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

He could have just sent her to state school then...

So strange!

Your right I did it on turn to us and it was zero. I did note that they got the work allowance wrong and used the lower one when we would be eligible for higher if no housing.

But my entitled to is showing as above.

It a mystery!

For context, we’re retired - occupational pensions.

No state pensions yet for a few years. 4 for husband, 5 for me and our children are adults, so no childcare etc.

We have no mortgage but I had to put in my own council tax amount as every band I picked was lower than we pay.

But the main reason they gave was our savings.

I wanted to got to the everyman Cinema this weekend. Yes it's nicer than the cheap cinema but £60 for 4. wtf?

My wife and I come from quite deprived backgrounds, we moved away, got degrees, lived in zone 1 London and as we earned more, we struggled less. There was a very small window, between 2018-2020 where we absolutely felt our wages. In 2019 alone we did three weeks in Thailand, 3 weeks in USA and had a wedding. We bought nicer food and could eat out semi-regularly. Now we don’t even feel it, even though we’ve left London for a cheaper area. We run out of money every month. The only thing I splurge on is organic chicken and I resent it because I wouldn’t have had to years ago. Now if I want to eat meat that isn’t stringy or full of veins I need to pay a premium.

I think a lot of the squeeze is for the people previously earning moderately well - pay hasn’t increased for this cohort, but has for people on minimum wage and / or UC, and for high earners. The job I had in 2009 paid £45k and that was a very comfortable salary to live on. The same job is being advertised at the moment paying… £45k.

@wishingonastar101 4 adults? My Everyman is the best value, family films for 4 are usually £25 ish

I'm retired now, but @AmazonAntiqueStore has pretty much nailed it. When I went freelance as a writer in 1990, I charged about £300 per day, and by 2005, my day rate could be double that (mostly for jobs I didn't want to do). I worked eight or nine months a year; my projects were specialist, high level and I earned very well. But I would not get that now. I read on MN that freelance writers are struggling to earn £200 per day, and that AI and ChatGPT are eating away at that.

I definitely notice it, even though we earn well. For books, I now use the library. They normally have in pretty much all I want and on the odd occasion they haven’t, I’ve requested it and it’s been ordered. It’s then also brand new when I read it.

Middle class used to mean comfortably off home owners with above average earnings derived in the main professions or owning businesses . Unfortunately many educated professionals and business owners have been relegated into the JAMs - the just about managing class.

Incomes haven't kept pace with inflation . A £28k p.a salary in 1985 would have had to increase to £110k today to have the same purchasing power. . For many jobs, the equivalent job would probably only be on £75k £80k p.a, and would have more responsibilities and a wider skill set requirement.

Incomes haven't kept pace with inflation . A £28k p.a salary in 1985 would have had to increase to £110k today to have the same purchasing power.

The average UK salary in 1985 was £6,867 pa. £28k was an enormous salary in the mid 80s. Even most doctors didn’t earn that much. The salary for a newly qualified doctor in a hospital was £11,400 (£36.5K in today’s money) and a Senior Registrar was on £17,940 (£57.4K with inflation). Teachers earned around £10K.

If someone was earning £28K in 1985 they were very wealthy, it certainly wasn’t a run-of-the-mill middle class income.

The average UK salary in 1985 was £6,867 pa. £28k was an enormous salary in the mid 80s. Even most doctors didn’t earn that much. The salary for a newly qualified doctor in a hospital was £11,400 (£36.5K in today’s money) and a Senior Registrar was on £17,940 (£57.4K with inflation). Teachers earned around £10K.

average house price was £30k for a 3 bed - so 3 x a new doctors salary, where as now £36k is just over 3 times the wages of 40 years ago and an average house is worth £285k nearly eight times the doctors starting wage

If you work then you are working class, has always been thus. Wearing a fancy top and demanding single origin coffee is neither here nor there The wealth of those who don't work (and don't rely on benefits) is genuinely incomprehensible to the majority of people.

Yeah. I had a full time salary of 5k in 1988. Which wasn't just because I was young - my mother earned about the same. It was quite a normal salary for an office job in a Northern city.

I get your point, middle class used to be a very wide bandwith, and perhaps it's narrowed, but the higher echelon salaries don't automatically make higher earners Upper Class.

The uplift of any 1985 middle glass salary in inflation terms relative to current salaries for same type of job is much the same whatever part of the middle class band a particular professional job sits within. And of course, the larger percentage of net income needed for housing costs has exacerbated the effect on middle class disposable incomes on many middle classes ( as well as the JAMs, and working classes)

It feels like you can't win. DH and I working class,really struggled to raise 3dcs over the years in a rented flat.
Now,dcs are adults and mortgage paid off. 2 dcs desperately looking for jobs so need financial help,dh was latterly on disability benefit and died in July. So,despite a degree and 40 years of work am still scrabbling about for money.
I earn a reasonable middle management salary, buy second hand clothes,shop at Aldi and can't afford to retire

Who could have predicted that a race to the bottom on wages via outsourcing work to cheaper countries and insourcing workers from cheaper countries would result in the workers in previously wealthy countries in the West slowly but surely becoming more impoverished. Brought to you by globalisation, staunchly encouraged by the Right but aided and abetted by a played Left.

I’m so sorry about your husband x

bit condescending to think that the majority of people find wealth 'genuinely incomprehensible.' There are a lot of things I find incomprehensible like the size of the universe - the concept that some people are very wealthy is hardly rocket science.

besides which 'people who don't work and don't rely on benefits' can include a huge variety of people, from the Duke of Westminster, to retirees, to fairly modest lottery winners

Average UK salary is about £37k, if someone in their 40s 'only' won about £800k on the lottery, then they'd be able to retire today on an equivalent to their earnings.

I say 'only' £800k, not that I wouldn't appreciate it very much, but just to illustrate that you don't need riches beyond imagining to not work. Look at FIRE for example, very normal people who have prioritised a bog standard income to retire early.

But you can afford it, you say yourself you save for things instead.