There are gonna be even more dickheads doing the “it’s easy to survive with almost nothing, here I’ll live off £10 a week or do a nutritious family shop for a fiver to prove it” thing, as if poverty is just having a bit less money and not having less of *everything*

Try it without a car. Live in a smaller home. Chuck your tech away, replace it all with 2nd or 3rd hand old models if at all. Go back to free view or sell your tv to pay the electricity bill. Public spaces only for wifi. Work a zero-hour contract. Print your CV off @ the library.

Get the kids to + from school yourself. One’s just had a growth spurt, where’s their new school uniform coming from? Throw out any new clothes you’ve bought for yourself in the last two yrs, only keep second-hand stuff, how much have you got left and what state is it in? One pair

of trainers, one pair of smarter (but scuffed) shoes you try to keep to one side for job interviews + special occasions. It’s fuckin freezing, but you know exactly how much an hour of heating is so put another blanket on and wake up shivering. Wait weeks for a doctor’s appt.

Receive a prescription, but maybe never fill it because it can be the difference between eating and not. “Survive” for a short while with v little money, start to think it’s not so bad, then have the person giving you the money just decide not to! And you don’t have savings, bc

you can’t save nothing, so what now. Maybe there’s some food in the freezer (if u have one) or the cupboards for this week but shit, your period’s just come. Got mates you can ask to spot you a few quid for sanitary products? Maybe a cheeky deodorant, toothpaste, off-brand calpol

It’s having less of everything to start with, being further away from having everything than you’d ever thought you would be, giving up hope that things will ever be better, and being told you deserve it because you just don’t work hard or spend wisely enough.

And then some dickhead goes online or on TV to prove it’s not so bad! They managed to only spend £9.37 for a whole week, changing absolutely nothing else about their material circumstances, by buying the absolute cheapest foods they could source from 5 different supermarkets.

And what I’ve described is just a starting point, it’s not rly that bad. It’s not factoring in disability, immigration status, racism, living with an abuser or having fled DV, etc.