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

While I don’t buy anywhere near the amount of clothing mentioned, one key difference is that clothes simply don’t last as long as they used to. It’s a manufacturing issue as well as an overconsumption issue.

Agreed. I used to have Levi's in the early 2000s that would last 2 and a half years of daily wear before they wore through where my thighs touch. I can make the new ones last as long but only if I wear them a couple of times a week.

The stats that I quoted might have been from the US, but I don’t think that the UK is much different judging by the enormous volumes of barely worn clothing that you see on ebay and Vinted.

So many people these days don’t like going out in the same outfit twice. I’ve even heard people being shamed for wearing the same top in photos that they were wearing 2-3 years previously!

This is true to an extent, but I think that very few people wear clothes until they have completely worn out. You only have to look in Vinted at the billions of barely worn items.

In my experience, most clothing lasts a very long time. Admittedly I don’t shop in Primark or Shein, but I am currently wearing a top that bought in GAP around 8 years ago. It’s a basic ‘at home’ top that has been worn consistently over that period of time and there’s nothing wrong with it.

There was a huge downturn in quality of clothes about 4 years ago. I've got stuff that I bought ten years ago that's in better condition than the same item bought from the same shops one year ago.

Several posts now have said that buying clothes is not middle class. I don't understand then why I'm not seeing thousands of naked people on the street.

Yes! I'm still wearing stuff from at least 10 years ago, I actually don't like wearing new clothes - I prefer it when I'm used to something and it feels comfortable ( and I'm not scared of getting it dirty!)

I agree. Within the last year I've bought two expensive items from hobs for work. One a blouses wand the seam on the sleeve tore after only a few wears. Another a dress with a tie around the waste and the loop to hold the tie broke on the second wear.

Oh come on, McDonald's coffee is undrinkable!

All of the local fairly basic hairdressers here charge £60/70 for a ladies cut by the junior stylists. Clearly it very much depends where you live.

But didn't that actually mean physical labour, ie getting your hands dirty? Blue collar, rather than white collar? Blue needed to not show the dirt, white because there wasn't any. This has always been my (uneducated, working class) understanding.
If you use your brain (knowledge, education) then you are professional or middle class.

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Their hot choc horrible

Blimey. I never thought I was badly off, but reading this thread is depressing. Monsoon, to me, was always special occasion clothing. I never thought I was doing badly because I thought their dresses were expensive. I certainly wasn't shopping there in my teens, I was in Topshop!

No, it's not. Greggs flat white is also fine and relatively cheap.

I'm lactose intolerant. Believe me when I say McDonald's black coffee is undrinkable. Even with sugar added which i don't generally do.

All coffee is undrinkable to me Nasty sruff

Having to cut back on the Moet is a nightmare.

My dad who was the first to go to university (he studied medicine) was getting his hands, his front dirty all the time, he was a surgeon. He was dealing with blood, guts and whatever else weekly. His parents worked on a farm (were not farmers) and he considered himself working class. He lived in a working class area, had working class hobbies (carp fishing, never salmon or trout fishing), smoked and drank. Never once went to opera. Did not travel abroad, only ever holidayed where he lived. Did not play an instrument. He worked for a living and thought himself working class. Never went to a play. The list is long.

A surgeon is just not working class, no matter what hobbies he had!

A son of farm labourers? Not working class. Please don't.

I suppose you start out as whatever class your parents are but there has to come a point where it's your own occupation and status that's more telling. I'd say my parents were lower middle class (both teachers) but their parents were definitely working class (miner, cleaner, fisherman). In the same way, although his dad was a toolmaker, I don't think anyone would say Keir Starmer was working class.

I know what you are saying, but I shall stick to my guns. I am working for a living, therefore I am working class. Had my working class dad won the lottery and I could have lived off assets, then with the same dad, with the same occupation, I would have been bourgeoisie, because I would life off my assets. Working class is an economic category - 'working classes exchange their labour for wages and do not own assets or tools'. A working surgeon has to scrape and bow to hospital management, be bollocked by it, take all the shite not to be struck off and be nicey-nicey, explaining to patients, who have no idea and can't have any idea, what procedure is going to be done to their 'tummy'. Then fill in a tonne of forms.

Dossier reveals 'petty tortures' of NHS trainee doctors denied leave | NHS | The Guardian - middle class, aye, right.

That definition means someone can be both working class and middle class, it is even more confusing.

I defy all classification. Dad a plumber, I grew up in council house. Everyone I was at school with seemed to have parents that owned homes and had cars. I went to university at a time when far fewer people did. Have only done basic unskilled work. Can't be called working class because often haven't been able to find work 😃. DH the son of solicitor. DH has professional job. Both DCs have good jobs. I have no interest in football but like reading - trashy books and the classics in English and French. I like Shakespeare and Opera. Frequent foreign holidays. I use balsamic vinegar 🫨. Would never send DCs to private school but have health insurance. Personally I find the whole class thing bamboozling enough to be meaningless.