Thanks for this. I don't disagree with the general gist of this thread, but the belief that people weren't living on credit in the good ole days is crazy.
NOTE: I had no intention of writing such a long potted history, but I've done it now so will post! You could just read the next three paragraphs about 'the old days'.
You could retain an item you wanted, as your nan did, by paying in instalments. This secured your cost against inflation and was acceptable to those who were terrified of debt (as more people used to be). We bought Green Shield stamps, which were savings that also got you discounts, and you used to get some free with larger purchases - cashback, basically, but only to be spent at certain retailers.
Everybody rented things like televisions, hi-fi systems, even washing machines and fridges. One step up from renting was hire purchase. There was a deposit and a credit check, plus interest that was rolled up into your monthly payments. Sound familiar? You're all talking as though car leasing's new!
Normal people did not buy new cars outright. You could also buy all your furnishings, carpets and appliances on hire purchase.
I clearly remember the day, in the '80s, when it became cheaper to use a credit card than to save up - inflation was higher than the interest, and returns on savings were derisory. XH and I had good jobs, banks couldn't give us new credit cards with astronomical limits fast enough. At the same time, our mortgage interest was 13.5%. Mrs Thatcher's economic miracle rested on us all borrowing from banks.
Also as part of the 'miracle', millions of council tenants were allowed to buy their homes at bargain basement prices, transferring £billions of public assets to the banks, who now had millions of new customers paying mortgage interest to them.
The average UK house price went up from £20k in 1980 to £56k in 1990. Inflation running high, the Bank of England pushed the base rate to 15%, so some home buyers now faced mortgage interest around 17%. This caused a price drop around 1995 and negative equity (my mortgage fix ran out that year and I had to abandon my flat 😭)
The boom exhaustion led to economic stagnation, Labour won the next election. Come 2010, we were feeling optimistic again about owning more, so George Osborne's 2013 budget depended entirely on high levels of personal debt, hence launching the Help To Buy scheme, equity loans and low deposits. This started a new bubble - which he continued to inflate through his subsequent budgets.
In short, the 1980s moved us from renting and buying stuff on tick to borrowing. It shifted wealth from shared ownership to private, introducing a huge amount of new public borrowing. Instead of rent and hire purchase, we now had mortgages and credit cards.
Renting's now on the increase - private this time, as there is not much publicly-owned housing left. We have car leasing (hire purchase, rebranded), and payment by instalments on credit cards, Klarna, etc. I've noticed you can now rent domestic appliances again in low-income areas. None of this is new, it just looks a bit different.
Some PPs have mentioned the loss of public facilities; this is a massive factor in increased costs - from homes to childcare to leisure. It'll be interesting to see whether (and how) they can be replaced.