Centrelink Food Blogger Gets A Hard Time

[Banjo]

Budget food blogger bites back at the 'trolls'

It turns out A Current Affair was right, Australians just love to hate dole bludgers.

When Sandra Reynolds shared her tips yesterday for feeding a family on a meagre Centrelink allowance and food vouchers, rather than receiving praise for her enterprising spirit she instead copped vitriol from the public for sponging off the government purse.

Readers had little sympathy for the mother-of-two deciding to quit her job and rely instead on government assistance.
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"She gets $60 per week from the Salvos for food yet she has nothing better to do than go on Facebook. Well the Salvos have just lost my support," wrote one commenter.

"She voluntarily left employment and still gets a handout. I'm disgusted. Great role model for her kids isn't she?" said another.

Comments poured in along the same vein with readers overwhelmingly sharing their disgust for Reynolds' decisions. She also received a spike in visitors to her food blog where people continued to send in their criticism.

Reynolds refused to comment further when contacted by Fairfax yesterday but took to Twitter to respond to the furore, shrugging off the criticism of her personal life.

"Oh dear. The trolls are in a frenzy today," she wrote. "Chomping on that bile must be a taste sensation."

"A year ago I would have read the comments and wept. Today I am laughing. No really. I've learnt resilience. Yay me!"

Reynolds, who has a book deal in the pipeline, said she felt "slightly overwhelmed by the interest the article is generating".

"Funnily enough, I was expecting this sort of hostility from the start. Now that I'm copping it, I'm feeling ok. I feel vindicated."

There was, of course, more to the story than meets the eye. In an undated interview with jobs website Careers FAQ, Reynolds, from the NSW Central Coast, said she was working on a casual basis for three years in a role that was becoming increasingly difficult. She quit her job on the spur of the moment but then struggled to find new employment.

"I sent off my resume to several agencies thinking I'd find some temp work as an administrator, which is what I'd been doing. When nothing came of it, no feedback or follow-up or returned phone calls, I decided to go to Centrelink," she said.

"They said that as a single parent with two teenage children I was eligible to receive $499 per fortnight. My rent is $335 a week, and even with family tax benefits by the time I've paid my electricity and phone bills it doesn't leave a lot left over.

"The shock of it really hit me and I started to get a little weepy, so the woman at Centrelink suggested I get food vouchers from the Salvation Army. I'd never had to do that before and it hit me hard – that was probably my lowest point."

Practicalities soon took over and Reynolds reached out to an online community for tips on how to feed a family 14 main meals for $120. She started sharing her recipes and after receiving interest she decided to start a blog outlining her challenges. The goal was not to tell people how to cook but to challenge their ideas on eating, with the focus on healthy meals using seasonal ingredients, she said.

Response to the blog had been swift and positive. "People are really respectful of how I've done it with a bit of dignity and a bit of humour and passion, and they're really embracing it with enthusiasm and can see that it can be done," she told Careers FAQ.

Reynolds said she found a new job not long after starting her online venture and decided to keep the challenge going, working on the blog early in the morning and late at night. However, she currently describes herself on her Facebook page as "unemployed" and it was a comment in yesterday's article about being "careful with Centrelink, I have to keep looking for jobs" that raised ire among readers.

Reynolds declined to expand on her current situation only saying on Twitter that: "Yeah, but an explanation of the past year requires a therapist not a journalist. The trolls will move on, that's their way."

Not all the feedback yesterday was negative. One reader came to her defence saying: "Good on her. It's not 'easy' to get another job if you're a single mum looking after kids. And if she was really unhappy in her job she had every right to quit. Sandra hasn't wasted her time either."

As for Reynolds, after a day of copping heavy criticism she wrote: "Oh I'm laughing all the way to the book deal (not to mention 80,000 hits today)."

Reynolds' book is due to be published by Penguin next year.

Checked out Sandra's site, great stuff!

120dollarsfoodchallenge.com/
Needless to say, a "let's be friends" email is on the way.

[spaceyone]

Interesting story Banjo. I went to the website just quickly, and will be back to get some of her recipes.

The reason people hate us 'bludgers' is because everyone is struggling so much themselves. There was always a few who had no tolerance for the deliberately unemployed, but living on a shoe string budget is not as much fun as they imagined anyway.

However, as more and more families are also reduced by our wonderful government to also having to live on a shoe string budgets, the more people begin to resent those who they perceive having it easy, and think all of their tax money is going to them.

Just like with the new flood tax levy. People are angry about having to pay it. They cannot afford it, when they have had to already give up any luxuries they once had, just to survive.

People are generous in nature. Australians have always been keen to help each other out. The flood of volunteer workers who rushed to Brisbane demonstrates that spirit is still alive and well.

But try to impose another tax on them, and take more money away from them, and they will resent your hardship instead of having any compassion for it.

Shame, shame, shame on the Australian government for what they are doing to the Australian way of life.

The lady in the story, as you say, is not a bludger. She was merely naive enough to think it is still easy to find a job in Australia. Also, that it is easy for single parents to get themselves employed at all. Then she was smart enough to cope with it. Good on her, she is ten times smarter than the trolls who attack her.

[Banjo]

If you get time see if you can contact her.
I haven't heard back yet, I imagine her inbox is full full full this week.