To be sick of sneezing and spending £20?

£74 per month is decent, given it's averaging between £16-17 per week.

Buy some half-decent mince (500g) at £4.50, some chicken breasts (1kg) at £9 and some cheap sausages and you're already easily there. I probably spend more than that, given I buy cold meats for sandwiches and salads, too, and have just spent £7.50 on a duck that will last me 2-3 family meals.

It sounds a lot, but actually, meat, especially chicken, is really expensive - as it should be. It's just a shame most of this is feeding the buying and delivery chain rather than the farmers who rear the animals.

£74 on meat for a month is cheap.
I buy turkey steaks, lean mince, large tray of chicken, 2 types of sausages minimum every week and exceed £74 easily a month.

Try living in Scotland too.. alcohol has just went up again.. I bought 2 bottles of wine, four beers, a loaf and some snacks on Saturday in Tesco £48. Even on clubcard wine is now at least a tenner for a decent bottle. Got my hubbies fav, it's now £15 instead of £12. Used to buy wine and snacks etc on a Saturday for about £25. I find the only thing I have money for these days is bloody food and drink shopping.

I'm glad I'm not alone...I used to regularly go out shopping for bits on a Saturday, nothing major, a new lipstick maybe, something nice for an easy dinner etc...then I'd treat myself to a cuppa and a cake at the local tea shop before going home, every other week I'd have my nails done. Now it's a different story, I've virtually given up meat and can't recall the last time I had dinner out, I try not to stay in the house too much as I live alone and don't want to become a recluse but I really have to watch what I spend, a drink and a bag of crisps in my local is over £8. I've stopped having the nails done and I just pay for a haircut now, my sister colours it for me. A bit pathetic I know but sadly no other option.

Yes it's so expensive now!

@Blanketyre I'm also born in 1964, and I remember going for a coffee and cake whenever we went shopping. If it was Harrogate we'd go to Betty's as a treat! No way can I afford to do that as regularly as I did with my mum - I bought a few treats at Betty's the other week and it came to over £30 for six little cakes!

Agreed. The last couple of times I've eaten out on a Friday night the previously busy restaurants are half empty with a couple of staff standing about doing nothing. I assume it won't be long until they no longer have a job. I have no idea what the answer is from a macro economic standpoint but it's definitely a huge worry.

Exactly! Don’t spend any money in the service industry isn’t quite the genius idea people make out.

I have started holding back on so called “luxuries” like getting my nails done and ordering take aways but it’s no fun for me and definitely no fun for the people who’s livelihoods depend on us all having a bit of disposable income.

I worked my entire career in hospitality and people not being able to go out for lunch or a drink or have a couple of nights away was the difference between me being able to pay my bills and feed my kids.

People forget the trickle down effect on the low paid, often zero hours contracted staff who work in the industries where people do their “unnecessary” spending.

It's called the cost of living, but it should be called the cost of lining (other people's pockets). The cost of profit. The cost of greed.

i actually think that is good going - good quality meat is not cheap

That's about £2.50 a day, or 63p per person per day - assuming they eat meat everyday - that seems quite reasonable to me!

That isn't a lot for four people? In fact it is pretty reasonable! I easily spend around £11 on one chicken alone, even in Aldi (I only buy free range though chicken though, so a lot more expensive).

£74 per month just on meat?!?! 😲😲😲😲

I popped into a supermarket for a few bits. Normally I do online groceries but there's a minimum spend of £40 and I estimated that I probably needed about £25 worth of stuff so went to the store instead. £75 later........

True! When I was a child it was rare for adults not to smoke. and my dad went to ‘see a man about a dog ‘ (the pub) most Saturday afternoons.

Ukraine has fuck all to do with anything

Apart from the fact that the UK is a massive importer of energy and energy prices affect the cost of pretty much everything.

The UKs problems began in the 80s when the salaries of higher earners started increasing at a much faster rate than the salaries of lower earners. As a result, the wealth distribution in the UK is one of the most unequal in Europe. We only see it more now because of the COL crisis, and the fact that lower earners can no longer afford to live on their wages. Government has to pump out more money in benefits while the richest get richer.

Yeah in the 70s and 80s there were few "low key but nice" little places - tiny little hatches with a couple of tables and an espresso machine wasn't a UK thing but a continental one - cafés were caffs, everything else was expensive. Eating out was a once in a blue moon luxury because there was no middle market in hospitality.

I remember in 1994 when a new-style café opened in our corner of North London me and my flatmate purposely went out to have a coffee, to get in on this sophisticated European vibe that we were told would become the norm, sat on a grimy high street with traffic thundering past us thinking we were oh so chi-chi. I was earning £120 a week so I couldn't afford to go to restaurants but I could afford to go to coffee shops. Then pubs got in on the act and suddenly you could get meals for a lot less than restaurants. And cheaper booze than restaurants too! We didn't have more disposable income than people in the 70s, but we did have more choice.

What's happening now isn't a return to the 70s because those types of businesses are still around. But they are now no longer affordable, is the difference. In the 70s they didn't exist at all. Possibly they won't again soon.

Yeah. I just don’t get why people spend ££ on the rip off snacks at the cinema ! We’ve never done it & DC were always happy to choose sweets etc from poundshop / Asda or wherever was close to cinema.
Local Vue cinema starts from £5 a seat so for us as family of 5 a cinema trip would be around £40 inc drinks & snacks! And as long as the movie was good that would be.
a joyful experience!

This! Growing up in the 70s-80s we ate out as a family only a handful of times in my whole childhood. DPs would go out for a meal on their wedding anniversary/ mum’s birthday ! I didn’t have a Chinese takeaway until I was 16 and bought it myself! It just wasn’t the norm then. My DC (born between 2000-2005) are used to eating out several times a year & much more in the way of luxuries than we had. I think we are returning to the days when things we see as the norm right now will be considered luxuries as they were in previous decades. Depressing!

I feel like I spend money every time I leave the house. I'm staying at home as much as possible right now.

Been doing that for years now.

We've done sensible things cut spending, cut again- eat cheaper go out much less buy secondhand where we can, put house things off - and gone after pay increases and yet it's not taking long for any buffers we do manage to make to slowly just go.

It's relentless and demoralising and yes worse when ill when you just can't find energy to watch pennies but if you don't you can easily get in a mess.

Agree it's just so bloody demoralising.

Ds has just started Uni too and honestly it's fucking madness how much parents need to subsidise. I have no clue how people afford more than one at a time at Uni.

Yes, that's what happens when money is devalued.

I have no doubt the continent as a whole is entering a period of decline due to demographics while other regions rise. But in the UK that's greatly exacerbated by the quite specific decision to remove ourselves from our trade bloc.

Money being worth less is also why house prices are so high - anyone who actually has money has been hoovering up assets including housing for years. Which creates its own nasty little loop of a greater percentage of wages for regular people being tied up in servicing mortgage debt - those banks again - in order to house themselves. It's rotten.

Sorry stake. Watching telly and typing

Well Rachael Reeves has sadly postponed selling the government’s state in NatWest. Worth £6bilion.