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

2000 was also 26 years ago. If you did this exercise in 2000 you would be talking about how far your wages went in 1974.

That is not to say there hasn't been wage stagnation over the last couple of decades.

I was a student, almost due to graduate, and for some of that time had worked in another country with different VAT equivalents on food and non-essentials, and so on. In that country, the 'VAT' rate also changed while I was there, not a popular move, so can compare a bit. The stipend for what I was doing was approx £600 for 21 hours a month.

In the UK, I do remember Sainsbury's points and vouchers making a difference to the food bills - in that my partner and I would make decisions on a) Sainsbury's shopping instead of other places, and b) buying 2 of the same thing (and making a lot of use of the freezer) for the sake of the points and £5 back that would be reached earlier. Iceland also did quite a lot of 2 for 1 I think.

Cheap flights were at the best rates they were going to reach - fortunately for me, as this was the most I have ever used them, although I wasn't hopping home a lot at all. Somewhere between £35 and £65 for a 3hr one, I remember.

Mobile bills...felt high in the scheme of how much income I had. I was buying PAYG. No data and not tied in to contracts, though. Instead of home broadband I would use a cybercafe. Fellow users were trying to Skype, then, if they had a headset themselves, but it looked unreliable in the extreme and I gave up after a couple of tries.

I was renting very late 90s early 2000/ can’t remember the rent. I do remember i was on max £5:40 an hour as a senior nursery nurse come 2002. I was 23. No minimum wage.

We lived like students and didn’t have much money but we could do cheap nights out in student indie clubs and have enough for a taxi home or night bus.

I remember the next door terrace which was modernised for the time: it was up for sale £36k!

I could buy clothes but it was Primark and new look.

I was only young but moved into my own flat in 2003 and myself and my then boyfriend spent about £50 every two weeks on food. Your shop seems like an awful lot.

In the year 2000 my salary was £17k and I felt quite wealthy to be honest. Don’t remember having to scrimp on anything.

No. Things have gone up ridiculously. I remember having a Saturday job years ago as a teenager. Out of my wage for that job alone I managed to go out at weekends ( cafe, pub, cinema etc etc ), pay fares, and even buy clothes and accessories sometimes. I doubt a Saturday job wage would enable you to do that now. Of course myparents paid for the big things but i definitely remember always having enough cash to really enjoy myself just out of my Saturday money. I honestly dont think a teenager could do that nowadays.

For a single person, I clearly remember spending £20 a week on grocery shopping in 2003. I was earning £15,000.

Somehow I was able to afford cocktails at Pharmacy, Met Bar or the Atlantic every week and clothes from Matches without saving up despite earning £17.5k in 1996 increasingly to £50k by about 2006. Bought flats in zone 2 a short walk from zone 1 during the period as well. Essentially never was so rich (I probably had no weekly grocery budget as ate out or lived on canapés at work events. Lord they were great times)

Different life stages i guess. I was on about 9k a year in 2000, and somehow had enough money for bills, a food shop, pub after work and clubbing three times a week! My mind boggles at how I did this somehow

While housing was much cheaper, life was generally simpler as well.

I left school in the mid 90s. I'd never been abroad bar the school day trip to Calais. I didn't go out for meals with my family more than a handful of times across my entire childhood, and those were to the Beefeater.

I had a shared room at uni and bathroom was down the corridor (we struggle to let anything not en suite now).

If you watch old re runs of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps the bedsit and terrace looks exactly like the accommodation we all moved into. Posters and wood chip, old fashioned mis matched furniture.

And none of this made me stand out in any way. Only one or two of the people I knew in secondary school went in an annual holiday abroad (and even then it was to France camping).

We were happy with a few pints in an old man pub. Sometimes we'd go to a club afterwards but it was drunk whatevers cheap (and it was cheap) but no shots etc and usually night bus home.

Edited to say I started my part time job on £2.10 an hour and think I was on about £3.50 an hour by time I started uni.

In my graduate job when minimum wage came it it was about £11.5k a year because I remember mine going up to £12k and being delighted

I was a kid in the 90s but I remember my DM's weekly food shops being about £80 - but much less when the Aldi opened nearby and we went there for a bit. (It was rubbish at first.)

I went to university in the mid-2000s. After rent, I lived pretty comfortably off £300 a month in a southern city. My fortnightly food shop was around £30. I'd take £20-30 on a night out.

My husband and I spent 25 a week in 1994 on food. That was a very, vert strict budget and the minimum we could manage because we were in negative equity and had to save the difference and a new 5 percent deposit to move - which we did in Dec 1994.

Yes things seemed cheaper for me then too.

£150 a week food shopping sounds wrong, maybe that was for the month?

£150 a week? Were you shopping at Fortnums?!

Our mortgage was only £140 a month. No way was shopping anything like that for us.

Nursery fees were a killer though.

I was a student in bristol mid 90s and I remember paying £40 a week rent for a shared house room in a fairly nice part of bristol. The trendy parts of bristol were £45 per week.

My dc were young in the early 2000’s and it felt like everyone around me had plenty of money, even though many women worked part time or not at all because of tax credits. Tax credits were very generous and even people with a decent income could claim them if they had children.

I was a young mum in the late 90's early 00"s and my husband used to earn £40 a day. Every Saturday I would go to the post office and pay all the bills which we had payment cards for, go to the newsagents for my £5 a week each for gas and electric and go to Asda for the weekly shop which was about £50 for 4 of us.

£5 for electric wouldn't last more than a couple of days now and I'd be lucky to feed myself for the week for £50!

Nah. I was single in 2016 and budgeting £25 a week for food and often that was organic.

I agree , we were spending £35 per week at Aldi and Sainsburys for two of us, it was just food, no cigarettes or alcohol and cooking from scratch, no ready meals.

Tina was about 50p a tin and contained 195g.

Inised to buy for me and ds. About 50 quid a week food or less. No childcare help though.

Student in the late 90s /2000s. Admittedly cheap student food but my budget was £20. An expensive night out would have been £30-£40. I remember a slap up meal for two costing £80 and we thought we were rich! £30-40k salary was my aim for a luxurious lifestyle. My first house cost £90k albeit tiny and in a cheap area.

However early 90s I remember my parents struggling.

Pret was much cheaper then too!

And yes, clothes are cheaper now, but the problem is that wages (generally)

I have clothes from Topshop & Oasis back then & the quality is fantastic. 100% cotton, silk etc.

I remember my food shop for a single person in 2005-6 was £27 a week.
Zone 1-6 travel card in London was £25 and that seemed expensive. I am laughing at that now!
Two bed flat rent in zone 2 was £825 in 2011

These are the figures I remember most clearly. I was on just above minimum wage in early 00s and I had wardrobe full of designer shoes (multiple pairs bought on boxing day sales every year) and used to go out every weekend, travel etc.

I am now in a professional job with a decent salary and I can't understand where my money is going. There are no designer shoes in sight and my annual holiday is visiting parents in Europe which my mum jokingly calls an "all inclusive holiday".
And I don't even live in London any more.