tonys wrote:

floatingingalway wrote:

Social Welfare payment for family of six for month - €2,149

Average monthly layout for family of six on a budget ( by my own calculations).
Dinners ala Rachel for month €300
School lunches @ approx €3 per kid per day (five day week) €360
Healthy Breakfasts @ approx €1.50 per head per day €360
Other consumables- juice, bread, milk etc. €360
ESB €75
Gas/heating oil €100
Transport ( inc tax, ins) €250
School needs - books etc @ €5/week per child €120
Clothing €100


Total €2025

Balance of €124. Not much room for error is there?

There seems to be something askew with your figures or your family of six. Are they all school going kids with no parents or do they have six weeks in a month?

I mentioned earlier on another thread that Im not an economist; I'm no mathematician either. Feel free to correct any errors

tonys wrote:

floatingingalway wrote:

Social Welfare payment for family of six for month - €2,149

Average monthly layout for family of six on a budget ( by my own calculations).
Dinners ala Rachel for month €300
School lunches @ approx €3 per kid per day (five day week) €360
Healthy Breakfasts @ approx €1.50 per head per day €360
Other consumables- juice, bread, milk etc. €360
ESB €75
Gas/heating oil €100
Transport ( inc tax, ins) €250
School needs - books etc @ €5/week per child €120
Clothing €100


Total €2025

Balance of €124. Not much room for error is there?

There seems to be something askew with your figures or your family of six. Are they all school going kids with no parents or do they have six weeks in a month?

bloody maths

cactus flower wrote:

Oh yes - and laundry and
dry cleaning (not affordable).
School bags and sports stuff
Hair cuts
Light bulbs
Bed clothes

And God forbid if you want your children to learn a musical instrument

floatingingalway wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Oh yes - and laundry and
dry cleaning (not affordable).
School bags and sports stuff
Hair cuts
Light bulbs
Bed clothes

And God forbid if you want your children to learn a musical instrument

Well if your children have the same musical talent as mine, God could do a lot worse.

Another little touch - if you are in Social Housing and your Social Welfare payments increase the local authority automatically puts your rent up.

What would you give the kids for €1.50 per week tonys? And for a family of six, isn't transport cheaper if you avoid public transport? Service your own car or get a Polish mechanic to do it - use the black market on those things mechanics are as casual as solicitors with their fees.

Auditor #9 wrote:

What would you give the kids for €1.50 per week tonys?

€1.50 per DAY.
Sandwiches, fruit, pure juice drink/milk/water & a cereal bar.

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

What would you give the kids for €1.50 per week tonys?

€1.50 per DAY.
Sandwiches, fruit, pure juice drink/milk/water & a cereal bar.

Oh yeah per day. Would you go to Aldi and Lidl or would you need to? It all sounds very tight still - a bit scrimping and scraping. Often the better people to economise are the people already with rakes of money. I think it's necessary for there to exist a culture of 'minding the pennies' (micro-managing) to make economising more comfortable for people. Either a culture of it - through awareness and reward for economising and a culture putting a positive value on it whereas I think we might put a negative aspect on it - you're a scabby bollix if you're able to economise - either a culture or a lack of need for the family to overspend.

To have very simple needs is to be like Joe Higgins but not everyone is like that, especially four children.

tonys wrote:

floatingingalway wrote:

tonys wrote:

floatingingalway wrote:

Social Welfare payment for family of six for month - €2,149

Average monthly layout for family of six on a budget ( by my own calculations).
Dinners ala Rachel for month €300
Could to better, say €200
School lunches @ approx €3 per kid per day (five day week) €360
€1.50 per day tops. Total €120
Healthy Breakfasts @ approx €1.50 per head per day €360
Less than €1.00 per day, porridge? Total €170

Other consumables- juice, bread, milk etc. €360
€280.00 would be my guess.
ESB €75
Gas/heating oil €100
Transport ( inc tax, ins) €250
Forget the car, get bikes + allow €100 per week for rent, after rent allowance.
School needs - books etc @ €5/week per child €120
Should be €80.00
Clothing €100


Total €2025

Balance of €124. Not much room for error is there?

There seems to be something askew with your figures or your family of six. Are they all school going kids with no parents or do they have six weeks in a month?

I mentioned earlier on another thread that Im not an economist; I'm no mathematician either. Feel free to correct any errors

My total €1225.00
Lots of other stuff not taken into account of course, but if you stay away from processed food of any sort, do & make as much as you can yourself, you can save a small fortune. It wouldn’t be easy to make do, but it wouldn’t be impossible either.

Good grief, and I thought my maths were bad! Thank feck you don't work for Dept. of Social welfare or there would be a malnutrition catastrope in this country. I presume you don't have kids, tonys.

I notice everyone has steered well away from the housing element.

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

What would you give the kids for €1.50 per week tonys?

€1.50 per DAY.
Sandwiches, fruit, pure juice drink/milk/water & a cereal bar.

When did you last shop for food Tonys, bless you...

cactus flower wrote:

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

What would you give the kids for €1.50 per week tonys?

€1.50 per DAY.
Sandwiches, fruit, pure juice drink/milk/water & a cereal bar.

When did you last shop for food Tonys, bless you...

Isn't it possible to make a lunch for this amount if you are buying inexpensive produce in bulk? Given the auld tupperware, it's very easy to compartmentalise a bulk purchase like juice etc. (Good word: compartmentalise). I think I could do it but my tastes are very pedestrian.

Yes I have kids, yes it is possible and yes I do the shopping.

There is no right to food and shelter. No other animal treats it as a right either. The OP makes no sense in that regard imho.

I don't agree with a right to a house. Fair enough if you are willing to work hard for it (even if you can't get work) and to pay for it out of your salary and to pay taxes towards other unfortunates getting a food and shelter if they are trying but can't afford it. But that's called a deal not a right. Nothing comes of nothing, all shelter and food has to be provided somehow through work and effort. If you don't sign up to the deal, if one thinks one has a right to these things while opting out of the effort, then one is little better than a thief.

Is it an inalienable right for those who control debt, the media and the reigns of power to allow asset prices to spiral out of control in order to line their own pockets at the expense of simple wage earners? Should a home be considered a home or an asset?

Auditor #9 wrote:

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

What would you give the kids for €1.50 per week tonys?

€1.50 per DAY.
Sandwiches, fruit, pure juice drink/milk/water & a cereal bar.

Oh yeah per day. Would you go to Aldi and Lidl or would you need to? It all sounds very tight still - a bit scrimping and scraping. Often the better people to economise are the people already with rakes of money. I think it's necessary for there to exist a culture of 'minding the pennies' (micro-managing) to make economising more comfortable for people. Either a culture of it - through awareness and reward for economising and a culture putting a positive value on it whereas I think we might put a negative aspect on it - you're a scabby bollix if you're able to economise - either a culture or a lack of need for the family to overspend.

To have very simple needs is to be like Joe Higgins but not everyone is like that, especially four children.

perhaps butlers pantry or superquins finest would be better suited to sir with the social wefare cheque and 4 kids.

rockyracoon wrote:

Is it an inalienable right for those who control debt, the media and the reigns of power to allow asset prices to spiral out of control in order to line their own pockets at the expense of simple wage earners? Should a home be considered a home or an asset?

the free market decides what asset prices are, not those who control debt/media/reins(?) of power.

thats the vendors to you and i. basically that translates to the 40-60 year olds of our society that have been gifted with hundreds of thousands of euro spending power due to demographic change*.

*increase in female labour participation rate and net immigration.

tonys wrote:

Auditor #9 wrote:

What would you give the kids for €1.50 per week tonys?

€1.50 per DAY.
Sandwiches, fruit, pure juice drink/milk/water & a cereal bar.

Yeh fully agree with the €1.50 (tops) lunch.

Water with pop up lid - 30cents (often reuse bottle for a few times)
Apple or banana - 30 cents
Sandwich (brown sliced) with ham/billy roll/ cheese + 200mm tin foil - 30 cents
Cereal bar - 40 cents
Couple of biscuits - 10 cents.

€3 is waaaay over.

BTW - did anyone hear the Democratic strategist say on Vincent Brown last night that 'Household budget is a middle-class concept' ?
What ye make of that ?

On another thread someone asked me about converting mortgage agreements into rental agreements, I meant to get back to them. Unfortunately can't remember which thread, but here seems appropriate for some of the comment.

I have some work trying to assess property values and bad debt. My interests in truth are with large developments and I am not involved in the legal end.

Observations on a lot of the bad debt.

House Holders.
Basically we take as read difficulty in selling in current market and downward pressure that it would cause, costs, potential vandalism etc. Generally where possible best to keep house occupied and obtain cash flow.

Three main categories.
1 Those with considerable equity in their house but have fallen on hard times. Usually best to adjust mortgage terms to allow for illness or give time to find another job. The Banks need to consider such property as in joint ownership and rather than going aggressive they need to take a more measured view. Flooding the market is in no one's interest only the repo men benifit.
2 Those with little equity, rental best option.
3 Those in 1 & 2 above who are in marginal difficulty. This is an interesting and large group. Interest rate reductions will make a massive difference to their circumstances. The 1/2% decrease could mean a saving to many of £200 a month. A couple more reductions and lot of people are out of the woods (for now).

What has become increasingly clear to me, is that the assumption that it is mortgages that are the problem is wrong. It is overall debt that is the problem. Cars on lease and credit card debt can require collective payments that are comparable to the mortgage. Many are paying well over what they need for credit and increasing their mortgage to pay off other loans would save them money!!

I am in absolutely no doubt that we need to rain in personal credit and its availability.

SMALL DEVELOPERS & BUY TO LET
Joe public decides to be a property developer. Unmitigated disaster. I could go on but not pertinent to this thread.

MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS
This sector is not as bad as many are making out. Main problems are over payment for site and increased cost of financing due to inability to sell at anticipated price. (again not pertinent to this thread)

IMO We need to reduce consumer spending and return to a mentality that you purchase through savings. To hell with the retail sector, most of the goods bought on credit are manufactured in China or some Eastern sweat shop.

tonys wrote:

Yes I have kids, yes it is possible and yes I do the shopping.

I'll have a go at buying that lunch tonys and get back to you on it.

i had budgeted lunch at eur5.50 a day in staff canteen but have managed to reduce it to about Eur2 using the finest of fresh veg from superquinn by making it myself. sure beats the rubbery paninis that the staff canteen sell.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

There is no right to food and shelter. No other animal treats it as a right either. The OP makes no sense in that regard imho.

I don't agree with a right to a house. Fair enough if you are willing to work hard for it (even if you can't get work) and to pay for it out of your salary and to pay taxes towards other unfortunates getting a food and shelter if they are trying but can't afford it. But that's called a deal not a right. Nothing comes of nothing, all shelter and food has to be provided somehow through work and effort. If you don't sign up to the deal, if one thinks one has a right to these things while opting out of the effort, then one is little better than a thief.

Whether or not there are such thinks as inalienable human rights has been a political dispute since the concept was first expressed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Man
I think there are de facto rights. A democratic government is founded on the notion to some extent that it is elected to deliver to citizens what they are entitled to, on behalf of society as a whole. There is nothing about the idea of rights that denies responsibilities. All of law is founded to some extent on the notion of rights. Our current society recognises rights - the right to property ownership, the right of a person to life. The United Nations has pushed forward the idea of rights - the Rights of the Child, for example.

In my experience the side of the political spectrum most anxious to defend and strengthen property rights is less keen on the idea of human rights.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

There is no right to food and shelter. No other animal treats it as a right either. The OP makes no sense in that regard imho.

I don't agree with a right to a house. Fair enough if you are willing to work hard for it (even if you can't get work) and to pay for it out of your salary and to pay taxes towards other unfortunates getting a food and shelter if they are trying but can't afford it. But that's called a deal not a right. Nothing comes of nothing, all shelter and food has to be provided somehow through work and effort. If you don't sign up to the deal, if one thinks one has a right to these things while opting out of the effort, then one is little better than a thief.

Well yes, I feel there has to be some effort on the part of the recipient of the food and house but perhaps the opinion might be better framed in terms of an aim for a society or economy. This is how I interpreted it. There are plenty of people in Dublin and elsewhere who have been hard workers all their lives but can't afford a house - I think this is severely unjust. There are also people who would work hard if there was work around but they are often victims of geography. I also think there is enough surplus for those who can't work and even for those who won't. (We haven't had a debate yet here on social welfare - maybe this thread is it ?)

I think we could tweak the market to help those people earning 50-60k or more per year where the market price of an apartment (e.g. in Dublin) is 300-400k. This is tampering with the market but those people have a right to be able to buy if they want. It might even be the government's responsibility to gauge what is needed by the society - the quantity of one/two beds, the number of family apartments, the volume of high-profile places, the extent of social and affordable housing along with public transport.

This could be within the governments aegis - to gauge the needs of a society and orchestrate the delivery of what is needed. This is tampering with the market but it's out of all whack now anyway.

Edit
OK, I said "for FREE" up there earlier but it's not what I should have said. We shouldn't have to really fret about getting a house in our society nor should we have to fret about getting food. Free from anxiety I should have said. Sometimes I think that there are some things we have to work and strive for, though and I wonder is a house and food included in those things. I'm not sure - I don't think so, I think a society should strive to house and feed everyone for the lowest possible cost monetarily and environmentally.

I visited the Czech Republic a few years back when it was in a state of transition. I was at a very nice little tower block in Prague. At one corner the Minister lived and across the hall, in an identical flat, his chauffeur.

We have all kinds of crazy hangups about status and the need for conspicuous consumption associated with social ranking. Why shouldn't all the housing we build be fit for a chauffeur or for his Minister?