Although the words ‘poverty’, ‘poor’ and ‘deprived’ were all deliberately avoided in the interview schedule, several questions dealt directly with these issues. The responses to these questions give an insight into whether the interviewees themselves felt ‘poor’ or ‘deprived’, and give an idea of what living on a permanently stretched income meant to them.
8.2.1 The importance of being financially competent
The interviewees generally sought to position themselves as financially competent, something already touched on in 6.2.2. While the interviewees clearly were highly financially competent, one of the points that emerged from the previous chapter (section 7.4.1) was the difficulty of avoiding deprivation on a household income below 70% of the national median. Unsurprisingly therefore, many of the interviewees initially stressed how well they were managing, but then went on to discuss all the ways in which there was not enough money, thus simultaneously positioning themselves as both a competent household manager and as someone who never has enough money for all their needs:
‘We get the things we need, and yeah, we have a drink on a Friday, but you don’t get to go to town on a Saturday and buy nice tops. Everything’s got to be counted. I can’t have a day off. I have to make sure everything’s done every single day, or it would all just fall apart. We don’t have enough money for us to be able just to have a day where we spend some money and not have to worry about it. That would be quite nice. But everybody’s like that, and you just have to get on with it really don’t you?’ (Claire, highly deprived
group)
The financial reality behind these answers was often reinforced later in the interview when interviewees gave examples of just how tight things could be. Several discussed regularly struggling to afford food at the end of the month, yet simultaneously stressed that without their management skills things would be a lot worse:
Often there isn’t enough money left at the end of the month. I just have to wait until we get paid again. I always have the necessities in. I can feed us for £25 a week. You have to get creative with your cooking skills, making a chicken do for four meals or some mince do for two. It’s back to basics food. We have a copper bottle at home, like most people do. I raid it quite often [laughs]!’ (Ruth, highly
deprived group)
8.2.2 ‘Living comfortably’
Interviewees were explicitly asked if they had enough money to live comfortably most of the time. What the interviewees considered ‘comfortable’ was very subjective and often based on their own past experiences or on their peer group. Steph, for example, stressed several times how she was unable to heat her house properly in winter, how her daughter’s social life was restricted, how she never went out socializing herself, and how she could not afford to decorate her home. However, she also said:
‘I don’t know, we’ve just learned to accept what we’ve got. Anything you get is a bonus really. I just take each day as it comes … See, I think we’ve done it for so long, we’ve just got used to the way we live’ (Steph, highly deprived group)
Nevertheless, some of the interviewees were very direct in saying they did not have enough money:
‘To live comfortably, I would view that as not being worried whether you have enough money to cover the food costs, which is what we’ve been worrying about. We’ve covered the bills, and everything has been cut back to the very, very minimum of what we can have, but we’ll still be struggling with the rising food costs for this month … Maybe one small treat a month for the family to go out to the park and have an ice cream. One to two hundred pounds a month more at a minimum. Just enough to cover the basics.’ (Debbie, highly
deprived group)
Others, like Karen, gave more ambiguous answers, although it was clear they were often struggling:
‘It depends how you define comfortably! I think we struggle. Kevin’s a bit overdrawn. Its always on the edge, you can’t totally relax
because we’re about to go overdrawn. It’s quite stressful, you can’t really relax..’ (Karen, highly deprived group)
However, a small minority of the interviewees did seem to have enough money to buy everything they needed and some of what they wanted, with even a little to save for emergencies. Gabrielle was an example of this, although she did stress how modest her financial needs were:
‘I don’t really worry about money. I’m quite happy with my lot, I’m quite happy with what I’ve got. I don’t feel I need to have the latest i-pod, I don’t have an i-pod, just necessities. And Esther’s got tons of stuff, like my mum and dad are quite supportive and have in the past helped out with clothes and in that sort of way. I know she doesn’t have as much as some children, but she has a lot more than other children.’ (Gabrielle, hardly deprived group)
Not surprisingly, the women who felt themselves to be unambiguously
comfortable were all in the ‘hardly deprived’ group. Women from this group were also much less likely to give examples of money running short at the end of the week. Yet even within this group, some felt money could be very tight;
‘I’ve always felt extremely rich, and never had to count every penny … [but now] nursery is more expensive and there’s the credit crunch or whatever it is, with all the prices going up. And James losing one of his jobs … This is the tightest it’s ever felt I think. For the last two months I’ve been worrying that we don’t have enough money.’ (Jill,
hardly deprived group)
It is clear from the comments presented in this opening section that all of the women in the sample had to be very careful with their money and had
developed strategies to ensure it stretched to cover their costs. In the next section, attention turns to exactly what those costs were.