Life Expenses in the UK

[Memphis]

If I were a single person I'd be proper fucked off if I was blowing 200 quid a month on food. I don't spend that much now, not even close. We eat well, proper food, meat, veg, fruit. Occasionally chuck a pizza in the oven. I'd consider that quite normal.

I think Amy isn't on a full time wage.

There's always something lurking. I'd wager in most cases it's smoking. Struggling to buy or pay for the essentials but the fags remain. Not suggesting that's the case with Amy.

My Mrs is a proper grafter. Has been since 13, two jobs right through until college, working evenings and weekends at college, full time job plus weekend work. Still at it now, works 6 days a week most weeks. You'd think that was something instilled in her by her parents. Her parents are proper lazy, her words not mine. Always considered work a nasty word, didn't/still don't want to do it. She routinely props them up financially because they've run out of the essentials, can't pay a bill. Still smoking though.

Just to add. I appreciate that there are genuine people genuinely struggling for one reason or another. In my experience though, there's a clear and avoidable reason. Personally if ever I've been skint, I know exactly why and that it was in most cases avoidable. I'm going to buy this, or go here, or do that. It'll clean me out but fuck it, I'm doing it anyway.

[Gandalf]

Well said, Memphis. That's my take on it too. There is something up with Amy and she is likely playing it up. I have been skint and it wasn't because there wasn't money coming in, it was simply because I was young and reckless with it. I turned around completely in my mid 20's and find it easy without earning a fortune. You just need to avoid going to the pub and drinking 8 pints a night, ordering take aways several days a week, and for sure avoid the cigs. You save a fortune on that alone. Have a cig, have a drink, have a pizza, but understand moderation.

I honestly think poverty is often a choice and many want to take you for a mug with the hard luck stories. Seen it all too often in my life. All that 'I could be dead tomorrow so I better spend now' nonsense. Good luck with that when you are not dead. It will probably rain at some point though. Be prepared.

[Dia bando]

Miles mate poverty is not a choice let's say you fuck up loose your job your wife fucks off your broke.
Right no job your wife taken your money you lost your house your head has gone.
On the streets POVERTY mate does not take much that just a example of what can go wrong.

[Fatboxingfan]

Miles mate poverty is not a choice let's say you fuck up loose your job your wife fucks off your broke.
Right no job your wife taken your money you lost your house your head has gone.
On the streets POVERTY mate does not take much that just a example of what can go wrong.

Myles definitely oversimplifies things

[Beanz]

Miles mate poverty is not a choice let's say you fuck up loose your job your wife fucks off your broke.
Right no job your wife taken your money you lost your house your head has gone.
On the streets POVERTY mate does not take much that just a example of what can go wrong.

Myles definitely oversimplifies things

It is like reverse virtue signalling. Being a Devil's advocate for it's own sake to the point where it is completely bizarre.

[Dia bando]

I don't think anyone in there right mind wants to be stuck in poverty.
Miles your a professional mate so I think you judge people by your standards remember not everyone is academicly smart.
My take on life sometimes you need some luck and good contacts to get on nothing in life is a give me.!

[Fatboxingfan]

I don't think anyone in there right mind wants to be stuck in poverty.
Miles your a professional mate so I think you judge people by your standards remember not everyone is academicly smart.
My take on life sometimes you need some luck and good contacts to get on nothing in life is a give me.!

miles is skipping the whole part about how the red carpet has been rolled out for him in South Korea like it is for all white people who work over there in the far East. The red carpet gets rolled out you are a VIP you are somebody special you stick out in the crowd like a sore thumb because the crowd is 99.5% Korean or Japanese if you are in Japan for example. I'm not saying that he is not a professional and I know that he is a good English teacher and works very hard at it but he is judging the poor people in the UK or in the US for example on a standard as if they are VIPs in expats living in a country like South Korea or Japan in which the red carpet is rolled out for these people. You have all heard the old adage all those schools really want over there in South Korea or Japan is a white face a white Western face that they can show the parents of the students. There are tons of white people in Japan and South Korea who cannot teach worth a damn but because they speak native English and they are white they get the red carpet treatment. So Miles has been over there so long he thinks it is so easy as it is for him for everybody in this world. It would not be as easy as he thinks if he was in the United States or the UK because then he will just be a dime a dozen

[El Kabong]

I don't think anyone in there right mind wants to be stuck in poverty.
Miles your a professional mate so I think you judge people by your standards remember not everyone is academicly smart.
My take on life sometimes you need some luck and good contacts to get on nothing in life is a give me.!

There's an important caveat in your post.

Sometimes there's luck involved, sometimes it's poor judgement and mistakes.

[Gandalf]

I don't think anyone in there right mind wants to be stuck in poverty.
Miles your a professional mate so I think you judge people by your standards remember not everyone is academicly smart.
My take on life sometimes you need some luck and good contacts to get on nothing in life is a give me.!

I have been a 'professional' for a short section of my working life. I didn't need academia to do a anything in the UK and still walked into above minimum wage work at 18 with no experience, so what is wrong with Amy? Why can she not do it at 32? I would like to know more about the life choices Amy has made, I suspect her IQ might be significant.

[Gandalf]

Miles mate poverty is not a choice let's say you fuck up loose your job your wife fucks off your broke.
Right no job your wife taken your money you lost your house your head has gone.
On the streets POVERTY mate does not take much that just a example of what can go wrong.

Myles definitely oversimplifies things

It is like reverse virtue signalling. Being a Devil's advocate for it's own sake to the point where it is completely bizarre.

I am not being a Devil's Advocate. Fats is more doing that and started this thread. All I am doing is arguing that a single person can, if they want to, live on 8 pounds an hour and indeed even save money too.

I also suggest any issues probably stem from bad habits. It is not rocket science. You can rent reasonably in the UK. Bills are pricey, but by contrast food is cheap. The trains are a rip off, but in a normal town you wouldn't need one.

Not sure what I am missing when one cannot cope on 15 grand a year.

[Fatboxingfan]

Miles , as of September 1st 2019 in the United kingdom there are 344,000 homeless people. In addition to that there are another 46,000 British households on the brink at high risk becoming homeless

[Gandalf]

Miles , as of September 1st 2019 in the United kingdom there are 344,000 homeless people. In addition to that there are another 46,000 British households on the brink at high risk becoming homeless

Speaking for myself, we were homeless because my father who had a job went out drinking every night, had a wife who wouldn't do much, then couldn't afford the rent and then put to sleep dog and boom....homelessness. It was a self inflicted sequence of events and they did it to themselves. Thankfully because there were children the Tories were kind and I learned so much from that experience that I chose a good wife, then decided to save like a man, and at the same age my Dad did that to us bought a home in cash with no mortgage thus showing how life can be done. It was simply about making better judgment calls.

[Fatboxingfan]

you have to realize and it takes time to realize this I think I am still realizing it myself that the people who did it to themselves as you put it or how I think of my own parents when I say damn them that they messed up me and my sister so badly with gaslighting and blame-shifting and verbal abuse and physical belt whippings what you have to realize is that they too what damaged when they grow up they did not consciously do any of that stuff maybe or maybe they were helpless to stop themselves from reacting the way they did in certain situations because perhaps that was exactly the way they were treated and abused for so very very long. So what I'm saying is there is a very large element and its of what is beyond our control and what what we are helpless to because we are human beings we are not super beings we are limited human beings who yes should try as hard as we can but there are just certain things that are beyond our grasp. and that is why I just cannot say that all homeless people or poor people are personally to blame

[Gandalf]

you have to realize and it takes time to realize this I think I am still realizing it myself that the people who did it to themselves as you put it or how I think of my own parents when I say damn them that they messed up me and my sister so badly with gaslighting and blame-shifting and verbal abuse and physical belt whippings what you have to realize is that they too what damaged when they grow up they did not consciously do any of that stuff maybe or maybe they were helpless to stop themselves from reacting the way they did in certain situations because perhaps that was exactly the way they were treated and abused for so very very long. So what I'm saying is there is a very large element and its of what is beyond our control and what what we are helpless to because we are human beings we are not super beings we are limited human beings who yes should try as hard as we can but there are just certain things that are beyond our grasp. and that is why I just cannot say that all homeless people or poor people are personally to blame

Totally and I get you completely. But when we are talking about money and you have lived in Korea yourself know you could save half of that paycheck and over 2 years, that is 24,000 dollars, plus severance, plus pension refund (if the school paid it), you have the choice in all the jobs you have done over 30 years or so to save that 10%, to invest it. You have worked hard, you have got an education, but you lacked nurturing like I did. However, much trauma you still think you have, you have always had it in you to get out there and get a job and the savings potential has always been there for you. You spent years overseas where you don't even pay rent most of the time. Again, loads of little perks. Trauma has not stopped you working. We knuckle down.

[Fatboxingfan]

millions of people are perfectly normal until they reach their mid-30s or late 30s and then they have what is known as late onset mental illness. Just from one day to the next that is why they call it late onset. Millions and millions of people like that and there's nothing they can do to simply be on their toes as you put it and to try to get their lives back. Then you have people in tornadoes and earthquakes and hurricanes who go from one minute to the next abject poverty through no fault of their own and perhaps can never get it together again. Then you have people living under dictatorships and tyrants who do not Foster an economic environment in which people could actually thrive and so those people to the tune of tens of millions or let's say hundreds of millions in the cases of China and India have no hope of ever getting out of poverty. Now for you to say they should stop having children really doesn't do much for the situation because they are already living on two pennies per day and even if they had no kids would still be in abject poverty with no way out we are talking about hundreds of millions of people here. It's not about them being on their toes