How skint is this country and the people in it?

[Dunwaters]

Time spent with family & loved ones.
Doing a job you enjoy & want to do.

Health, wellbeing, happiness.
Too often we judge someone as successful or otherwise by how much money they've got, which is rather sad.

Nice to have, but non negotiable and doesn’t translate into many potatoes at the local supermarket.
If you are living in abject poverty you’ll be far too busy trying to get your arse out of it and to keep yourself and your family fed clothed educated and sheltered to be concerned with nebulous concepts like wellbeing and happiness.
When you’re really poor, happiness is your kids going to sleep tonight warm and with a full belly.

 

[karamoja]

It's about models of capitalism - Scandinavian countries are capitalist, but have a philosophy of just enough and share out. Norway have funded a whole health service and education system from oil. Whose pockets did our north sea oil profits go in???
Since 2008 it has just been one big social engineering project - jobs/prospects, the NHS, education has been deprived through 'Austerity'. The young can't afford a house or college, there are few careers that make sense to them or hold a future in this country.
But it has kept certain pockets full!!??
Everything is commercialised for profit including the deer which over run the country.
I am lucky enough to have stalking which costs me nothing. The land owner (wealthy) gets a beast I get a beast and so on - we both see the value in that. It is greed, selfishness and a F*** you mentality and everyman for himself view which this system of capitalism thrives on...
Anyway glad I got that off my chest, I might try and find a nice rabbit to make a tikka masala with and ponder the coat of the source .
K

 

[VSS]

All improved by having more rather than less money

In many cases.
But for other people, a lifestyle choice that gives greater contentment may also generate less money.
And there are others who are money driven, but lack those fundamentals of a happy, healthy family and quality time. In fact, being totally career driven is often a factor in family breakdown.

Better to be judged by who you are rather than what you've got.

 

[VSS]

Nice to have, but non negotiable and doesn’t translate into many potatoes at the local supermarket.
If you are living in abject poverty you’ll be far too busy trying to get your arse out of it and to keep yourself and your family fed clothed educated and sheltered to be concerned with nebulous concepts like wellbeing and happiness.
When you’re really poor, happiness is your kids going to sleep tonight warm and with a full belly.

How poor is poor?
Is there a cut off point in household income (earned or otherwise) below which you would consider someone to be poor?

 

[Bavarianbrit]

The divide is big and getting bigger. Those who are wealthy have increasing wealth as gold, stock market and houses have all gone up a lot. It's been hard to loose money investing in the last 2 years. For those earning just enough to get by, increased tax, inflation and shrinkflation has eaten into your wealth.
It's been a move from the poor to the richer with the middle class shrinking.

The get out for me is Asia. For example, It's 60 pence a pint in Cambodia and a hotel with Brekky and a pool is 220 dollars a month.earn in the UK and spend it overseas to increase its buying power.

Don't forget to factor in the cost of the roundtrip flight, health insurance, etc.

 

[nun_hunter]

I can't believe anyone on this site is making claims of poverty, how do you manage to justify your expenditure on the trinkets and baubles that sit in all our cabinets? Come off it and pull the other one.We arnt poor , truth is we are richer than any previous generation, greedier maybe , driven by needing the latest , over priced tech maybe but certainly not poor .

I don't know how old you are or what generation you are from but for the first time in history the average 30 year old is financially worse off than any previous generation.

Plenty of 'expensive' things now are actually far cheaper than they used to be. My first everfamily PC was £2k back in 1994 (equivalent of over £4k today) yet my most recent laptop needed for work was £750 and far better in every conceivable way.

Air fare is much cheaper today than it was so holidays abroad aren't the same luxury they used to be. A pub dinner for a family of 4 with a couple of drinks each is £100 yet I could fly the whole family to Europe for less than that and then probably spend.

I need to get a train to Cardiff for a work trip, a peak day return is £400 so no wonder people would rather spend money leasing a new reliable car than 'saving money' and using public transport.

 

[Ratel]

We talk about young folk not being able to buy houses but.....
On leaving my hobbit house recently to undertake a.journey West and Sowf I lost my way in Northants. This was due to new housing development. Along the road and as far as the eye could see new occupied houses.and hundreds more being built. This also applied in the Milton Keynes and Leighton Buzzard area. It was rather scary and I just heard 1300 more to be built in our local area town. The infrastructure must by now be incapable of coping as we are already discharging neat sewage into rivers.
These estates of weird housing tend to remind me of the Pete Seagar song "little boxes", but what I would like to know is who is buying them all, can't be all old fogies and judging by the cars and kids about a lot of young folk. I never been so happy as I was getting back to. The Shire.
Thank the Lord I am in my dotage.

 

[VSS]

We talk about young folk not being able to buy houses but.....
On leaving my hobbit house recently to undertake a.journey West and Sowf I lost my way in Northants. This was due to new housing development. Along the road and as far as the eye could see new occupied houses.and hundreds more being built. This also applied in the Milton Keynes and Leighton Buzzard area. It was rather scary and I just heard 1300 more to be built in our local area town. The infrastructure must by now be incapable of coping as we are already discharging neat sewage into rivers.
These estates of weird housing tend to remind me of the Pete Seagar song "little boxes", but what I would like to know is who is buying them all, can't be all old fogies and judging by the cars and kids about a lot of young folk. I never been so happy as I was getting back to. The Shire.
Thank the Lord I am in my dotage.

Seeing "affordable" new housing developments on greenfield sites sickens me when there are so many rundown brownfield sites just crying out for development.

 

[Dunwaters]

How poor is poor?
Is there a cut off point in household income (earned or otherwise) below which you would consider someone to be poor?

Definitely, if you haven’t got enough income to cover your own and your family’s daily needs and expenses, together with a small surplus for emergencies, you are poor.
You should also have enough discretionary income that you can buy stuff that you want but don’t actually need now and again.
The figure for London is £407 per week for a couple with 2 children.
Theres no mention of happiness or wellness or satisfaction in the statistics.

 

[Drum123]

I don't know how old you are or what generation you are from but for the first time in history the average 30 year old is financially worse off than any previous generation.

Plenty of 'expensive' things now are actually far cheaper than they used to be. My first everfamily PC was £2k back in 1994 (equivalent of over £4k today) yet my most recent laptop needed for work was £750 and far better in every conceivable way.

Air fare is much cheaper today than it was so holidays abroad aren't the same luxury they used to be. A pub dinner for a family of 4 with a couple of drinks each is £100 yet I could fly the whole family to Europe for less than that and then probably spend.

I need to get a train to Cardiff for a work trip, a peak day return is £400 so no wonder people would rather spend money leasing a new reliable car than 'saving money' and using public transport.

I'm 52 and way better off , financially ,than my parents generation were. Granted they were probably happier, had less stress than I though.
How do you judge one generations wealth to anothers? A 30 year old is not comparable to me at 30. I never needed a grands worth of phone, subscriptions to netflix , cable TV or many other things that are deemed a necessity now ,, all of which spunk away such a big proportion of income now. House prices ? Well that's a whole different argument. That is my generations fault and the previous one , for working hard , saving hard and investing in property.How do we solve that? Honestly I don't know if anyone can.

 

[User00047]

something else…….., food banks in the U.K. who would have thought of that a few years back ?

Exactly. People have so much money they’re giving food away free to whoever wants it!

 

[User00047]

Champagne life style with Coca Cola money
Face ache full of them

Have you seen the price of Coca Cola recently?
Tesco £5.19 for 8 cans.
Flipping expensive mate

 

[BenBhoy]

I'm 52 and way better off , financially ,than my parents generation were. Granted they were probably happier, had less stress than I though

Funny ol' world - I'm 41 & definitely less in bank than my dad had when he was 41. But I much prefer my job, see my kids a lot & have flexibility of choosing own hours (when sheep let me!). All about deciding what's important to you, as few lifestyles can have it all.

 

[Drum123]

Funny ol' world - I'm 41 & definitely less in bank than my dad had when he was 41. But I much prefer my job, see my kids a lot & have flexibility of choosing own hours (when sheep let me!). All about deciding what's important to you, as few lifestyles can have it all.

Yep. It's about choice. We all have it. My twenties and thirties were a struggle , I bought what I could pay for , never borrowed a penny from the banks. Priorities , get them right and chances are you'll end up happy.

 

[topscots1]

Have you seen the price of Coca Cola recently?
Tesco £5.19 for 8 cans.
Flipping expensive mate

Coke Zero £7 for 24 in in B&M if you can endure the shop.

 

[Drum123]

Coke Zero £7 for 24 in in B&M if you can endure the shop.

Wear a dressing gown and crocs. You'll fit in just dandy.

 

[User00047]

Coke Zero £7 for 24 in in B&M if you can endure the shop.

…..And endure Coke “Zero”
There’s nothing like the real thing!
Better off with water anyway I guess.

 

[Long drag]

Roof over your head, food on the table, heating in the winter time, if you can do that your well on the way.

 

[Jagare]

Fags, tats, coke and not only the drink, Red Bull , junk food, etc etc. So hard to be poor today.

 

[Liveonce]

Exactly. People have so much money they’re giving food away free to whoever wants it!

Think your find it is also a lot of business donating food as it reaches its sell by date, years ago my wife worked for one of the large supermarkets the volume of waste food was a lot, we used to have bin bags of bread to feed the chickens.

But yes their are still kind people putting a can of whatever in the supermarket food bank collection points, on occasions my wife will we are not rich but she says if she can help others why not.