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Garda Sergeant can't afford food

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 51,069 ✭✭✭✭tayto lover


    I'd say this is a fictitious letter sent in or invented to cause debate. Not much newsworthy stuff lately so this could be a "fill-in".


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Jaysoose


    Shenshen wrote: »
    Considering that there is no mention of her income, I suspect the wife is a stay-at-home mom.
    No need to pay for additional childcare, is there?

    Its Stay-At-home-Mum, we are not in america.


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,018 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    MagicSean wrote: »
    Actually it's not called budgeting. You obviously weren't able to balance the budget weekly if you were dipping into your savings.

    Ehh you didn't seem to notice he/she said he/she was on the dole. :rolleyes:

    Are we a detective by any chance ?
    Rabidlamb wrote: »
    Sky/UPC Sub
    Not necessary...

    Broadband
    ok possibly needed nowadays if kids growing up.

    Mobile contract & prepay top up
    Cut the mobiles...

    Childcare
    Ehh why need childcare if one parent is "working in the home" ?
    (That's what my missus always calls it. :D )


    Gardening costs
    WTF ?

    Holiday savings
    No holidays if you can't afford to eat.

    As I've said, try walking in their shoes for a week & see how you get on.

    Sorry for replying within the post but easiest way of highlighting the unncessaries that some people think are ahead of food for family.
    I hope to christ you don't budget for things that are unnecessary ahead of critical things ?
    MagicSean wrote: »
    Why would I include child benefit when showing salary calculations?

    Do you just save the child benefit or do you actually use to help with expenditure ?
    If the latter then it is part of your income like this family.
    Mellio wrote: »
    Valid points on all bar one - childcare is non essential, what do you propose get rid of your kids. Mmmmmm :D

    Ehh why the fook do you pay for childcare if you are sitting on your ar** at home ?
    After all this lady is not working outside the home.
    Pal wrote: »
    They could get a job on a supermarket checkout at €10 an hour.

    Work 10 hour days. Every day.

    Within a short 3 years, they could buy a wedding cake.

    Not if it was a quinns wedding cake. ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    Jaysoose wrote: »
    Its Stay-At-home-Mum, we are not in america.

    Its Stay-At-Home Ma, we are not in england :rolleyes:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 794 ✭✭✭bluecode


    Jaysoose wrote: »
    Its Stay-At-home-Mum, we are not in america.
    It's a stay at home Mammy, we're not in England. :p


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 794 ✭✭✭bluecode


    That was spooky, davet82. Were we separated at birth?

    Also it's Mammy.:cool:


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,569 ✭✭✭2ndcoming


    The tragedy of this constant mud-slinging is that everyone points to someone to blame, but we never point to the people who are actually at fault for this whole mess.

    The Irish Times glamourised property throughout the 90's and Noughties in a similar but ultimately much more damaging way to Page 3 flaunting pretty girls in The Sun, so a couple of sympathetic human interest pieces could be called penance, if I didn't have a feeling it was written to evoke the opposite of sympathy.

    They should really leave that agenda to the Indo, they do it much more hatefully and divisively, to the benefit of their billionaire paymasters.

    The Garda sergeant and his family of four, or anyone middle-income family who were stung by the crash, could realistically be living much more comfortably, albeit in more meagre accommodation, if he had never worked. Ever. Sadly, that's the reality of the Ireland we live in today, for the sake of the happiness of some multi-national banks and anonymous bondholders.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    bluecode wrote: »
    That was spooky, davet82. Were we separated at birth?

    Also it's Mammy.:cool:

    Its MAAAAA!!

    you obviously got sent down the country when we got seperated and i got sent to dublin ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Jaysoose


    davet82 wrote: »
    Its Stay-At-Home Ma, we are not in england :rolleyes:

    Get ta fook with that...mum isnt exclusively english.

    one thing we all know MOM it isnt!


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,699 ✭✭✭bamboozle


    Giruilla wrote: »
    Make no mistake, that article is nothing to do with them struggling to feed their kids or survive... its about them 'struggling to keep up a lifestyle!!'

    this post says it all.

    but seriously, WTF is a 44 year old man doing entering into a 600k mortgage 12 times his salary for 30 years?

    what did he expect to happen?

    No sympathy and the article is an insult to hard working/saving parents/mothers & fathers around the country who can raise their children on far less than 75k.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    Jaysoose wrote: »
    Get ta fook with that...mum isnt exclusively english.

    one thing we all know MOM it isnt!

    Mum = english or D4

    :pac:


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 2,202 ✭✭✭Rabidlamb


    jackal wrote: »
    Ah yeah, sorry I forgot that bit. But what is your point about people living with mammy during the boom being out of their depth about?

    Reading a lot of the knee jerk replies made me think there were a few smug 20 somethings that are convinced they wouldn't have bought a house during the boom, despite the fact they were doing their junior certs.
    Plus the fact that people who still live at home don't have a true feel for a household budget.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Jaysoose


    2ndcoming wrote: »
    The tragedy of this constant mud-slinging is that everyone points to someone to blame, but we never point to the people who are actually at fault for this whole mess.

    The Irish Times glamourised property throughout the 90's and Noughties in a similar but ultimately much more damaging way to Page 3 flaunting pretty girls in The Sun, so a couple of sympathetic human interest pieces could be called penance, if I didn't have a feeling it was written to evoke the opposite of sympathy.

    They should really leave that agenda to the Indo, they do it much more hatefully and divisively, to the benefit of their billionaire paymasters.

    The Garda sergeant and his family of four, or anyone middle-income family who were stung by the crash, could realistically be living much more comfortably, albeit in more meagre accommodation, if he had never worked. Ever. Sadly, that's the reality of the Ireland we live in today, for the sake of the happiness of some multi-national banks and anonymous bondholders.


    And we come full circle and blame the Banks.."were is sargeant bullcraps nama"...In seany fitzers back pocket thats where.

    BURN THE BONDHOLDERS...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Jaysoose


    davet82 wrote: »
    Mum = english or D4

    :pac:

    Nope we are not all scobes.. :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    Jaysoose wrote: »
    scobes

    D4


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,897 ✭✭✭MagicSean


    Bannasidhe wrote: »
    What exactly is your problem with me?

    That I actually did cut my expenditure like hundreds of thousands of other in this country have had to do or that I didn't whinge to a newspaper?

    i don't have aproblem with you. i had a problem with the your post in which you claimed using your savings is "called budgeting". It's not.
    jmayo wrote: »
    Ehh you didn't seem to notice he/she said he/she was on the dole. :rolleyes:

    Are we a detective by any chance ?

    I'm pretty sure i said that. Are we blind by any chance?
    jmayo wrote: »
    Do you just save the child benefit or do you actually use to help with expenditure ?
    If the latter then it is part of your income like this family.

    It's still not relevant to salary calculations.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Jaysoose


    davet82 wrote: »
    D4

    TAXI DRIVER?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    Jaysoose wrote: »
    TAXI DRIVER?

    not even close :pac:


  • Registered Users Posts: 32,370 ✭✭✭✭rubadub


    Its quite worrying to think somebody like this made it to be a sergeant, I wonder what other basic skills he is lacking in. Does he squander taxpayers money on unnecessary expenses or poor decisions.
    offered to refer the couple to the St Vincent de Paul Society for assistance.
    I doubt SVDP would be happy with this press, it would make people think twice about donating if they thought it was going to people far better off than themselves, or who should/could be better off than them.

    Instead of sending them to SVDP, maybe send them to a secondary school for a 1st year home economics class.


  • Registered Users Posts: 500 ✭✭✭anndub


    He probably didn't have a €1400 monthly mortgage payment, though. My parents' mortgage was fixed at £25 / month.

    And maybe your parents, like most good parents, did their best to shield from their children how difficult it can sometimes be.

    No, their mortgage would have been as high relatively speaking, especially during the late seventies/early eighties when mortgage interest rates sky rocketed. I've often asked how they managed and they would have considered themselves comfortably off. My mother managed all the outgoings and was clever at budgeting. I think poor money management might be the root cause of a lot of peoples financial problems.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    MagicSean wrote: »
    i don't have aproblem with you. i had a problem with the your post in which you claimed using your savings is "called budgeting". It's not.

    If you have no problem with me then perhaps you would be kind enough to dial back on the passive aggressive responses to me?

    It is budgeting - because when times are good I budget for rainy days by 'saving'. This money is then available as a supplement to my income should it be required.

    This technique got my grandmother through the Great Depression, the Emergency and the early death of her husband/ It got my mother through the 70s and my father's stroke and heart attacks when he was 40 meant he was out of work for months.

    Borrowing 12 times your annual salary is not budgeting - it is living beyond your means.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,212 ✭✭✭Jaysoose


    davet82 wrote: »
    not even close :pac:


    Benefits extraction engineer?


  • Registered Users Posts: 13,753 ✭✭✭✭Potential-Monke


    There is definitely some person debt/loans that is not being mentioned, but personal debt/loans and Gardai more or less go hand in hand. The 2 Garda credit unions used to throw money at their members, so it's no surprise that the majority have some sort of a personal loan.

    Regardless, it's up to the individual to borrow what they can afford. And i know many people who either couldn't understand or had no interest in the economy. I had an interest, but it's bloody hard to follow if you don't have a mind for it.

    People didn't foresee the recession. The people we trusted told us that everything was going to be fine, and who were we to distrust them? I refer to my point above, not many people can follow economics.

    Anyway, as for a few comments made, and in particular the people who said that health insurance isn't necessary. For a Garda it is. The possibility of being assaulted is a daily occurrence, and there are members getting injured every day. Without health insurance, most of them would be left with huge bills with no certainty that the state would cover the cost. The Government are getting stricter on what they will and won't pay.

    Also, and this is "from the horses mouth", not as many Gardai as you think have property investments outside of their own home. I could guarantee in comparison to the private sector it's nowhere near as many.

    And overtime is no longer guaranteed, and for most it's non-existent anymore with the new rotas where court is scheduled for work days (which it always should have been, imo) and units doubling up on the supposedly busy nights (apparently people only go out on Friday and Saturday nights...). So you can't take for granted that he will get 10k. He might get more, he probably will get considerably less.

    Another point is that if he was a recently appointed sergeant, he could be travelling huge distances to get to work, as usually newly appointed Sergeants have to be stationed outside of their last District for 2 years. If he was appointed 7 years ago, and if he had made a life and settled near where he was stationed prior to this appointment, then this could have a huge impact, and this might explain why he has a new mortgage from 7 years ago, he could have been appointed then and took the advice of some people here and moved closer to his new station, during the boom times when houses were way overpriced.

    Nobody will know the full circumstances of this Sergeant and his family. I can see why they might have only €109 a week, but i can also see why he should have more.

    And i could nearly guarantee this is not media pandering by the "union" (by the way, the Gardai cannot have a union, they only have a representative body). They would have ran with someone earning less.


  • Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 14,599 Mod ✭✭✭✭CIARAN_BOYLE


    Mellio wrote: »
    Valid points on all bar one - childcare is non essential, what do you propose get rid of your kids. Mmmmmm :D

    The Mammy isn't employed, if she is hiring childcare this becomes even more of a pisstake


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    Jaysoose wrote: »
    Benefits extraction engineer?

    Very good :pac:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,496 ✭✭✭Boombastic


    This story is so off the wall it's funny!


    Two things I want to know

    1) If the family bought this house 7 years ago, did they sell one they had previously owned?

    2) Her parents are ordinary pensioners, yet they are able to budget and mange their pension (which is a lot less than her husbands salary) to have enough left over to bail out her when necessary?
    “If it wasn’t for my mother bailing us out all the time, we would be right under,” she added


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,462 ✭✭✭✭WoollyRedHat


    A few things:

    As someone has mentioned, they should take students. If the wife is a stay at home person, and is of good health, this can bring in extra income and bridge the gap.

    Also somebody mentioned growing their own food. This would save money and promote healthy nutrition, as well as being something that everyone should be doing anyway, whether in a tough position or not.

    And a yardsale, assessing what they might be able to sell that will provide some money. A grant should be looked at in terms of education for the kid and college. Otherwise they should encourage him to look for part time work, to help himself and them out.

    They should go through their bills forensically and cut out as much as possible that is not neccesary. Cutting back on electiricity and saving heat should be a consideration. Light more fires, wear more insulating clothing.


    What I don't like about stories like these, is they come across as an exercise in appealing to a specific cause while setting up a particular narrative, and in doing that, not providing much in terms in depth analysis or futher elaboration, of course in which there will never be a follow up. What exactly is within the limits of MABS investigation. Do they only examine their total income - total expenditure and come to a conclusion off that, or do they go further and provide practiable and working solutions?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭ilovesleep


    anndub wrote: »
    No, their mortgage would have been as high relatively speaking, especially during the late seventies/early eighties when mortgage interest rates sky rocketed. I've often asked how they managed and they would have considered themselves comfortably off. My mother managed all the outgoings and was clever at budgeting. I think poor money management might be the root cause of a lot of peoples financial problems.


    I think you are correct on poor money management but please don't forget that there will be many genuine people/families where changes happened to their circumstances and they've cut the deadwood from their household budget and finding things tight with a substanial drop in living standards and the upcoming budget will probably push many overboard.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,371 ✭✭✭Fuinseog


    12vdc wrote: »
    Slandering the dead nice!
    Handy reporting mechanism here though

    hear hear. Saint Gerry is beyond reproach. there was no way he was taking coke.i am sure he was worth every cent of his grossly inflated salary and I am sure he saved his money wisely.


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 19,219 Mod ✭✭✭✭Bannasidhe


    ilovesleep wrote: »
    I think you are correct on poor money management but please don't forget that there will be many genuine people/families where changes happened to their circumstances and they've cut the deadwood from their household budget and finding things tight with a substanial drop in living standards and the upcoming budget will probably push many overboard.

    Absolutely!!!

    What hope does someone on the average industrial wage of c 36 k a year or less have of surviving - yet most of them do with a struggle.


This discussion has been closed.
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