Garda Sergeant can't afford food

12vdc wrote: »

If any one here has gone through mabs they will know how forensically competent they are in sifting through the bs
EVERY cent you get in and every red cent you owe is accounted for
A mabs spokesperson has confirmed that this family are broke
What's the difficulty?

The difficulty is that this guy is making more than me and my husband combined, with the same mortgage repayments.

Yet they claim they can't put food on the table, while we consider ourselves a happy middle-income family, with money to save at the end of each month.

There has to be something in the article they're not telling us, for example additional debt.

K-9 wrote: »

I think it is Tax deductible, ASTI agrees with me, ASTI

It is not tax deductible, that is a fact.

mhge wrote: »

They said themselves he's on 75k with overtime.

"Her husband has gross earnings of more than €65,000 – including allowances and unsocial hours coverage. After tax, Universal Social Charge, pension, health insurance, mortgage and utility deductions, a typical weekly payslip shows a net payment of €109."

Total income at €65 including allowances.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

It is not tax deductible, that is a fact.

Well MagicSean a Guard himself I believe, must be wrong too here, and ASTI so maybe you can link to these facts?

Shivers26 wrote: »

I'm baffled why they can't live on that wage. Between myself and my husband our combined gross pay would be close to their €65k

My husband is public sector and I am private sector. Yes, there have been a lot of cuts to his wages and it sucks but we have learned to live with it. At least he has a job etc etc

We live in a very modest 3 bed house, we have 1 car between us (a clapped out Ford that badly needs to be changed but we'll squeeze another year out of her), we pay creche fees, have the fast broadband and digital tv, all the usual utilities and we are definitely not starving. They must have other debts. We can afford to treat ourselves to a few luxuries now and then and go on a foreign holiday most years.

You could fill a trolly to bursting point in Lidl for €109!!

when you say close, do you mean close above or below?

whats your mortgage?

but look, I take your point.

They may be very poor money managers.

They may have expectations that "things should be better than this".

But they should be able at the very least survive on what they earn.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

This doesnt say that its tax deductible.

It does, pension levy is deducted from gross to arrive at taxable pay, then the taxable pay is taxed, not gross. It's exactly like how pension deductions are handled for private sector workers or the self employed. Anyway, you should get onto ASTI, the teachers have incorrect information according to you.

MagicSean wrote: »

It's not suitable for calculating a Gardas wage. Here's my own calculations.

Gross pay €47,314.95
Rent allowance €4,113.75
Boot allowance €123.04
Uniform allowance €226.00
Saturday allowance €538.46
Sunday allowance €4,367.53
Evening allowance €554.82
Night allowance €5,392.84
Total Income €62,631.39

Pension levy 5% 15001 -20,000 €250.00
Pension levy 10% up to 60k €4,000.00
Pension levy 10.5% on over 60k €276.30
Total pension levy €4,526.30

Taxable Income €58,105.09

PRSI (4% over 6,604) €2,060.04
USC 2% on €10,036 €200.72
USC 4% up to €16,016 €239.20
USC 7% over €16,016 €2,946.24
PAYE 20% €6,560.00
PAYE 41% €7,075.09
Pension contribution 5% €2,905.25
Basic Deductions €21,986.54

Net pay after basic deductions €36,118.55

Ehh why do you get a rent allowance ?
Are you living away from your family home ?
Do you work nights, evenings, weekends ?
Do you get paid extra on top of these allowances for each weekend, night you work ?
Is there a max number of weekends, nights that you must or can only work for these allowances ?

BTW you talk about your pension levies, so tell us are you going to get a defined benefit pension that is a percentage of your exit salary ?
Are you going to receive a tax free lump sum on exit ?

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.

There a few few here saying that they've combined gross incomes similar or slightly less than his... his take home will be far less than yours. Since tax indivualisation you can only take half your spouses tax credits but not any of their bands. A little playing with tax calculators show two spouses earning 26k each end up with a similar take home pay as a single married person earning 65k. Those who earn 32k each would take home close to 600 more per month.

http://www.deloitte.ie/tc/Default.aspx

This article stinks of something I have heard uttered a few times particularly by it has to be said members of the public sector on public forums and in the media.
Basically it boils down to the mantra
"I should be paid a salary and I should only pay taxes based on my outgoings".

People need to cop on and realise they do not get paid based on how much they spend or they do not pay less taxes based because they have more personal expenditure.

If a family is on 65k plus probable overtime and contributions such as childrens allowance then they are not that fooking badly off, unless of course they decided to buy loads of stuff on once available cheap credit.

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.

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.