Sunday 1 October 2017

The working poor - Britain 2017

Wow...” my friend sighed admiringly as I approached the table with our tray. “How do you do it? How on earth can you drink massive soya mochas and stay so slim?”

Briefly, I wondered how I could answer without embarrassing her - and myself. I had actually been dreaming about this great big warm chocolatey drink ever since we had made this arrangement. The truth was, this ‘massive soya mocha’ was to be both my breakfast and my lunch in one. What I was going to do about dinner was a bridge I would cross when I came to it. It was in all likelihood going to be a mug of packet soup with a couple of dry Ryvita, or a 65p pouch of microwave rice – maybe with a splash of soy sauce for a bit of excitement.

Well...” I finally laughed. “I guess because I don’t do it every day...”

This was in fact, only the second time I had done it in as many years. The last time had been with this same friend - in this same Salisbury coffee shop - two years before. That’s why I had been looking forward to it so much.

I didn’t really feel I could say so though. Today was about catching up on what we had been up to since last we had met. Furthermore, I had been brought up to believe that not only is it the height of vulgarity to moan about money, but that ‘a poor friend is a bore friend’.

Most people in my circle are perfectly sweet, but they simply cannot relate. Most of my friends seem to find it hard to believe that I could possibly be in any ‘real’ difficulty. After all, I work, I run a car (I have to – no public transport to take me to work), and I am middle class. As everyone knows, middle class people always have reserves tucked away somewhere – don’t they?

Strangely enough though, not this one. In fact, I can’t remember a time in my life when money wasn’t an issue. As a kid, I remember noticing stuff going missing from my home most months as my mother sold things to make the rent. Nothing was ever said.

As an adult, economies I now employ to make my own rent include not running the fridge-freezer my landlord has thoughtfully provided, and making sure I don’t buy any food that might require cooling. The heating will not be going on this winter either, no matter how cold it gets. I am already too far in hock to the Electricity board for that. The one luxury I will allow myself per day will be an hour’s worth of hot water for a bath to warm myself up before bed.

So how does ‘someone like me’ manage to make a shit cake like this? The ingredients are actually very simple. Take two parents dying off before you can get established leaving you nothing but their debts to sort out, mix in a couple of well-timed redundancies, add two or three heaped spoonfuls of lengthy unemployment, and serve.

Another ingredient is to fall into the trap of thinking that moving to an area where the cost of living is apparently ‘lower’ (well, lower than London) will allow your finances to recover. When, following another lay-off, I moved from Oxford down to Hampshire, I stupidly believed that given my formidable office skills, I would be able to temp-to-perm quickly, and get sorted.

However, as I soon discovered, if rents seem comparatively ‘reasonable’ somewhere, it means that jobs in the locale probably pay way below the national average – with the competition for them way above. Where I live, if you see a job advertised offering more than £17,000 a year, you’ll be fighting at least 100 other people for it, and in the main, they’ll be younger - and cheaper. I recently lost out to a college leaver prepared to work for half the advertised salary. My agency were so shattered on my behalf, they did a bit of digging. They told me she lived at home with her parents. They also told me the company adjusted the job spec to accommodate the fact she actually had no office experience at all. To their credit, my agency didn’t rest until they found me something.

Two months ago, they finally managed to parachute me into a job that had suddenly become available. It’s a lovely company, and I consider myself very lucky, but like a lot of local businesses, they can only afford me part-time. Provided I don’t fall ill and lose a day, I net just over £950 a month, but my outgoings amount to over £300 more than that. 
 

A selection of the monthly demands on my battered bank account include Scottish and Southern Electricity who suck £70 a month out of me because I dared put on the heating in my dark, damp, one-bedroom flat last winter, and spent most of my days running my computer looking for work (they tried to make it £115). My landlord scores £600, the council want another £70 a month to light the estate and take away the rubbish I put out every three weeks (I don’t generate enough to put out a sack every 7 days), and my telephone bill is over £60 a month, less than £5 of which is calls - the rest is line-rental and the privilege of being connected to the internet.

Then there are the credit cards containing ancient debts that date back to my early 20s. Both of which are now out of their 0% interest periods and getting fat each month on fees so that even though I have never bought so much as a bar of soap with either of them, the minimum payment actually manages to climb a few more quid each month. Santander is the worst. Minimum payment started off at £40. It is now £57 and rises every month – even though I haven’t so much as touched it since I transferred a balance to it. It rests in pieces in a drawer.

Oh, I shall ‘go compare’ as soon as I possibly can. I am hoping to 'go permanent' in my job, but for as long as I am an hourly paid agency worker, no financial organisation is going to take me seriously as a credit risk.

So that's how I stay so slim. I am virtually starving. Even though I am in work, in England, in 2017. What’s more, I am not alone in this. I can’t even join a list for social housing because according to my local authority, I do not constitute a priority. People like me never do.

Brexit, Schmexit. As Monty says in ‘Withnail and I’: “Shat on by Tories, shovelled up by Labour...” Single, childless, working people have always been ineligible for meaningful support, and I don’t see that changing - no matter who is in Number 10.

So next time you see a thin person eating or drinking what looks like a lot, try not to be envious. That may be all they’re having for the next three days.


© Emmeline Wyndham – 2017.