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! 🙈

@gggrrrargh

My family don’t let me forget that when I first found out how much a sofa cost I was planning to make my own out of chicken wire and paper mache..

😂 like the choice of materials, I'd have opted for newspaper and sticks.

Christmas trees🌲.

Brita filters!

Lightbulbs!!!
And agree with cheese, coffee, loo roll, bin bags, tuna, utilities!

Glasses as in spectacles. I grudge.

Clothes

Tax. When I was a kid I had this vague idea that tax was a few pennies because I remember half-seeing a news story about the Lib Dems wanting to put 'a penny on income tax' and eight-year-old me thought it was a literal penny.

Oh the shock when I started buying things (VAT), then later earning (PAYE and NI), driving (VED, fuel duty) and everything else.

@MsMillyMollyMandy

Utilities Property maintenance Tree Surgery Anything that you spend a lot of money on just to maintain rather than improve your home.

I can remember when our grown up kids first moved into their own homes there was a steady stream of of photos of utility bills accompanied by OMG 🙀 on the family WhatsApp 😂😂

Brilliant! I remember being astonished by bills when I first left home, and they just seem to keep going up 😩

Curtains and blinds. Got a quote from John Lewis for Roman blinds for our (average sized, but awkward window layout) living room, and it was £2000...! Ended up getting the blinds from Dunelm, at the 'bargain' price of £700!

And new boilers.

Houses. Childcare.

Large garden plant pots .
Cushions.
Good pillows

I agreed with @Chouetted about sheds
Everything is expensive at the minute I think

Agree with childcare too. I could have a second house on the amount I pay in childcare 😫

This thread has made me smile.
I remember being little (6/7) and my mum always had a budget down to the last penny and new what was in her bank.
I only said to my dad this weekend, I finally understood why we didn’t eat out a lot, or have lots of day trips. We saw a petting zoo and it was £17 each to get in!

Butter
Washing powder (a vile scam this one)
Newspapers - only read the metro and evening Standard now
Decent bread
Need I go on...........

Rugs!

Cars

Dental treatment !! Not only is it not a pleasant experience but u get a nasty bill. Root canal think in the chair with a rubber ball in your mouth for 3 hrs straight whilst someone tinkers around. £2000 later then the tooth cracks to the root and the whole tooth had to be pulled out with veneer so it was like having £2000 pulled from my mouth told it was rare for this to happen but my friend had exactly the same happen to her root canal. So all I say to children is that old h don’t get much for free in this life so look after your teeth !

Council tax!

Definitely cheese OP! There was a girl in my hostel as a teen who had a little black handbag, just big enough to shoplift one block of cheese.

I got a real shock the first time I had to buy a sofa. I mean, everyone has one but they cost a fortune!

Taps

Lobster.

My grandfather was a fisherman and, each week on a Wednesday, we would have something he caught. Mackerel, crab, herring, Lobster. All the same "price" to me until I asked for Lobster in a restaurant when I was 15 and my Dad quickly told me no!

Dancing lessons!