Memories of cost of living in the late 90s, early 2000s

No, but I remember the baked bean price war of 1992 or 93. Own brand went down to 1p a tin at one point, and 3p for Heinz.

Same situation here, out all night for a tenner in the pubs and clubs.

A chip barm the size of your head was a quid. A chocolate bar was about 30p.

I worked at b&q and earned £4.60 an hour. That was 1998. It was double time on certain days, Easter Sunday etc and I do seem to remember New Years day was triple pay

Me and the wife met another couple in Glasgow City centre recently, and four drinks in a pub was over £27. That's just unsustainable for working class folk, and if you'd said in the times the op's talking about we'd be paying that for drinks nearly 30 years later we'd have thought you were mad.

Also, the memory of your now adult daughter, so would have been a child then...maybe not the most reliable memory!

There was a big difference between the 90s and 2004 op. By 2004 the damage that impoverished younger generations ever since had already occurred.

In the 90s I could pay £10 for a food shop just for me, £15 felt like pushing the boat out. I was a student then, just as student grants were wearing down every year and finishing. £1000 debt was a huge huge deal.

House prices were much lower then.

Dont take it from just me or the op, look up the wages v prices and the stats on intergenerational inequality. Early 00s were when buy to let was pushed by Blair and exploded, early 00s were when house prices quadrupled in less than 4 years and never came back down. For some reason the posters claiming to be Boomers on here have real trouble remembering easily Google-able facts.

There are shared rooms at Imperial this year. DS has friends in them.

Late 90s we were recently married, our mortgage was c£600 pm. I gave up a well paid job to do a PGCE and a first year teacher in 2000 earned around £16/17k.

I don't remember a spiral staircase. Just a bed with the cooker down the side.
It would have been a bedsit, usually over a shop, in my similar northern town. It's where most of us started.

I don't think uni's even offer shared rooms anymore but that was still common when I went.

I remember when I was at university in the year 2000 there were protests by lorry drivers about the rising cost of fuel and the refineries were blockaded meaning that garages began to run out.

For that Summer I worked as part of a catering team for the conference season at my university. The blockades meant that hardly anyone could attend for one round of them, and we had to serve up the rather posh food to the staff for as many days in a row as it lasted, which was at least a week!

On the other side of the coin, I also remember during the Covid lockdown seeing someone remove the hundreds columns on a petrol station board over the road, leaving the advertised price under £1 for the first time that I could recall. Wanted to take a photo, but didn't get round to it.

I wonder if a decade plus of wage stagnation and pointless austerity might have contributed?

Just a bit & the super low interest rates meant many didn’t notice their salaries were eroding because their house was going up X every year.

Austerity meant no investment by government or business into infrastructure, skills, education, etc.

Its a mess.

I remember this. A doner kebab in Camel One on Wilmslow Road in Rusholme was well under £2, but it was still cheaper go to Kwiksave and buy a 17p loaf of sliced white and a 79p jar of peanut butter, which would be lunches for four days (my Halls was catered and in 1994-95 cost £55 per week half board Mon-Fri, breakfast only Sat/Sun).

When the 1995 Rugby World Cup was on you could get a pint of Worthington's for £1 at Hardy's Inn and a 340ml bottle of Castle was the same price. I much prefer Castle but drank Worthies for the extra volume...

My student rental in Manchester was £38pw. You could pay £50 to live in a smart part of town, but who had that kind of money to throw away?

I remember cheapo white sliced bread being a loss leader and was 7p per loaf in Aldi. Mayfair cigarettes were £3.20 for 20. Gig tickets to stand at the MEN arena were £15 for pretty big bands - Blur, Radiohead etc. Going out for a coffee was not a thing. I think there was a Maxpax machine in my uni building that would do you a cup of crap instant for 80p.

Anyone else remember the mid 90's kebab price war in Manchester?

It was a real life economics lesson. Lots of student customers, but an over supply of kebab shops. So prices fell to get customers. It seemed cheaper to eat out than cook! I can't remember the prices but I would guess £2 for a chicken (cubes on skewer) in naan bread.

Most student places were £1 a pint but £1.50 for Schmernoff lemon.

Happy times!

Agreed, bloody austerity and same here. The grad scheme I was on now pays £26.5k.

my food shop was £20 a week, lots of Netto and Kwik Save and the local market where you got a bag of apples, or mushrooms, or whatever, for pennies.

I lived on £30pw taken out in cash. CDs were 6.99. Bus into town 25p with my student card. Clothes from chazzers or Mark One. Pints £1 and vodka and orange 69p in student union. It was a simpler life.

Yes @TammySue that's right, I remember one year my Mum did the Christmas food shop and it was £100, we thought it was wild!!

BOGOF is illegal now as it encouraged UPF /sugar consumption

In 2010 our weekly food shop, from Sainsbury's not Aldi like now was £60/£70 for 2 adults and 2 young DC, our mortgage was £585 and our gas & electric was £80 per month having the heating on high whenever we liked - those were the days!

I was at uni in the late 90s. Could go out with £10 and pay for club entry, get drunk, get some food afterwards and a taxi back to halls.

I also bought a pedigree cat in 2001 for £200 who recently died and I’ve since bought the same breed for £1500.

I was in college/young worker at this point and my child is in the same space now. Financially life was a lot easier for me being honest. Living away from home was cheaper. Rent has increased hugely, if you can find somewhere. Bills were also much cheaper. Going out , drinks in a pub etc, was cheaper for me. Young people seem to socialise a lot at home due to the cost of alcohol in pubs.
Food I didn't think was that much different, but the price of food has rocketed in the last few years.
At that point of my life as a young worker I very nearly bought a little house, think it was on sale for €50k. It was a newish house too. This wasn't huge multiples of my salary at that time. I think it was easier to manage on a smaller salary.
Nappies were more expensive though.

@ChapmanFarmalso my graduate job in London, 2018, paid £17k :)

The Apartment in 2PL is MASSIVE.. and has a spiral straicase. That would cost £2k a month in London now 😂 Hardly simpler just because the furniture doesn’t match. The bedsit £1.5k.

£150 / week in Asda, then? Really?

I was 5 so my only memories were that a Freddo was 5p and Mr V (corner shop owner) had a tray of penny sweets under the counter for 1p each.

I was a child in the 90s so can’t really comment … though I do remember when I was older in the 00s it being a ‘thing’ that our Christmas food shop would be £100+ , so it surprises me that food was THAT much more expensive in the 90s.

In terms of budgeting, though, I read something the other day about how the 2008 crash has such an effect on ALL socioeconomic levels that bargain hunting became much more socially acceptable.
I grew up in a ‘traditional’ poor, single mother house and I always wore new clothes (albeit from cheap shops), whereas I’m sure to the outside I look middle class these days (house, income, education) but my kids and I wear LOADS of Vinted and charity shop clothes.
It’s also when Lidl and Aldi really took off, they were definitely looked down upon as ‘poor’ shops previously.