To ask when is the cost of living going to go down?

Ref change jobs

Example
Jobs which involve unsocial hours like
shift work or nights generally pay more, but are not child or family friendly. However, you could find someone to share the childcare if you covered their childcare in return.

I have also found that jobs which are historically classed as male jobs attract a higher salary than female jobs.
I used to work in one of these jobs in the past.
The females often performed better than the men.

The easiest thing is to moan & do nothing.

Take action !

Oh this sucks! It can be so disheartening ☹️ not a single person I know has managed to buy a house in SE without inheritance/help from parents so don’t feel down on yourself.

If you do retrain, and it’s of interest to you, allied health professional courses have better funding (you can already have a degree) and your childcare is funded 80%, if you have those costs!

Being a single parent in the SE will always be incredibly hard. If I were to be single in the future, I would just hold on tight until you meet someone you can share the mortgage/rent/bills with, whether that's a romantic partner or a friend.

I noticed that yesterday when I thought about buying one! It definitely used to be three!

Sadly I agree with others, things won't improve until they sort out the housing problem in this country.

Nobody should have to retrain or move 100s of miles away from family/friends/school/work etc.

It’s a stupid statement to make.

It's miserable isn't it. I was definitely better off twenty years ago in the sense that I had more disposable income which of course I frittered away on having a lovely time. Have you thought of a side hustle? I paid for my Christmas presents by doing Vinted. There's a thread somewhere on here about earning £10 a day. Tutoring? Bit of FE teaching?

I thought energy prices went up because of not using Russia to supply our gas anymore. Surely they won't be in war with Ukraine forever. I don't know why no one talks about this anymore.

most governments will act to avoid deflation, so prices won't go down overall, the best you can hope for is for your living costs to fall as a percentage of your income.

if you're renting privately, it will take a while, but any possibility of social housing?

Are you currently renting? I know it’s not an option for everyone but I had my DD and realised I was pretty stuck if I wanted to buy a house when I had childcare and rent costs (we are also south east). So me and my partner lived with parents whilst I retrained and we saved - took 3 years but it was a means to and end and we got our own place and I have a professional, stable career (no way we could’ve done this if we weren’t living with parents, I HATED every second but so glad I stuck with it and bit my tongue haha)

Prices will always only go up.
The only way to get on top is by getting a better job/ pay rise above inflation.
For the majority of people this isn’t possible. My DH’s wage has stagnated he has had below inflation pay rises. We were lucky enough that the COL crisis coincided with our children being old enough for me to go back to full time hours.
That means for the moment we feel like we are winning- give it a couple of years and it won’t feel like that anymore but you do the best you can and look out for opportunities.

This is an excellent point. equality has increased worldwide and whilst traditionally poorer nations have become wealthier, the “west” has lost power and wealth.

the world has changed a lot (of course, this has caused or impacted many of the issues posters have already identified)

this has been exasperated by the uk and other western countries responding slowly and inappropriately to this (ie the amounts of insular anti immigration rhetoric and naval glazing)

😳 have they actually done this?

But like what? People keep suggesting it with no specifics

I think the misunderstanding is that people are not suggesting retraining to achieve a very high wage, just a higher wage than the OP is currently getting or a job with other perks (e.g. something that reduces childcare costs or commuting costs or living costs).

If you already earn at the very top end, this is maybe why you don't see people striving to climb the ladder...because they're already at the top? There are many areas of work where doing some additional training will make you eligible for either a promotion or a sideways move into a similar but better paid job.

They won't
The budget showed pur growth will go up for another year or 2 then it's going back down to around 1.5%. Wages will stagnate due to the employers NI increases and where companies pass on the costs to consumers ...well prices might go up.

And these higher wages will help the poorest in society.

Yup, it's stagnant wages.

yep, they are shit but so many didn’t notice during the low interest rate yrs.

Part of the issue here has been two massive changes that waste much bigger than Britain alone and its politics. Firstly there's been a massive amount of catch up from poor people in China, other parts of Asia and elsewhere, such that the number of people living in the worst poverty across the world has reduced dramatically over the last few decades, but one of the costs has been that living standards for the majority of people in richer countries have stagnated.

The other factor has been that the large baby boomer generation has now retired, and so there are now fewer working age people who have to support more retired people.

Both of those things make it tough for workers in the richer countries.

It is also much easier to save up, work more than one job, move location, retrain before having children.

However, it doesn't mean that you cannot make some changes & save in the future.