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

I agree there is also alot of expectation for us to look a certain way. The pressure to live up to a certain lifestyle, it has changed so much.
I think social medis has quite a lot of influence.
I think this is true with fashion, certainly bikinis have changed alot over the past 4 years with the usual cover ups giving way to thong bikinis.
Gym weay also now flatters withe the scrunch bottoms

I must be doing something wrong then! Our last big holiday abroad was for five people, me, two kids and my parents, and came to around £2k for seven days excluding food. I did buy the flights a couple of months in advance, so was quite cheap - around £60 return each.

We go away fairly often, probably once a month in one form or another, and it's the UK trips that make me nervous about the cost.

I always find UK holidays much cheaper than going abroad, we do both. We only book airbnb/self catering though, never hotels so if we go abroad we have the cost of the flights to add on, insurance etc.

I couldnt afford to holiday in hotels.

Maybe it's because you're a family of 4. When you're 5, you have to buy an extra flight and hire a bigger car at the other end.

We mostly holiday in the UK and for us, it's cheaper. We don't go to Alton Towers though, that's a day trip, not a holiday.

We recently went to a uk seaside town and spent £1.2k on the week's rent for a 5 person let. We went on a few day trips, price ranging from £0-£100 for the whole family for the day. We did a mix of self catering and eating out (fish and chips, pub, bakery). There's no way this holiday would have been cheaper had we gone to Spain instead.

In fact we recently went to Spain for a similar kind of holiday and it was more expensive because we had to pay flights for 5 people. The villa was more like £2k for the week. The only thing cheaper in Spain was meals out.

Equally, my parents' wealthier friends would hold proper dinner parties, Garden parties and not expect any contribution as they could easily afford it. They would decorate their homes which were a decent size for a family and buy their furniture from Heals, they certainly went to the Theatre and on holidays that matched their lifestyles at home. Overall, middle class life was much better IME and they were spending lots of money and expectations were high.

Its funny how half the replies are : I don’t see this at all and the other half agree with @Hiredgun. I do think it depends who you know. I work in healthcare and a mixed group on the unit we’re talking about how much their overdrafts were. Credit is a huge reason why people live certain lifestyles. I do agree social media has a part to play too.

For example I work with staff who have multiple holidays a year but also a consultant who goes camping with their kids rather than abroad. Most people have their big fancy cars on finance.

I’m probably still below average according to mumsnet ( £30k) partner £45k but we still live a decent lifestyle. I’ve had no inheritance or money from family ever. There is none to come either. Small mortgage left. Ikea furniture and save for any refurbs (very gradual!) One euro city break plus could of short u.k. breaks too. We can eat out. We have one 20 year old car. I buy clothes mostly from vinted. We can save. We dont have to worry but the biggest one is we dont have kids. No debt: did that in my 20s and took an age to pay off!

Before I got to the end of your post, I was wondering if you lived in London. Mainly re the having no car. I don’t really know anyone who doesn’t have a car, and a lot of those have what a PP called a premium brand car. We do not live in an affluent area.
I live in the North West and recognise everything the OP has mentioned

I think you have to have a certain mindset not to be fazed by thousands of debt and nothing to show. I'd be feeling sick if I had £5k I had to pay off over years on a card for a quick hit of Botox and a holiday.

From an upbringing of "you save up, then you buy it" it feels so alien to me to have any debt. I try not to think about the size of our mortgage because it's horrendous. But we do have a house worth more now, so I can slightly calm my thoughts with that knowledge.

We've got quite a bit of debt through renovations, but it's added more to the asset of the house too. Still makes me clench up a bit though.

Cars is a weird one, because the gap between nice cars and general crap has exploded. I remember a brand new RR sport in 2006 being about £40k, because my brother in law got one and we all oohed and ached over it. I drove a second hand Cayenne, at 2yrs old, for £16k. He was on about £45k a year, I was on £19k. We both bought outright having saved for several years beforehand.

Now we have an 8yr old SUV, which retails at £15k, but if I wanted the 2yr old Cayenne? £75k. The new sport? £100k+

Who is saving up £75k for a car? By the time they can buy it, the kids will have left home and they won't need the SUV. So people own it the only way they ever will before they die lol. Finance.

Costs have gone nuts. My mother permanently tells of the 10% interest rates, and we don't know how good we've got it at 4%

Yes mum, but your house cost 50p for fuck sake. And your wages were higher in proportion to the house prices. 10% of sod all is sod all. 4% on £750k is a LOT.

Our flights to Spain were hundreds for all 5 of us. That was with Wizz Air and we bought months in advance after thoroughly checking prices. We paid for checked luggage though, I refuse go abroad for a week with my family and cram everything into a tiny case.

We also hired a car which came to £500 (not including petrol).

Food and alcohol was much cheaper there though.

Frequent takeaways and eating out, takeaway coffees, having your nails done (we did them ourselves), new cars, gym memberships - none of these was routine when I was a single 20-something - which OK was a long time ago now. But we didn’t consider ourselves poor or deprived. Just ‘normal’.
Expectations have certainly risen.

I think many people make a show of affluence when they feel a bit insecure.

Rich people are just rich and have no need to spend or show they can. They do spend but not to attract attention.
Poor people have no money and cannot even if they wanted to.

Those inbetween. Who are desperate not to consider themselves a modern day peasant will invariably ‘show’ their wealth. That they are a success. Achieving. To the point of getting into debt.

For me it's hard to compare because the type of people I had around me growing up are very different from the people I know as an adult. I grew up on a council estate and lots of people we knew were on benefits so they rarely went on holiday and had basic secondhand cars. As an adult I earn well and live in an affluent area, dcs are at private school and have expensive extracurriculars, so people around me have lots of disposable income and it's the norm here to have several holidays a year and spend on eating out, entertainment etc.

I never went abroad on holiday as a child and now I go a few times a year. We don't bother with a car at all though as we're in London, and my coffee, wine and cheese tastes are simple as it's not something that appeals to me. We've never bothered with renovations as the hassle and mess puts me off.
But we have a decent amount of disposable income and we spend a lot of entertainment like theatre because it's something that I enjoy and value. We still manage to save and invest a lot but there's no reason not to spend money on things you like if you have the income.

I thought this was going to be a post about the advent of technology (phone contracts), streaming services, gym membership and matcha - and I would have agreed on that basis. But the things you list bear absolutely no resemblance to the lives of the people I know. I don't know anyone who has a brand new car, one holiday (plus maybe a couple of weekends away) is what most can afford, house maintenance and a bit of decoration is about the extent of it. We are financially comfortable, as are most of the people we know. We do eat out/ get takeaways relatively frequently though.

My granny used to get her hair set every week, again something I could never justify. I think a lot of what we spend on has changed but spending itself has always been a thing.

yes habits have risen - you try being a few decade older and it’s really amazing the changes

i do wish people would stop staying now expensive it all is though / the expensive thing is houses ( rent or prices ) which have gone up crazily and if that was normalised you would really understand how wealthy we now on average are

Many do. The SUV’s you likely see are not owned though. They are owned by the company who the customer has a payment plan with. They can buy the car at the end of the plan, but they can opt for a newer car and start all over again.
They don’t actually own the car.

Every generation looks on the previous generation as frivolous!

But if you had money in the past perhaps you spent a fair bit on it, the equivalent to the total of a number of holidays now. When I was very young my Mum organised a tour of the U.S. it was pretty expensive as we went away for a couple of months. They had friends that owned second homes in the South of France or Devon and Cornwall, these were all Middle class professionals, think, Solicitors, Doctors, Economist, Civil service but DH and I are in similar roles and there is no way we could afford that lifestyle. Yes, we can afford a takeaway occasionally but a home with Heals furniture, a second home anywhere, a holiday abroad - just about even compared to ten years ago!

come again?

Costs have gone nuts. My mother permanently tells of the 10% interest rates, and we don't know how good we've got it at 4%
Yes mum, but your house cost 50p for fuck sake. And your wages were higher in proportion to the house prices. 10% of sod all is sod all. 4% on £750k is a LOT.

Yes, this is always ignored. A low % of a high amount is still a lot of money!

You’re in your late thirties

you reminisce as though you’re in your seventies 😆

I think expectations have changed

When I bought my first flat, I used a cardboard box (covered in wrapping paper) as a bedside table. And the flat had no central heating, dishwasher etc. I have happy memories but looking back, it was very basic

When my niece bought her first flat, she wanted everything brand new and shiny

It's good that some standards have improved. Living with a couple of tiny fan heaters wasn't fun. But the cardboard box worked v well

Jesus really? Does that include car finance or just bog standard debt? I don't think I'd sleep if I owed that much!