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

@Juliancantcope

I can’t get over the fact that a posh pushchair / travel system can cost more than a second hand car!

Yes! I've had cars that cost £100. Our travel system was £500! To be fair, the travel system did last longer...

Also echoing school uniform. The day my boy came home with a rip in a week old pair of school trousers (that would have eventually been passed down to his smaller brother) I understood my mother’s fury when I came home on my last day of school having unpicked half the seam on my school skirt and let my friend write on it in permanent marker. Skirt was wool, dry clean only, bought directly from the school so £££ and destined for my younger sister.

Also tax and national insurance.

Sofas - we rent and 90% of our house is furnished with hand me downs or charity shop buys. My dad got is a new sofa from Argos for our birthdays. 350 quid and it creaks and feels like it won't last a year!
Cars - I dont drive and part of the reason is because of the cost of everything involved.
Council tax and most household bills really!

I've always rented so never had massive expenses to fork out for but thanks for the heads up about front doors. The one at our house is old and knackered, I can see why the landlord maybe be reluctant to replace it!

Loo roll! In the regular supermarkets it is so expensive, I get mine from Savers!

Headboards, I do not get why they are so expensive

@PuppyMonkey

I rarely go out to bars these days but when I do I remain at the price of a glass of wine often being £10 or more.

Don't ever go to Reykjavik then. About £10 a pint. We had lunch in a bar one day. Nothing fancy. Burger and chips each, pint for DH, Coke for me. £55! I bought a small wrap from the local shop as something quick to eat, £8. Bought an identical one from Tesco on the way back from the airport the next day. £2.50.

DH went out a few weeks later a messaged from the pub to say the beer was so cheap (£4.50) he felt like buying two.

Car tyres 😡 had to get 2 this week and the price always shocks me.

Children’s shoes.

Vet bills.

Building work

For shopping. I never expected to easily drop £400+ a month on food!

Holidays

London property prices. Lived here all my life and it’s still shocking.

Legal fees.

Skiing holidays, so expensive and then there’s the lift passes and all the overpriced clobber

Vet care for the dog, even with insurance. Made me VERY grateful for the NHS.

Curtains, blinds, carpets, printer ink, holidays and everything to do with running a car.

Electric light bulbs, seem so expensive for what they are!
Vets bills, and anything to do with pets generally.
Sewing thread and decent fabric.

@Mintjulia

Kitchens. A stack of mdf should not cost that much.

And council tax - £2200pa to have a bin emptied twice a month, clear the drains twice a year and provide a library

They do a bit more than this!

Getting any work done in the house , I used to wonder before I owned a house why people wouldn't get problems fixed or updated straight away, then I started getting the quotes

Council tax. Our recycling bin has just gone to once a bloody month. Once. Ffs.

Printer ink.

Dishwasher tablets and washing powder.

Cherries.

Restaurants or takeaways compared to just buying food from the supermarket. On days out with my dad we would just buy a baguette, cheese and tomato, and an apple or banana.

Printer ink equates to £5,600.00 per gallon!

I am very used now to everything costing four times what I feel it should that nothing surprises me any more, unless it’s freakishly cheap.

I am however looking forward immensely to DD (18) leaving home next year and starting this voyage of discovery, as I am really fed up of being told something is ‘only £100’ or ‘you’re always going on about money’.

Rent for a decent holiday cottage for a week in the UK.

Taps. Anything that's not bog standard is pricy

Running costs of many things. The fact its often not buying the thing that's the expensive part, but keeping it running/ from deteriorating / alive/ in one piece/ usable as applicable (and whether or not the "thing" - for example a car or house or flat - is expensive the year on year running costs are vastly more than you bargain for as a child).

The fees and cost involved in buying a house or flat in top of the price paid to the seller.

The price of a G&T in London when I moved from up North

Paint

The cost of an overnight stay in even a pretty basic hotel or B&B

Children's shoes

A new car. I drove an old VW into the ground over about 10 years and then when went to look into buying a a new car I was surprised that they were around 28,000 and that was a few years ago. To me it seemed that with all of the car lease schemes had pushed up the prices of cars