Non-essential shops opened today and it’s blown my mind how different my life is to the majority of people. I’ve seen queues of people outside shops and hairdressers, and social media posts of excitement at shops reopening. It’s the first day and people just can’t wait to spend money, and they find pleasure in doing so. I feel like being on benefits and having no spare money means I’m essentially excluded from consumerist society. And looking from the outside in, it’s strange to watch everyone rush out to buy, buy, buy. I’m probably a little bitter that we don’t have the money to go out for food in a beer garden, but I’m also a little bit thankful that the lure to spend money (on non-essential things?!) is simply wasted on us.
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Covid Realities
is a collaboration between the Universities of
York and Birmingham, and
Child Poverty Action Group. The project has been funded by the Nuffield Foundation
but the views on this site are those of the project team and not necessarily the Foundation.
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