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Garda Sergeant can't afford food

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Comments

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


    Einhard wrote: »
    Maybe I'm reading it incorrecty, but the article seems to state that after all taxes and bills and mortgage and insurance are deducted, they have €109 a week in discretionary income. How the feck is that struggling? What kind of food do they buy- caviar stuffed with gold leaf?? Seriously, I don't understand their complaint. :confused:

    I think €109 is the figure at the bottom of his pay slip each week. He evidently uses the credit unions budget scheme for his regular utility bills.


  • Registered Users Posts: 85 ✭✭Momento Mori


    Victim of the boom =/


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    ilovesleep wrote: »
    I'm going to quote this because I think it's worth repeating.



    That's it. So many people were comfortable during the boom and they took out loans/mortgage to match. At the time they would have been able to service them. Now incomes are being reduced or have been reduced and out goings are rising.

    Yeah, but in the article she claims their income after bills and the mortgage is €109. That's not too bad for what's essentially discretionary income. As someone else pointed out, you'd fill a Lidl trolley to overflowing with that a week. Sure, they might have to make some adjustments and cut back somewhat, but to be playing the poverty card is a bit much. A lot of people in this country only dream of having that much to spend on themselves each week.


  • Registered Users Posts: 98 ✭✭gerryg80


    The woman wrote that even though her eldest child got enough points to go to a prestigious college they couldn’t afford the fees: “Imagine how upsetting that is?

    Im sorry but, is deferring for a year and working in a bar or something to get money for college unheard of these days ? Or even trying to work while in college, i know i did and hundreds of foreign nationals also do it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,813 ✭✭✭themadchef


    Anyone earning €65k a year and feeding their kids cornflakes for an entire day of sustenance needs to sit the fúck down and have a long hard talk with his partner about their future.

    FFS Cornflakes :(.

    Coulda been Coco pops i suppose.


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


    MagicSean wrote: »
    Are you challenging my figures or just looking to argue about allowances because there are other threads for that.

    No I am not challenging your figures.
    But I am asking why you get some of them and how they work.

    And before you get on your high horse I do believe people should be paid for unsocial hours, being on call, doing hazardous jobs, and the use or purchase of certain items particular to the job.

    Apart from that I do think the whole allowance system is a joke and was used as a cop out as a way of giving people raises when it should never have been done as such.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,459 ✭✭✭✭Ush1


    I hate this phrase but these people aren't living in the real world at all.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    Einhard wrote: »
    Yeah, but in the article she claims their income after bills and the mortgage is €109. That's not too bad for what's essentially discretionary income. As someone else pointed out, you'd fill a Lidl trolley to overflowing with that a week. Sure, they might have to make some adjustments and cut back somewhat, but to be playing the poverty card is a bit much. A lot of people in this country only dream of having that much to spend on themselves each week.

    To feed a family of four healthily? You are kidding right? Costs us a minimum of €150 to ensure the kids aren't living off fish finger, chips, burgers and other processed crap. Food should be the one expense you never cut back on when it comes to your family, or even yourself.

    Sickens me when i read all the students, or anyone for that matter, on here talking about living off noodles and cheap crap so they can afford enough beer, designer clothes, smartphones etc to keep them going.


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,453 Mod ✭✭✭✭Shenshen


    summerskin wrote: »
    To feed a family of four healthily? You are kidding right? Costs us a minimum of €150 to ensure the kids aren't living off fish finger, chips, burgers and other processed crap. Food should be the one expense you never cut back on when it comes to your family, or even yourself.

    Sickens me when i read all the students, or anyone for that matter, on here talking about living off noodles and cheap crap so they can afford enough beer, designer clothes, smartphones etc to keep them going.

    How many people are we talking about here?
    Our usual weekly shop is around €50-60, and there's just two of us.
    And before you accuse me of eating crap, I cook most of our meals myself, and mostly from scratch using fresh veg.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,881 ✭✭✭JohnMarston


    Heroditas wrote: »
    Which "prestigious" university are the parents talking about?
    It must be somewhere like Yale or Harvard because we don't have any prestigious universities in this country:confused:

    If their income is so low, then why not apply for a grant and send the kid to a university in this country?


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 117 ✭✭Hal Decks


    There is a remarkable display of ignorance in a lot of the replies to this thread. When that family took out their mortgage they had a reasonable expectation that the family income would sustain it. Never in the history of the State had Civil/Public servants' salaries decreased.
    This family is in trouble until such time as they can sell their home and get a cheaper one. I can only hope that some of the righteous critics here will suffer the same way. It's likely to be the only way they will show some compassion.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    Shenshen wrote: »
    How many people are we talking about here?
    Our usual weekly shop is around €50-60, and there's just two of us.

    2 adults, 2 kids, one of which is a teenager(so effectively the equivalent of one adult, 2 elephants and a small herd of wildebeest).


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 9,453 Mod ✭✭✭✭Shenshen


    summerskin wrote: »
    2 adults, 2 kids, one of which is a teenager(so effectively the equivalent of one adult, 2 elephants and a small herd of wildebeest).

    Hehe, they must be, seeing as they're each eating for 2 ;)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,775 ✭✭✭Death and Taxes


    MagicSean wrote: »
    The deductions from net pay are different for each individual. Standard for most sergeants would have been life assurance, critical illness, medical aid, and AGSI membership. You're looking at €100 per week there.
    None of which are statutory, they are a lifestyle choice!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,760 ✭✭✭summerskin


    Shenshen wrote: »
    Hehe, they must be, seeing as they're each eating for 2 ;)

    the "one adult, 2 elephants and a small herd of wildebeest" is just the teenager....


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 794 ✭✭✭bluecode


    Like most people I find their whinging pathetic. Particularly are there are many people out there who in broadly comparable situations including me and my wife, who do manage to feed ourselves every day. I have to say I believe she is downright lying about the food or else it was a one off where apparently they didn't even have a fiver to buy a couple of Aldi Pizzas.

    It is fair to say that people on middle incomes are feeling the pinch more but all that highlight is that people on lower incomes are downright struggling.

    As someone else said this is a typical example of people confusing 'needs' and expectations. So their kid can't get into this 'prestigious' university. Well then go to the less prestigious one or tell him to get a job even part time and help the family finances.

    I feel this is the start of a propaganda campaign on the part of the PS particularly the so called 'front line' services. We'll be hearing more and more sob stories of people who can't afford to replace their dishwasher and drive ten year old cars.

    But this story is a complete mistake. It's extremely difficult to have a shred of sympathy with those people.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 13,992 ✭✭✭✭gurramok


    MagicSean wrote: »
    I think €109 is the figure at the bottom of his pay slip each week. He evidently uses the credit unions budget scheme for his regular utility bills.

    Its after "mortgage and utilities" so not on the pay slip. Thing is they do not tell us what utilities and how many kids there are(if >0, that means child benefit).

    Plus there is an assumption that the wife lives off the husband as she has zero income?! What is the wife's employment status?


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,950 ✭✭✭Milk & Honey


    The eldest child got points for college so must be old enough to work and contribute to the family income. I went to work when i was 17. My family couldn't afford college fees. My brother did the same.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 794 ✭✭✭bluecode


    Hal Decks wrote: »
    There is a remarkable display of ignorance in a lot of the replies to this thread. When that family took out their mortgage they had a reasonable expectation that the family income would sustain it. Never in the history of the State had Civil/Public servants' salaries decreased.
    This family is in trouble until such time as they can sell their home and get a cheaper one. I can only hope that some of the righteous critics here will suffer the same way. It's likely to be the only way they will show some compassion.
    Their income does sustain the mortgage. It's their lifestyle and expectations that are unsustainable. A lot of us 'righteous critics' are in the same boat. But we manage without needing to go to the press with a sob story.

    I reserve my compassion for the unemployed and people on low incomes who are genuinely struggling to put food on the table rather that people who overextended themselves and seem incapable of managing an income that most of us would envy.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,980 ✭✭✭limklad


    My grandmother raised 7 kids on her very small farm during the 50's and 60's on her own after one of her children and Husband died with TB. She got no help from the Government or any of it agencies and very little income by todays standards even with taking inflation into account.

    She did what every mother did in her situation, she rearranged her budget and lifestyle and work very hard to raise her children, she grew her own food in her garden from spuds, carrots turnips, onions, cabbage, etc and had to sell the little amount of cattle for money for items for repair and to help her kids get second level education and clothing and could not afford to kill the few livestock for food because of that.
    http://www.lehigh.edu/~incntr/publications/perspectives/v19/Carone.PDF
    In 1966 Donagh O’Malley’s free education scheme made a huge impact on Irish education by making secondary education free for all Irish students.
    To have regular meat or fish was a luxury. As my aunt quoted to me when I was young, to have chicken one a month was heaven to her. She always have no problem with holding back her tongue about the old days.

    She brought chickens and reared them for food. She eventually got enough money to buy hen lay eggs for additional nutritional for her children. The hens ate food was the same grass and other weeds with insects and worms on fields that the cattle ate from.

    To present day people own get a salary of €45,000+ and are living in a home that have some ground to grow food. You can imagine how much sympathy I have to you, which is very little. .

    To present day house owners, Even a small garden with pots of various compost soils covered by clear bags to maintain heat is a start and you can grow lots of food over time. I believe of self sufficient living is long gone I fear. A huge realignment of of attitude of what we got and use it for survival. Library is free to use, with lots of information on how to grow food. There is plenty of DIY shops who sell seeds, You can keep seeds from plants you buy such as Tomatos, apples, Oranges, Small spuds for growing food in your garden. Read about how to grow them both from books in the library or online on the Internet or you local GYF and use basic material and not expensive materials. How to simply analyse your soils types and how to gather composts, what to grow for that soils types and what to watch out for in regards to pest and infections, Sun positions and the amount of sun light each plant needs. How to store food for winter months.

    http://www.giyireland.com/
    Books like this is very helpful
    http://www.amazon.co.uk/Grow-Your-Food-Free-Almost/dp/1900322897

    For people in Dublin, Last year I was a a farm in the Dublin Mountains region not far from Sandyford. It was a real example how an old age couple were growing food and selling surplus food from an old Poly tunnel that I could see that was expanded over the various years, patched up when holes arrives and use replacement plastic to strengthen the tunnel when the need arrived and using every day items from Household, such as old buckets and biscuit tins and with holes to grow food in the tight space they had. Old timber nailed together to hold containers of food to grow in stacks. They used simple gardening tools and simple nutrients and their hands and knees. We get plenty of sunlight and plenty of water from the sky and blessed with plenty of good soil and compost to grow food. It was a cold day outside and inside the Poly tunnels was very warm for food growing.

    My uncles from my Father side of the family talked how people used to grow their own food and was the thing to do for every family with the smallest amount of ground and people cherish that ground for food. When I was young during to 80's and early 90's, I learnt how to look after and to grow food from our garden and it was very unusual for that time for young people to learn how to grow food. We have given away our independence for our basic requirements in how to survive.

    To quote a preist
    May god have mercy and help us when real disaster actually strikes, There will be lots of starving people in this country for simple lack of knowledge and awareness and then will sell their souls to steal or buy food.
    It is about time that Sargent wife learn and teach her kids to grow food in her garden and collect everyday items and collect compost grow that food to feed her family. Start small and learn from mistakes and failures and expand.
    Food will grow with sunlight and water and nutrients from the soils and compost. Keep clear plastic bags to help retain heat for the plants in order to grow.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 9,624 ✭✭✭wmpdd3


    I worked the whole way through college and had digs as it was the cheapest way to stay in the city my course was in.

    The day the person in MABS looks at your financal statement in shock, is the day you realise you are you dont have money for food.


  • Posts: 0 Aya Jealous Volt


    Melion wrote: »
    65k a year and can't survive, kindly **** off.


    best comment ever 65 grand :rolleyes: and cannot live


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators Posts: 15,224 Mod ✭✭✭✭FutureGuy


    They are talking about it on 2FM. No pity for anyone who bought at the height of the boom. All the warning signs were there.


  • Registered Users Posts: 465 ✭✭Undercover Elephant


    Einhard wrote: »
    Yeah, but in the article she claims their income after bills and the mortgage is €109. That's not too bad for what's essentially discretionary income. As someone else pointed out, you'd fill a Lidl trolley to overflowing with that a week. Sure, they might have to make some adjustments and cut back somewhat, but to be playing the poverty card is a bit much. A lot of people in this country only dream of having that much to spend on themselves each week.

    I don't want to nitpick about what spending is discretionary, because your basic point that many people are worse off is well made.

    The point I was making originally is that this is a middle class family earning a good wage, and even if every point made in this thread about budgeting is correct, they are still hugely exposed. These are the people the government relies on to fund its operations. It's a problem we can't throw money at.

    This is the next phase of the crisis.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,423 ✭✭✭Heroditas


    Of course, it's extremely likely that the letter is a complete fabrication, including the bit about MABS.
    You can guarantee it'll be a subject for Joe Duffy this afternoon though. :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,920 ✭✭✭Einhard


    summerskin wrote: »
    To feed a family of four healthily? You are kidding right? Costs us a minimum of €150 to ensure the kids aren't living off fish finger, chips, burgers and other processed crap. Food should be the one expense you never cut back on when it comes to your family, or even yourself.

    I manage to feed myself quite healthily on less than €25 pw. I really don't think that €109 on food between four people is evidence of someone on the poverty line.
    Sickens me when i read all the students, or anyone for that matter, on here
    talking about living off noodles and cheap crap so they can afford enough beer,
    designer clothes, smartphones etc to keep them going.

    Maybe some people prefer having smartphones and beer to quality food. Why should that sicken you? :confused:
    Hal Decks wrote: »
    There is a remarkable display of ignorance in a lot of the replies to this thread. When that family took out their mortgage they had a reasonable expectation that the family income would sustain it. Never in the history of the State had Civil/Public servants' salaries decreased.
    This family is in trouble until such time as they can sell their home and get a cheaper one. I can only hope that some of the righteous critics here will suffer the same way. It's likely to be the only way they will show some compassion.

    Look, if their troubles are genuine, then I feel for this family, as I'd feel for anyone going through a tough patch. However, it's not unreasonable to question the story being put forward by this woman. Whatever about her mortgage, the fact remains that after all taxes and bills are paid, they have €109 pw to spend on themselves. I don't think child benefit was included in the income tally, so it's likely they have more than that figure. Now, that's obviously not enough for a family to live in luxury, but it's crtainly not living on the breadline as the article seeks to suggest.

    The important thing about all this, is that this woman isn't making their "plight" known simply because she feels the need to share her experiences. She's doing it because she wants to pressurise politicians into not increasing taxes or cutting income or whatever moves might impact on her situation. Now that's fair enough, but the savings have to be made somewhere. She knows that, so what her story amounts to is a demand that someone else shoulder the burden, not her. That you and I or someone else are targeted, but not her. In that light, I don't think it's unreasonable that the wider society, which she expects to insulate her from cuts, shoud question her narrative, and seek to the bottom of her story.

    I don't mind paying a little extra so that people in dire straits are protected- I would resent however, having to pay extra so that someone who has at least €109 pw discretionary income is protected. I don't think I'm alone in that, and I really don't think it's an unreasonable position to take.


  • Registered Users Posts: 94 ✭✭Podgers


    If they are finding it hard to make repayments with a salary of 65K a year and paying €1500 a month they are as well to be handing back to keys to the bank! whats the point in working? wouldn't they have a lot better lifestyle to let it go and rent some were?

    It shows how many people got badly stung during the "good times" everyone could afford the mortgages big cars etc a few years ago but no one foreseen the rainy day. i know people that got paperwork "adjusted" for a successful mortgage application and are up the creek now.

    My father once said its not whats coming in that hurts its whats going out, a person on 20K a year can be more better of than someone on €70K a year, it all depends what they are spending it on.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,300 ✭✭✭martinn123


    One, of many strange facts as outlined in the Irish Times piece.

    The Mortgage is over the next 25 yrs, and her husband is over 50.

    So 7 yrs ago at age 43/44 they took out a 30+ yr Mortgage to take him to age 75.

    Sounds like one of the more risky lenders.

    gardai, can retire from age 60 I think on a full pension so how did they think the Mortgage would be paid up to 75.???

    maybe a bit of Consultancy work in the Security Industry, better get a part time job there....now..


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


    gurramok wrote: »
    Its after "mortgage and utilities" so not on the pay slip. Thing is they do not tell us what utilities and how many kids there are(if >0, that means child benefit).

    Plus there is an assumption that the wife lives off the husband as she has zero income?! What is the wife's employment status?

    Actually the credit union has a scheme whereby the money is deducted from your pay and put into a household budget account from which bills come out of. So your net pay per week would be minus this deduction.


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


    martinn123 wrote: »
    One, of many strange facts as outlined in the Irish Times piece.



    So 7 yrs ago at age 43/44 they took out a 30+ yr Mortgage to take him to age 75.

    Sounds like one of the more risky lenders.

    gardai, can retire from age 60 I think on a full pension so how did they think the Mortgage would be paid up to 75.???

    maybe a bit of Consultancy work in the Security Industry, better get a part time job there....now..

    I thought that was strange too. Usually lenders won't allow a mortgage to run past statutory retirement age. At least that's what I was told when I got my mortgage from AIB 7 years ago - it had to be a max of 20 years as I was 40 at the time.


This discussion has been closed.
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