Flat Broke

Mr. Manager

Just listening to TodayFM here in work and some lady got in touch with the radio to say she was totally flat broke from all the tax hikes, charges, levies etc

She claimed that when she woke up there was no food, only 2 slices of bread, in the whole house and that needed to be shared between her and her 2 kids. One was 10 and one was 4.

She gave the 2 slices to the 4 year old and the other 2 said they weren't hungry.

Is this not a bit OTT? I mean a sliced pan costs about €0.80c, maybe less. Before people go calling me a heartless bastard... I'm not sure how she contacted the show if it was by e-mail, text or call. Either way, she would have had to buy credit to text or call or buy broadband (along with a PC/Laptop) to e-mail.

Obviously I do feel sorry for those that are unable to clothe and feed themselves/family but I think this is an overstatement to say the least.


Has anybody had any experience with being this broke or do you think it's an exaggeration and a pop shot to moan about the recent budget?

RiseToMe

She was at work from what I recall so she wouldnt have used credit or bought broadband, chances are she emailed using work computers.

dirtyghettokid

i had times like that as a kid.. our electricity supply being cut off, no phone and no telly. we had to eat food from the food bank. (canned goods and stale bread, etc)
but that wasn't in ireland.
i suppose most people who are having times like that now either aren't entitled to welfare, or are way in over their heads with debt

kfallon

I do hope it's a wind up or an exaggeration, would hate to think anybody was in that bad of a situation

She claimed that when she woke up there was no food,

Did the food elves sneak in during the night and steal it?

mickydoomsux

I'm willing to bet that if anyone with even a modicum of financial planning knowledge took a glance over her situation they could improve it for her.

I always find these kind of sob stories to be rather unrealistic because they rarely ever give concrete details of income and expenditure.

SEPT 23 1989

She could have rang SVdeP if she was that hard up

davet82

Cereal Rapist wrote: »

Has anybody had any experience with being this broke or do you think it's an exaggeration and a pop shot to moan about the recent budget?

alot of it is do with bad money management/lack of education and provident loans imo

i still feel sorry for people like this but the vinnys are usually pretty good at giving food vouchers ect

smash

Cereal Rapist wrote: »

Just listening to TodayFM here in work and some lady got in touch with the radio to say she was totally flat broke from all the tax hikes, charges, levies etc

She claimed that when she woke up there was no food, only 2 slices of bread

Well that budget certainly kicked in fast...

dirtyghettokid

is there no food drives at this time of year?

Mr. Manager

There's plenty of places she could have gone for food. As someone posted above SVDP do canned drives round this time of year.

She had people calling and texting in wanting to donate to her. Some lady even offered her CC number so she could do some online shopping!

If hand outs are that easy I should start making fake names and chancing other stations

sfwcork

I heard that.She got 200 notes off one lad. Fair play

Was she the real deal..who knows

mikom

"You will pay the price if you're a fussy eater. If they could afford to emigrate then they could afford to eat in a modest restaurant."

Melion

Absolute chancer, get down to Lidl and get a loaf of bread for less than 50c.

franktheplank

mickydoomsux wrote: »

I'm willing to bet that if anyone with even a modicum of financial planning knowledge took a glance over her situation they could improve it for her.

I always find these kind of sob stories to be rather unrealistic because they rarely ever give concrete details of income and expenditure.

And those people who were supposed to have financial planning knowledge, where did they get us?

summerskin

Years ago I remember my mother being in a similar position with us on the day or two before payday. The difference was my mother earned good money but píssed it all away every month on extravagances.

Prime example was the fact that the only thing we had to eat in the house was a large pack of smoked salmon in the freezer and half a loaf of bread. And to drink? Champagne.

fúcking ridiculous but true story. For two days all we had to eat was smoked salmon, washed down with champagne. I was 15.

Boombastic

Should have nipped next door and borrowed some cornflakes

joydivision

They should take her kids into care if she cant put a slice of toaast in a ten year old .
What sort of debts has she got that its more important than a sliced pan for the kids .
Even if I owed my money to Johnny (I break fingers ) Johnson hed be getting told Im 80 pence short in your money kids needed bread .
This story is either horse**** or bad parenting .

Shryke

I have 20 euro for the next week. I'm still not going to be subsisting on 2 slices of bread a day. All the same, while she has to be exaggerating somewhat, she must be in some financial difficulty. It's impressive how petty people are sounding in here. Really, really impressive.

franktheplank

summerskin wrote: »

Years ago I remember my mother being in a similar position with us on the day or two before payday. The difference was my mother earned good money but píssed it all away every month on extravagances.

Prime example was the fact that the only thing we had to eat in the house was a large pack of smoked salmon in the freezer and half a loaf of bread. And to drink? Champagne.

fúcking ridiculous but true story. For two days all we had to eat was smoked salmon, washed down with champagne. I was 15.

Yeah, that's not really the same thing. For one, ye'd a house full of extravagances ye could flog.

summerskin

franktheplank wrote: »

Yeah, that's not really the same thing. For one, ye'd a house full of extravagances ye could flog.

like what? the Filipino house-boy? Then who'd have defrosted the salmon and opened the champagne?






EDIT* we didn't exactly have any "extravagances" to sell. My mother spent all the money on booze and fancy foods. Nothing to sell.

Dodge

There's a cuple of things here

1) Some people are absolutely flat broke. Living pay cheque to pay cheque (or dole payment, whatever...) and having barely enough money to feed/clothe themselves. Poverty absolutely exists.

2) 90% of people who claim the above are lying. it mightn't be a very comfortable living but the vast majority of people who moan about having no money have spent it on items they CHOSE to spend it on

Shryke

Shryke wrote: »

I have 20 euro for the next week. I'm still not going to be subsisting on 2 slices of bread a day. All the same, while she has to be exaggerating somewhat, she must be in some financial difficulty. It's impressive how petty people are sounding in here. Really, really impressive.

I have all the sympathy in the world for people genuinely short of money and food. Been there before. Zero sympathy for people going on national media to advertise that they fed their kids cardboard or nothing at all. Could have gone to SVP instead of "waking up to realise there's no food".

osheen

Plenty of us in our 30's and older should remember the 80's and early 90's bank crisis currency cris etc when interest rates shot up. my dad was self employed and paying 100% interest on overdrafts and 20% on mortgage. Plus he was paying 70% tax .
So things cant be that bad at least now you can cancel your sky and save 100 euro a month to buy bread.

seven_eleven

I wonder how much her phonecall cost. Im sure that money could have bought her a slice pan and some cornflakes

phasers

it's called budgeting love, you can get a week's worth of food for 15 quid if you really have to. 50 will get you a great shop. If you can't afford it then SvP will help. The fact that she let it get that bad is disgraceful.

Mr. Manager

If this girl does work as someone above said then her financial management is even worse.

Dodge

seven_eleven wrote: »

I wonder how much her phonecall cost. Im sure that money could have bought her a slice pan and some cornflakes

Do Spar accept phone credit? Poor argument...

Shryke

bluewolf wrote: »

I have all the sympathy in the world for people genuinely short of money and food. Been there before. Zero sympathy for people going on national media to advertise that they fed their kids cardboard or nothing at all. Could have gone to SVP instead of "waking up to realise there's no food".

I don't have time for attention seekers either, but if no one said anything we wouldn't see any coverage in media at all on this. I much rather to suffer the odd idiot who might not be in trouble that having a blanket see no evil, hear no evil attitude.
It's poor and out of touch journalism that's more the problem imo.

Dodge

Cereal Rapist wrote: »

If this girl does work as someone above said then her financial management is even worse.

Again, that's a prety broad statement to make without knowing anything. maybe she's been out of work for a while and repaying loans. Sure she she could just be terrible with numbers but maybe she's getting herself out of a financial hole

Mightn't have been your intention but I don't think taking potshots at her, based on the info we have,on the internet is fair

Mr. Manager

phasers wrote: »

it's called budgeting love, you can get a week's worth of food for 15 quid if you really have to. 50 will get you a great shop. If you can't afford it then SvP will help. The fact that she let it get that bad is disgraceful.

A kilo pasta in Tesco is €1.15 and 500gr of sauce is €1.29. If she buys 3 packets of each that would easily last a week until she gets herself on track again and only costs €7.32

Eircom_Sucks

i smell bull**** from that woman

i have 1 kid ( 2 year old boy and 1 on the way in may please god )

this type of thing doesnt just creep in one night , you see it happening long before that , if you don't then your heads in the clowds , i feel sorry for the kids

bet she will be able to buy her drink or smokes tho , people always whinge " i've got no money " i know quite a few of these said people , but their propping up the bars at 1pm and stay all day etc

trust me , my kids and my finances are always in the front of my mind , will i have enough next week if i pay this bill , but i have to get petrol etc , im always doing the sums , things happen but i'll try my hardest to protect my kid/s from living on bread etc

Akrasia

I'm almost that broke now

I'm on 24k a year working for a multinational company

I don't get paid again until 21st of December. My bank account has 3 euros in it.

I need to find 80 quid from somewhere to put petrol into the car for the next 2 weeks just to get back and from work.

I have 2 kids and my wife is out of work, she lost her job last year while she was on maternity leave and her employer closed down but she doesn't receive any Job seekers allowance because she isn't available to work because of our two small children.

We're on family income supplement but that hasn't been paid since September because of the delays in processing renewals and it probably won't come through until after christmas

We got 280 in child benefit this week, already a hundred quid of that was spent to try and pay off some of the arrears on our Bin collection (which had not been collected in a month)

We had to spend another 40 quid on new glasses frames for our 3 year old son, he probably needed new lenses too, but we can't afford them right now.


We have a home phone and a basic internet package from Eircom but are a hundred euros in arrears

We don't pay for satelite television, we don't go out to restaurants or pubs, we don't gamble, we don't buy new clothes or shoes or gadgets, we don't have gym membership. We don't own a house, we pay rent of 500 euros a month and don't get any rent supplement or allowances


We do have food to eat because I went out and filled the freezer when I could see we were going to run out of moneyso at least we'd have food, but none of the bills will get paid this month and then it's gonna be more catch up after that

I haven't taken a lunch-break at work for the last 2 months because I can't afford to eat lunch.

We have a meter for electricity which costs about 2 euros a day. I'll probably have to borrow money to keep the electricity turned on.

I have a mobile phone but its pre-paid and I haven't bought credit in months, My wife's mobile phone doesn't work anymore and we can't afford to get her a new one.

But it's fine, we'll suck it up. We all have to share the burden of making sure the bond-holders get paid off. We'll take the cut in our income next year and the increases in costs. We have no choice

franktheplank

Cereal Rapist wrote: »

If this girl does work as someone above said then her financial management is even worse.

Yes lets blame her financial management skills, got forbid wealthy folk couldn't pay their second mortgage, or banks invested in bad debt, or rich public serpents had to make do with a fair wage......

Mr. Manager

Dodge wrote: »

Again, that's a prety broad statement to make without knowing anything. maybe she's been out of work for a while and repaying loans. Sure she she could just be terrible with numbers but maybe she's getting herself out of a financial hole

Mightn't have been your intention but I don't think taking potshots at her, based on the info we have,on the internet is fair

So you're going to repay loans ahead of buying your 10 year old daughter food? You might come back and say she needs it her mortgage payments or they'll take her house etc but I don't think the bank will miss €7.32 off of a mortgage payment.

jesus_thats_gre

Dodge wrote: »

Do Spar accept phone credit? Poor argument...

You are right, it is a poor argument.

You pointing out that Spar won't take phone credit is also bit silly though. Don't buy the phone credit in the first place like..

Mr. Manager

Dodge wrote: »

Do Spar accept phone credit? Poor argument...

The point he was making is that she would have had to spend money on credit instead of money on food for her kids.

It turns out she called from work. Or so another poster says.

.jacksparrow.

Akrasia wrote: »

I'm almost that broke now

I'm on 24k a year working for a multinational company

I don't get paid again until 21st of December. My bank account has 3 euros in it.

I need to find 80 quid from somewhere to put petrol into the car for the next 2 weeks just to get back and from work.

I have 2 kids and my wife is out of work, she lost her job last year while she was on maternity leave and her employer closed down but she doesn't receive any Job seekers allowance because she isn't available to work because of our two small children.

We're on family income supplement but that hasn't been paid since September because of the delays in processing renewals and it probably won't come through until after christmas

We got 280 in child benefit this week, already a hundred quid of that was spent to try and pay off some of the arrears on our Bin collection (which had not been collected in a month)

We had to spend another 40 quid on new glasses frames for our 3 year old son, he probably needed new lenses too, but we can't afford them right now.


We have a home phone and a basic internet package from Eircom but are a hundred euros in arrears

We don't pay for satelite television, we don't go out to restaurants or pubs, we don't gamble, we don't buy new clothes or shoes or gadgets, we don't have gym membership. We don't own a house, we pay rent of 500 euros a month and don't get any rent supplement or allowances


We do have food to eat because I went out and filled the freezer when I could see we were going to run out of moneyso at least we'd have food, but none of the bills will get paid this month and then it's gonna be more catch up after that

I haven't taken a lunch-break at work for the last 2 months because I can't afford to eat lunch.

We have a meter for electricity which costs about 2 euros a day. I'll probably have to borrow money to keep the electricity turned on.

I have a mobile phone but its pre-paid and I haven't bought credit in months, My wife's mobile phone doesn't work anymore and we can't afford to get her a new one.

But it's fine, we'll suck it up. We all have to share the burden of making sure the bond-holders get paid off. We'll take the cut in our income next year and the increases in costs. We have no choice

Is your phone package and internet absolutely necessary?

Boombastic

How much will she be spending at christmas for the childer?

Shryke

Cereal Rapist wrote: »

A kilo pasta in Tesco is €1.15 and 500gr of sauce is €1.29. If she buys 3 packets of each that would easily last a week until she gets herself on track again and only costs €7.32

Motor tax and insurance and a few other bits and pieces has me financially crippled for the next week. I'm lucky I have the week off and don't have to go anywhere. If I had to put fuel in my car I wouldn't be affording 7.32.
It's the tightest it's been for me for a while but it goes to show, you can't judge without knowing a persons situation. Things can pile up easily.

summerskin

Akrasia wrote: »

I'm almost that broke now

I'm on 24k a year working for a multinational company

I don't get paid again until 21st of December. My bank account has 3 euros in it.

I need to find 80 quid from somewhere to put petrol into the car for the next 2 weeks just to get back and from work.

I have 2 kids and my wife is out of work, she lost her job last year while she was on maternity leave and her employer closed down but she doesn't receive any Job seekers allowance because she isn't available to work because of our two small children.

We're on family income supplement but that hasn't been paid since September because of the delays in processing renewals and it probably won't come through until after christmas

We got 280 in child benefit this week, already a hundred quid of that was spent to try and pay off some of the arrears on our Bin collection (which had not been collected in a month)

We had to spend another 40 quid on new glasses frames for our 3 year old son, he probably needed new lenses too, but we can't afford them right now.


We have a home phone and a basic internet package from Eircom but are a hundred euros in arrears

We don't pay for satelite television, we don't go out to restaurants or pubs, we don't gamble, we don't buy new clothes or shoes or gadgets, we don't have gym membership. We don't own a house, we pay rent of 500 euros a month and don't get any rent supplement or allowances


We do have food to eat because I went out and filled the freezer when I could see we were going to run out of moneyso at least we'd have food, but none of the bills will get paid this month and then it's gonna be more catch up after that

I haven't taken a lunch-break at work for the last 2 months because I can't afford to eat lunch.

We have a meter for electricity which costs about 2 euros a day. I'll probably have to borrow money to keep the electricity turned on.

I have a mobile phone but its pre-paid and I haven't bought credit in months, My wife's mobile phone doesn't work anymore and we can't afford to get her a new one.

But it's fine, we'll suck it up. We all have to share the burden of making sure the bond-holders get paid off. We'll take the cut in our income next year and the increases in costs. We have no choice

Wow. Good luck to you, I wish you all the best. It's often easy to forget that there are people in genuine financial difficulty.

jesus_thats_gre

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Is your phone package and internet absolutely necessary?

Really?!?!?!?!?

Rasheed

mickydoomsux wrote: »

I'm willing to bet that if anyone with even a modicum of financial planning knowledge took a glance over her situation they could improve it for her.

I always find these kind of sob stories to be rather unrealistic because they rarely ever give concrete details of income and expenditure.

You can't open a paper, or listen to a radio without these stories. It has nearly become a 'competition' as to who is the worse off.

There are such deals on food now, Lidl, Aldi and the like, I find it very hard to believe that somebody is that hard up.

Mr. Manager

Shryke wrote: »

Motor tax and insurance and a few other bits and pieces has me financially crippled for the next week. I'm lucky I have the week off and don't have to go anywhere. If I had to put fuel in my car I wouldn't be affording 7.32.
It's the tightest it's been for me for a while but it goes to show, you can't judge without knowing a persons situation. Things can pile up easily.

In fairness, motor tax at home is almost optional

.jacksparrow.

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Really?!?!?!?!?

Yes really,if he is in that much trouble then get rid of it,its not needed if you cant afford food.

simple as that.

giant_midget

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Is your phone package and internet absolutely necessary?

It's 2012 ffs, of course they are...

summerskin

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Is your phone package and internet absolutely necessary?

When you have a child and a pregnant partner it's 100% necessary. Also it's usually a 12 month contract and they won't let you cancel while you're in arrears, catch 22.




Lots of amazing búllshít being spouted on here by people who clearly either still live at home or as a student.

SunnyDub1

I do believe that there are people out there that are really really struggling in these times, and I do genuinely feel sorry for them people.

I also believe that there are people out there who are just greedy and expect something for nothing and when they don't like what they hear or get what they want they just like to have a good long moan about it and exaggerate.

Yes we are going through tough times and the majority of us are suffering but stop with all the luxury's/beering/smoking/spoiling kids and live basic and allow a treat once in a while..
Simples

.jacksparrow.

giant_midget wrote: »

It's 2012 ffs, of course they are...

Explain why?and tell me how the relevance of what year it is makes a difference.

Remember if you had no money for food would you sacrifice your phone and internet to feed your family,I know I would.

20Cent

Terrible situation for that lady to be in very sad but repeated up and down the country.

summerskin

.jacksparrow. wrote: »

Explain why?and tell me how the relevance of what year it is makes a difference.

Remember if you had no money for food would you sacrifice your phone and internet to feed your family,I know I would.

i will repeat...

When you have a child and a pregnant partner it's 100% necessary. Also it's usually a 12 month contract and they won't let you cancel while you're in arrears, catch 22. How would cancelling it give him any more money this month when he has said he won't be able to pay the bill anyway?