AIBU to think lifestyle expectations and spending habits have risen enormously?

Not cheap!

You and your friends don’t sound particularly compatible!

I think this really depends. Before kids I did loads of very very cheap travel - found flights for £10, stayed in hostels etc. I know many people who still do monthly holidays and they’re generally doing it v v cheaply.

In the early seventies, for a treat , my mother would make nescafe with warm milk or condensed milk with brown sugar. It tasted delicious!
I'm unsure that your standard Starbucks etcetera is really much better. 🙂

I think 'treat' is the important word here. I'm not sure people really have treats any more, just habits.

According to this article foreign travel is dramatically cheaper than in the 1970s but not quite as cheap as in the 1990s.

in May, I flew to Lanzarote for £42.48 return - thank you EasyJet! Their hand luggage limit is fairly generous and I am good at packing light. It is a 4-hour flight. I don’t know how EasyJet can do it for so little money.

I suspect backpacking may not be as affordable as it used to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if hostels and train fares have become relatively more expensive.

www.which.co.uk/news/article/whatever-happened-to-cheap-holidays-aH1Sv3Q3Wz02?utm_source=chatgpt.com

You sound miserable.

Honestly though, what’s wrong with a credit card?

Say you need a new sofa. You could save for six months and have no sofa / an uncomfortable sofa for six months. OR you could get a credit card with an interest free period, buy the sofa on day 1, sit in comfort and pay it off over six months. Same outcome except you don’t have a sore bum for six months.

Google says “Freeze dried coffee is not bad for you. It’s made from real brewed coffee with the water removed, so it contains the same antioxidants and less caffeine than drip coffee.”

The only concern would be how much sugar or cream you put in it.

It’s like the freeze dried fruit in Special K or astronauts eating freeze dried food.

Fish and chips on ‘Fridays only’ is more takeaways than my family has today.
Shopping once a week is more shopping than my family does today!

Yes, yanbu. Everyone wants luxury. I blame social media, influencers, celebrity worship etc. Are you really that surprised?

My child’s nursery graduation didn’t cost a penny 🤷🏻‍♀️. It was just a bit of fun. They stood up and sang some cute songs about starting school.
Is there anything you would stop for the older generations, or is it just the younger ones who you don’t think should do nice things?

Sorry for quoting but going through each of the things yo list and none of that is ‘expected of middle class life’.

I am pretty wealthy as are most of our friends, but older than your group with children10 years younger than you: private schools, 4-5 star holidays yes, but none of what. You describe is expected marries to what we and our friends - and therefore their uni/post uni children have experienced.

We have good cars (BMW etc, but rarely are these new, they are usually under 4 years old snd second hand.) and yes, we have two; we have ONE very nice family holiday a year, but DH goes on a boys golf weekend, took the kids skiing for a few years in feb, gather in a UK city to watch cricket once a year - all down on a budget, Air BnB or staying over at friends. We have NEVER eaten out more than once a week, and even when it was once a week it was likely with a kids eat free at pizza express/prezzo, though there was a period when a Friday night takeaway was the norm (but I now resent the £80 cost for a curry that is 60% onion charges £3.50+ for a rice portion etc, so won’t do that any more. £11.50 for a takeaway meal for 2 at M&S, Waitrose or Sainsbury's, etc so two of these leaves £10-15 for a bloody good bottle of wine and will comes in at half the price). We don’t do daily coffees - we spent £400 on a proper coffee machine 3 years ago instead, as did friends, we all visit each other and bring pastries to share. Or we buy the frozen bake at home ones from farm shops for a fraction of the price and sit in our gardens with our dogs having taken our hounds on a group walk (so no taking them to cafes and annoying folks without dogs, either).

Cheese from a deli? At £100 a month? So what? We spend £10 2-3x a month from M&S on their luxury cheese counter (£7.50-11.50 for a selection box), buy sushi at £20 for most weeks - but so what? Your friend could clearly do it more cheaply but who cares if they happen to love eating cheese and biscuits as their main meals of an evening? My kids love a cheese board and cold meats with fresh sourdough and chutneys. The rest of the time the kids are knocking up omelettes, and eating Iceland curries and Chicken tenders made in the air-fryer.

The only people I knew doing the 7 hols a year are either retired or the ones who actually worked for 6m in temp jobs and then travelled for 3-6m (back packing) and then repeated it the next year. No-one I know can afford the time off work for 7 holidays a year. Yes, some of us like city breaks now the kids are older, but these can be done cheaply - many of my friends who are not M/C (painter/decorators, nannies etc) also do the regular city break thing.

None of our generation, thank fuck, were into the ludicrously expensive stag/hens abroad - though I did go to Amsterdam with friends/sisters ahead of my wedding for a girls weekend and ONE night was my ‘hen’. It was the usual annual group holiday in which we took an evening out for the hen/stag. DH went to Barcelona for his. 3star hotels/bnbs. No frills, no spa days and matching outfits, just a small group of 6-8 friends and family having a weekend away.

And my kids have no expectations of anything different. So, I think your friends are not actually representative of most M/c people - or any that I know. They may be single/unencumbered by kids and trying to make the most of the last few years before they settle down to start a family, though even then I’d be surprised as most people will be squirrelling away a chunk fo cash for mortgages/deposits etc.

The 90s was the good food era, Nigella, Nigel, Gordon, Jamie became popular and serious " foodies" emerged
.
Most weekends away were based around the restaurant you wanted to try.
Its mostly tripe now, the quality is dire
Agree about the coffee, everyone had a cafetiere or french press

Am sorry that you don’t.

The issue of attitudes and age is interesting, we absorb some of our parents' values despite advertising and other pressures. Like my siblings I tend to be quite frugal, and that comes from our parents growing up in wartime (never throwing anything away, mending stuff etc). Interestingly my own now adult DC have some similar values, running old second hand cars for example with no interest in new ones.

Filtered coffee isn’t for everyone, it gives me stomach ache. Wouldn’t stoop so
low - god’s sake you sound ridiculous.

I'm in my 30s and don't know anyone who lives remotely like that.

My granny went to the hairdressers every week for most of her life, and my granddad the pub most days. People used to rent household appliances, now we're told we're being irresponsible if we put them on pay in 3. Swings and roundabouts. Every generation has their frivolities.

@Monty36 I don’t understand your point about endowment mortgages?

YANBU, funded either by good jobs, inheritance or debt. Everything is about keeping up with the Joneses, which to be fair I think had been going on for decades just on a different level.

A lot of people around me seem to use klarna or credit cards for everything. I'm sorry, but I am not "paying in 3" for a coat from ASOS. You save and buy it or do without.

A friend of a friend is a school teacher so 30-40k a year in our area and is dripping in designer gear and new outfits constantly as well as several holidays - cruises, long haul etc. Not sure how she is funding that but it's none of my business.

Instant coffee is disgusting, I wouldn’t stoop that low. I would have tea if I couldn’t afford decent stuff. We don’t buy coffee out much anymore. Use decent ground stuff. We’ve had the same coffee machine for about 10 years though.

@Monty36sorry are you saying people in their late 70s & 80s aren’t old?!

I find our materialism depressing in terms of saving the planet and our children's futures. We have had our kitchen replaced once in 30 years. I was horrified then at the heap of waste presumably going to landfill.

We had fresh coffee when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s. The freeze dried granules are not that great for you. There are more people interested in good food now and that costs money.

I am thinking of my parents generation. People who were alive during the Second World War. They saved to buy.
The next generation were introduced to debt via the credit card. Debt being ‘normal’ grew in popularity to an extreme degree in the 1980’s. And as you rightly point out turned back and bit people badly.
Debt has continued to grow. And is considered normal now. It was not always so. And I worry people have learnt no lessons from the past at all.

They want the champagne lifestyle on proseco money.

Love this.

I do try and buy a decent quality instant (I don’t particularly like filtered and only drink it black and sugarless), but I admit I have never thought about its source (coffee not figuring much in my life). Obviously it must be more ethical to get single source (I’m guessing) so I should be more aware of what I’m buying, as I have no idea 🫤