To ask, what's one item that you didn't realise was expensive until you became an adult?

[AvocadoHo]

Mine is toilet roll and cheese! 🙈

Printer cartridges!
Nice tissues.

Curtains! Mum offered her Laura Ashley curtains for our spare room when we moved in. I snootily hummed and hawed then realised how mentally expensive curtains were and changed my tune to abject gratefulness!

Toothbrushes. Not that they are individually expensive, we just get through so bloody many of them. Why do my kids eat them?

Literally everything

I was going to say everything too!

Fresh orange juice

Tyres

Fences

Butter! Even the cheaper stuff is getting worse. My first thought was loo roll as you said

Cherries! My mum wasn't wrong

Gas and electric

Cold meat
Sanitary products
Decent deodorant

Front doors

Cheese and coffee

Council tax and heating. My dad always told us to put on a jumper before turning up the thermostat I totally get it now.

I was just about to say 'electricity'. BagORats beat me to the punch.

Basmati rice and wholemeal roti flour. We used to get through kilos every week.

Curtains,blinds and Garden furniture !

Food
Pillows
Curtains
Rugs

The poster who said printer cartridges is right, plus printers, especially when you have to buy a new one after you've used it once because the thing bloody breaks.

I don't recall anything taking me by surprise. However, I've been an independent adult for A Very Long Time now (left home at 17, I'm 52 now). I worked after school in a supermarket and my parents were never secretive about bills etc

Days out with the kids. Admission tickets, ice creams, parking. It wasn’t something I even considered as a child.

Horse riding

Garden stuff. I was shocked to discover that bits and bobs that just looked like junk in my parents and grand parent's sheds actually cost money. Like plant pots!

Houses!

water and heating - bloody wish my teens would cop on - honestly huge boiling hot baths every night - heating on - walking around in shorts and a strappy top moaning about the cold - grrrrr