A-Z of living below the MIS (part two)

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Date: 13 July 2011 08:53:56

Ok, so it was going to be a series but it all went a bit Pete Tong and so I am just going to do one final post on this topic at the moment. An A-Z of living below the MIS.

Average weekly and monthly earnings are impossible to calculate for those of us with collections of part-time contracts whose hours can vary and who don't know what is going to come next.

Budgeting depends largely on what we discover is on "special" when we reach the supermarket and what the weather, etc are doing. Food, rent and heating and transport for getting to work/ appointments/ interviews (delete as appropriate) are the "essentials" we work on, but even these can differ from week to week.

Children come first. Generally in families living below the MIS adults will make real sacrifices in order to see their children don't have to go without too much. We are aware how "visible poverty" can lead to bullying.

Dads are single parents too, whether they are the main carers for their children or not. The money that they give in maitenance may not be visibly apparent, but many dads who are not main carers are also living below the MIS because they are seeking to do the right thing.

Every birthday or Christmas is a struggle where those of us seeking not to get further into debt or unable to get further credit are forced into having to find creative alternatives to try and make it special when we are eaten up with the guilt of having to say no to what we know our children really want.

Family holidays are whatever we can manage. Spring Harvest, Greenbelt, Detling....we did them all because the entertainment was included and we could generally get a lift or a cheap train ticket. It's not because we don't want the two weeks in Majorcia / Florida/ Greece (delete according to this years fashion) - it's simply we can never afford it.

Good food costs money - fish fingers, chicken nuggets, etc are cheap and often on special. We don't like living on kak we know is unhealthy, it's all we can afford that we know will be eaten.

Hunting around charity shops comes naturally, but those skills can also be used in "real shops" too if you're not too fussy about the colour, etc. Managed to get Third Party a pair of £79 designer shorts for £7.90 in House of Fraser recently. Only thing is you should put your decent clothes on to go shopping in, the being followed around in a store because you are immeadiately assumed tobe a shop lifter because you look too poor to shop there gets wearing.

It is embarrassing walking into or phoning a bank to transfer/ withdraw amounts that are below £5 but it can be the only way to get through the week sometimes. Cash machines cannot despense the last £2.54 you have, which you need to take out to get home from work or buy the bread and milk until next pay/ benefit day.

Just because somebody looks middle class doesn't mean they are not living below the MIS. To go job hunting, work with the public, etc you need to be able to put forward a certain appearance.

Keep positive - it might be the phone has been put on incoming only, you are having to volunteer to help with something in order to get a free meal in order to make it through the week and you are just praying the electric metre won't run out for another two days but that does not mean you are not of worth. Volunteering for stuff you want to do, rather than benefit from doing, is a great way to remind yourself that you are of worth and that other people with the resources have hard lives too.

Learn to think creatively. One of the best Christmas presents I ever think I gave Third Party was a box of craft materials. It was not a "nice" expensive one with a brand but it was great fun to put together - finding a box in the cheap shop and then finding cheap stationary to put in.

Make ambiguous remarks when others are discussing their plans for the summer, etc. I became an expert at saying, "we're just doing a series of long weekends where we go to festivals".  That actually meant that apart from Greenbelt we were going with my dad who was working at these places - they were our only way of properly going on holiday.

Never try to hide the truth from a child, but put it in perspective. Third Party was told I could not afford x,y or z simply because I was too skint. Yet she was also taught to think "we are skint - not poor". I explained to her that there were really "poor" people in this country and abroad and that we should never forget that, and never stop seeking to show God's love to them or trying to be a voice on their behalf.

Offers of furniture, etc are not things people should apologise for. I have lost count of the wonderful items which have found their way to me rather than the tip over the years which I have generally been delighted with which people have felt the need to apologise for or point out the floors in as they have passed them to me. Believe me they are better than anything I would have otherwise have and with my tendancy to move about after a few years they have tended to be the ideal stop gap until we have moved again and not needed them or whatever.

People are different and different lifestyles have different problems. As I heard in a recent sermon those living above and below the MIS often have lifestyles the other cannot understand. We really do need to try and learn about each other. We may not always be able to understand but it will help us understand where the similarities amongst human kind exist and how feelings of lonliness and exclusion are often not linked to income. Sad truth is that the current epedemic of people on the happy pills cuts right across class barriers.

Quick fix solutions are often no more than smoke and mirror tricks which can leave people struggling more than before. At the end of the day long term jobs and living wages are what people need.

Remember when setting the prices for events that what might seem "reasonable" can be unattainable for some, particularly if it comes at the same time as new school uniform / money for a school trip/ the hole in the shoes start to let in water (delete according to that weeks issue). How you work around this needs thought and sensitivity.

Self-respect costs nothing but it can be really difficult to maintain it if you are often having to rely on the "charity" of others in order to fully participate in stuff. Again volunteering and knowing you are giving something back and so not "freeloading" is a great way to avoid this. However, you need to be careful with this. If you are working various jobs to manage things be careful that the other stuff you do doesn't burn you out or if you're on benefit make sure that volunteering in this way isn't going to get you in bother. The system is a funny thing.

Take responsibility for you and yours and do your best for them, but understand that sometimes your best will not be enough. In this situation realise that (i) you are part of a wider web of life and you cannot control all the variables, (ii) "yours" need to take responsibility for themselves too. You can guide and give your best input but at the end of the day they have free will too. Finally though, refuse to give up on them but also be ready to put the personal boundaries you need to in place in order to keep yourself sane and in a position to do the best for them. Living below the MIS can increase the pressure on this, but it can build resiliance.

Understand that those living above the MIS don't usually intend to be insensitive, patronising or whatever - it's just you occupy the same space but live in different worlds for much of the time. Also if you are living above the MIS don't feel guilty about it. If we learn to live together we may just find creative ways to balance things out.

Value is something which cannot be measured in people in monetary terms. Whatever the Daily Mail or SWP seek to say the truth is that every human has worth within them and not all owners of the means of production rip people off and not all poor people are seeking to sponge. The truth is that most people are just seeking to do their best to survive and do the right thing for them and theirs

Women are more likely to be living below the MIS and that does make poverty a feminist issue. However, many men are as well. If we seek to gender the effects and reasons (into single mums and feckless, lazy blokes) we are believing lies distributed by people who want us to believe that people choose to be poor.

Xit from poverty is most likely through death. Don't believe this should be the case.

Young people living below the MIS are more likely to end up living with no education and training. They are often not lazy, but have lost hope through being written off by multiple institutions.

Zero tolerance has some point, but in looking at crime we need to realise that certain crime and disorder is caused by poverty. In order to stop this we need to support community projects and those who feel that they have no option but to try and escape. We need to enable them to see that they need to take responsibility and that they really do have choices.