AIBU to feel middle-class luxuries have become increasingly out of reach?

I completely agree with the OP. My treat used to be a nice coffee and cake in town and a book from Waterstones. Now the coffee and cake is in Greggs (great place but sometimes I'd like to go somewhere independent) and I mostly get my books second hand. The rise in the cost of living is very high these last few years.

I agree but although some museums and galleries are free-thank goodness-an increasing amount are charging what I would call excessive amounts.

Abbot Hall in Kendal-a small gallery is charging £12 a head. Child between 5 and 15-£6. This does allow you to go in all year but I live far enough away to mean that this isn't much of an advantage.

The Bowes Museum-£20 a head for a single visit

The Bronte Parsonage-£15 with £12 for children aged between 12 and 16 for a single visit.

York Art Gallery £9 and £5.40 for a child between 5 and 16.

For many, these are becoming unaffordable or very firmly fitting into the occasional treat category and that is a real shame.

Absolutely!

I think middle class is to do with education and how you behave yourself in public.

Lots of people with money who have never cracked open a book and behaving like oafs in the public square.

These, I would call part of the underclass-which is growing from the bottom up and is very close to causing an eruption.

Sadly for many that would be their entire clothing budget for the year on just the one item.

You can buy polycotton fabrics for around £1 a metre, so £2-4 depending on the style & length of the dress, then remember we aren't talking about couture hand sewn here but machine sewn to a standard pattern where all the fabric is cut by machine etc.

The wages overseas would be much lower even if there wasn't the sweat shops as the cost of living in most countries is far less than the UK e.g. average wage in Taiwan is approximately half that of the UK, but their cost of living is also around half.

Except the behaviour of some very high class private school pupils is just as bad as the underclass as you call them.

Entitlement, from privilege, can display itself in unsocial behaviour even if the family have had a country pile for generations.

Class is a load of nonsense nowadays.

Someone upthread said middle class was the average.
I disagree with that.
At the top you have the aristocracy. Very few of them. Limited in number.
Then you get the variety of middles. More of these and there are three strands of ‘middle’ but not as many as
the working.
The majority of people are working class. But whilst previously many accepted being in this class, it became something many did not want to be in. So called themselves classless ( which they are not), or middle class. Which many are not either.
The class system is such that the majority were peasants. The barons limited in number. With a limited number of inbetween.
The average person was a peasant. Not an inbetween.

Part of it is down to priorities and what matters to you. It’s rare for people to afford all of those things you mentioned nowadays so they’ll choose what matters to them. Some people REALLY care about skincare so will spend the £80 a month or whatever on the stuff they feel helps them look better. Ditto women with make up. Other people are really into fashion so will prioritise that. For me it’s books so I would gladly (and do) spend £60 in Waterstones every month. I get my clothes on Vinted and use £5 Nivea moisturiser.

This is incorrect. If the calculator gave you that then it’s wrong.

I used to work for CA doing benefit appeals.

The figure would also change if you didn’t add housing onto it because you would have a higher work allowance (£710 as opposed to £427 if you’re including housing costs).

So UC entitlement for one couple is £666.97. Child element is £303.94. £666.97+£303.94+£303.94 =£1,274.85. That’s the maximum allowance you’d get.

To work out the maximum a household can earn we would use (the entitlement and divide by 0.55) and then add the work allowance back on the top to work out what people were entitled to. With £4800 income you would be almost -£1000. Once you go below £0 it wipes out your universal credit entitlement.

Two adults plus two kids without housing costs and no disabilities would reach £0 at not for far over £3k.

I just went on entitled to confirm, and if you had a household income of £3k before tax it says you would get around £150 in UC. I hope this makes sense.

By what definition? The modern definition of middle class is university educated, home owning, professional job. Working class is renting, no degree, technical “blue collar” or min wage jobs.

You are right and that proves my point.

Just because their parents have enough funds to send them to private school does not mean that they-or their parents-have class.

My point is that class is defined by education-official or self taught-a curiosity- and how one behaves in the public place.

So, your example of privately educated schoolchildren proves my point.

Yes, they have money but don't behave in the public square which means they don't value education either-my two markers of class.

They are examples of the underclass-in this case, the underclass with cash but still, nevertheless, the burgeoning underclass.

It is a bit more than that.

Anyone would say i am middle class. I spend 80 pounds on a dress. I don't buy clothes very often so I don't see it as a big expense. Monsoon dresses have always been in that price category. Coffee and cake is expensive so I just don't go out for coffee more than once a week. I didn't 30 years ago either. I have never had takeaways as they've aways seemed a waste of money even 30 years ago.

Sorry I realised I wrote out the sum for the entitlement really confusing, if anyone actually wanted to use it.

It would be wage - work allowance. X 55%. Maximum UC entitlement minus this amount.

Example £3500 -£710 =£2,790.00
£2790 x 55% =£1,534.50
1274.85 - £1534.50 =£-259.65
So zero entitlement.

Obviously this can and will be bumped up by childcare, rent, disability elements. It wouldn’t be impossible to bring home £4800 and still be entitled to UC but they absolutely would have other things added to their claim other than a couple with two kids.

Paperbacks are not £14.99, trade paperbacks (flapped) can be, upper limit for a true paperback is around £10.99. however you're right, the RRPs have moved up massively in the last 5 years, hardbacks are now £22+ (£35 in some cases). I loved books but I could never imagine paying that, I can't understand who can.

I am not too sure many middle class people only spend 80 to 100 pounds a year on clothes. I only spend about 300 or 400 including underwear, pjs etc and still would spend 80 on a dress.

Why are people cluttering the world with paperbacks. You can read on kindle. It's cheaper and you don't end up with loads of books which can't be recycled half the time IME.

People confuse class with money far too much.
Class is more nuanced than just money.

It occasionally happens.

But usually a fellow computer user spots them, it gets reported to staff and they get a ban - or the police are called.

It certainly isn't a reason to stop using a library - the chances of any individual customer encountering this are minute.

I struggle with Kindle. I learnt to read from books. Not a screen. And for me a book I much prefer. You can get beautiful books with fantastic illustrations too. Not sure that would come across on a screen. A book is a beautiful thing.

Nobody's going to cut pensioner benefits so the bill will continue to rise.

Everyone says that but they just haven't really tried to get used to a kindle. I made the effort because I wanted too spend less and not have so much clutter and now I prefer to read that way. I find it a bit pretentious when people talk about books being beautiful.

I find people who are rude for the sake of it ignorant.

It’s just a basic, c. minimum wage family. No housing, no childcare.

Dont understand how no one knows this

I didn't say middle class anywhere. I was responding to the poster who said a dress "should" cost £80, and pointing out to them that a) that isn't actually affordable to many and b) they may have somewhat over estimated the costs involved in making a comparatively cheap dress.

A lot of bad behaviour is from what you would think is middle or upper middle-classes, however you want to define it, they get good grades, they can quote poems, they can put on black tie and be confident and polite in a formal setting.

But they also get dropped off at Cornish beaches end of exams, get drunk, have sex on the beach, little, play loud rap music and generally behave as the underclass because they know there won’t be any major consequences because mummy and daddy will privilege their way out of it.

There is no such thing as particular class behaviour or interests anymore. Thinking you are oh so middle-class because you read high brow poetry whilst shivering at home eating beans on toast is delusional.

And thinking “working class” people don’t enjoy opera or know how to behave on public transport is also wrong. Just wrong.

Behaviour and interests are varied over all classes, what makes access to some of these is money and opera houses don’t enquire if you earned the ticket money via building a wall or analysis of a FTSE company quarterly cash flow.

Class is so very outdated in the UK, thank god, by all means judge people as you find them but thinking that class gives people class is insane. The upper classes get away with a lot of dreadful behaviour because they do it behind walled estates and can shut people down, but sexual/physical abuse is the same action.

All there really is, is what you can and can’t afford. What behaviour you can and can’t get away with. Class is just something kept alive to make people who aren’t wealthy feel better because there are markers (made up delusional markers) they tick which makes them “middle-class” - so better in their minds. It’s a trick.