Garda Sergeant can't afford food

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".

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. )


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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Boombastic wrote: »

A woman on Liveline earlier got very mad when someone suggested she get a bag of coal and light a fire, it was beneath her. Yet this same woman wouldn't work because she wanted to be able to be at home with her child, survived on benefits and had been to the SVDP begging for a hand out,



but the thoughts of her having to eat porridge and light a fire to heat herself angered her greatly

Better to sit in the cold and starve it seems:rolleyes: I smell the same sense of entitlement off this story


*posted from my ipad Jacuzzi with a cuban cigar in my hand and a forrero roche in my mouth, but I soooo poor:(

The prospect of buying coal,far too heavy for my poor arms, and it's so so dirty, excuse me while I keel over to die in this sewer here.

WoollyRedHat wrote: »

The prospect of buying coal,far too heavy for my poor arms, and it's so so dirty, excuse me while I keel over to die in this sewer here.

I firmly believe people in this country had more get up and go before they learnt they could talk to joe, who seems to solve all their problems.

If hes broke hes broke. I dont see why people are gloating. If a mans fallen on hard times he deserves our sympathy.

Boombastic wrote: »

This is just a stab in the dark and I'm not a financial adviser, but one solution may be to reduce your outgoings:eek:

And if MABS can't find outgoings to cut what makes you so sure they can?

Smidge wrote: »

You do know how mabs works?
You tell them what YOU spend, they write it down, count it up, and if you have more going out than coming thats what they write down.

MABS works with clients by supporting them in drawing up realistic budgets and maximising their incomes. MABS also supports clients in dealing with their debts according to their budgets

Thankfully I've never had to go to find out what MABS do.

The picture painted by the Mabs adviser is not quite as cheerful. She calculated the family’s net pay and child benefit total at €807.37. After totting up the mortgage payment and items such as fuel, food, clothing and footwear, education/medical/ transport, bin charges etc, she saw no way of getting their outgoings below €1,100 a week.