What adult purchase really shocked you once you saw the price tag?

[AmbsPhillps]

like when you became an adult , what things surprised you with by the cost

Mattresses
sofas
Child care
Glasses/contacts
Private healthcare of any kind
Legal fees
Public transport travel passes (e.g. monthly train pass)

Am I allowed to say houses? I know that one seems kind of obvious but houses are bloody expensive these days.

Oh and fences!

Fencing a garden is insanely expensive. You could go on a really fancy holiday to a far doing tropical island for the same cost.

I’m still at the price of public transport today.

I remember refusing to buy toilet roll on my first independent shopping trip and raiding the McDonald’s dispenser!

But as an adult it’s dentists and vets.

Council tax can be high but most of it goes on Adult Social care
these days.

Hairdressers especially if you need highlights
Building materials - just spent over £1k on tiling adhesive and latex for levelling floor
Train tickets
Sofas
Car maintainence

For my step-daughter and her boyfriend when they moved into their own place - the cost of electricity and gas. They soon adapted from living in a sauna to living in a fridge!

School shoes. Mattresses in comparison I find cheap. It was £60 for a single, £80 for my double three years ago. DS is onto his third pair of school shoes in that time.

Council tax
Good curtains
Holidays

Contents insurance 😱

Everything!

Printer ink yes!!! I’m sure it’s more expensive than gold 🤪

Taps. They are ludicrously expensive. Also, football kits. Looked to get DD a football shirt. £75

Where do you get your drains cleaned as part of your council tax? Scotland? Sounds amazing. No drain cleaning goes on prophylactically here... It should!

Yeah, most of your council tax goes to subsidise adult social care. There is also street lighting, police precept and parish council.

I buy cheap holidays (UK) and expensive mattresses. One mattress = one holiday . But hopefully last longer than one year.

With lots of things, there is a big jump up from the bottom rung to the next step - furniture, emulsion, clothes, food, houses.

Washing machine, fridge, freezer. All came built in at my first house. Now we’re moving we need to buy new ones of everything as well as all the moving costs.

A new front door. Around £2k to keep the cold out.

Running a car and house

Grocery shopping .... as a kid I couldn't really understand why everything was budgeted and planned, now guess who's busy doing budgets and plans! 🙄

Private education, appreciate how much my parents must have sacrificed to put me and my sisters through private school when I realised I couldn’t do the same for mine.

Children in general
Glasses, I feel very guilty about how little care I used to take with them i started forking out for them myself

Also agree on the gulf between ikea and next step up furniture. I want to replace all my

Dentistry- braces for children ( over 2.5k)
- implants/ veneers / crown
Nice sofas
Plastering
Boilers
Salmon

Glasses.
Running a car
Utilities
Servicing a car

I don't remember,, it's been over 30 years since I became an adult, but it has me thinking!

However , as a 51 yo adult the thing that STILL regularly astounds rather than surprises me is how much more house you can get, for the same money, outside of the SE. Beautiful houses on the coast for a fraction of the price of a 3 bed semi here. I'd love to move, but friends/family etc are here and I really value that these days (after many many years of travelling & living elsewhere)

Like many, doing my first food shop I was absolutely shocked at the price of cheese :O

Curtains. (uni)

Shelving units - we ended up having some made from dark wood by a person on Etsy and it was waaaay cheaper than the shop versions and much higher quality! Never understood why that is.

@AmelieTaylor I live in the S.E and it depressing how expensive housing is. I'm very lucky to have got a HA property in a lovely area in an expensive town, but it still comes with sacrifices (no garden). Even HA rates for about 60% of my rent I could get a lovely house and garden elsewhere. Ugh.

Winter coats