big garden, that many of us could only dream of owning. They also had a decent sized car and would be raking in around £3K+ a year in Child Benefit alone. Just what the f**k do they do with their money not to be able to afford food, and to have to visit a food bank? It beggars belief.

I had much more sympathy for the single mum and the pensioner, of course.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

That's what happens when individuals/families care more for material possessions than buying food.

Stupid comment - you obviously did not watch the food programme of these two under discussion. - a pensioner who had nothing and for whom a meal was half a tin of chicken soup, a working single mum managing a charity shop for whom two meals a day were a cup of tea so that her daughter could eat. A family with both parents working (I think) which was having to resort to a food bank. I was at a meeting yesterday where members of the local clergy (in Southampton) were highlighting the fact that increasingly people in work are having to resort to food banks, AND IT IS NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE BUYING FLAT SCREEN TV'S AND PLAY-STATIONS.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

It struck me as just a tad disingenuous that the couple featured in the programme (with 4 children) both had full-time jobs, one a software engineer, and lived in a large detached house with a big garden, that many of us could only dream of owning. They would also be raking in around £3K+ a year in Child Benefit alone. Just what the f**k do they do with their money not to be able to afford food? It beggars belief.

I had much more sympathy for the single mum and the pensioner, of course.

There are more people in the country technically "in poverty" and in work than who are out of work. And software engineers are not necessarily that well paid.

And maybe they used to have better jobs, and are still having to meet commitments they had when better off.

 

[Zebedee]

There are more people in the country technically "in poverty" and in work than who are out of work. And software engineers are not necessarily that well paid.

And maybe they used to have better jobs, and are still having to meet commitments they had when better off.

Perhaps but I suspect probably not. Some clarity on this point might have been helpful in the programme. I constantly found myself asking of the family where does the rest of your non-food budget go; and the chef who shadowed them was probably also thinking the same thing as he gazed out from their kitchen onto their luxuriant garden.

 

[MissGull]

This is it, they still have a hefty mortgage and whatever else they are paying for that they used to be able to comfortably afford. The car was explained to be her dads that she borrowed to do the weekly shop, so she didn't have to use a taxi.

 

[Ulloa's Soul Patch]

Supernoodles. Done