Is everyone going to be affected by the cost of living?

[Southerngal5]

Ie all sectors of society not just the ones who are barely getting by currently & will now pushed into poverty...
The squeezed middle will be affected & will likely have to do without luxuries they once took for granted... I'm finding it quite scary to be honest.. I know I shouldn't as we're quite comfortable & can afford our mortgage & bills but we won't have many of the "nice" things we had planned for the dc... Please don't flame me as I know there are millions worse off but I can't see prices coming down in the foreseeable future...

I really hope my hair salon stays open. They are good people and a lovely vibe.

@SpaghettiArmsMurderer

Well yes everyone will be affected. No one has unlimited money and everyone buys things therefore everyone will see price increases encroaching on what they buy whether it’s baked beans or caviar. The difference will be the amount of pain it causes which will obviously be a scale from significant for those on low incomes to negligible for the wealthy. Crinkly is right about the knock on effect as well. People on here are nasty towards those who are saying they’re now struggling to afford a nanny or cleaner but we want people to afford those things as they’re providing jobs.

This is such a good point, what happens the cleaners if people decide they are now an unnecessary luxury? The beauty salons, hairdressers, personal trainers, these people need to live too, it will all have a knock on effect...

We moved last July so our mortgage increased and council tax and house insurance etc. We pushed ourselves financially to get our dream house so no savings left.

We'll be ok, but have cut back on things in order to get some savings before spending on anything extra that we can survive without. For example I decided to keep cutting/dying my own hair since lockdown, and learnt how to cut men's hair to do my DP and DS. We're being very strict about turning plug sockets/lights off. Turned the heating down to 16 and only up it rarely. Low heat laundry washes/full loads. No wardrobes in our bedroom so just hanging up work clothes and the rest of our clothes are stored in suitcases - will wait to buy furniture (last house had built in wardrobes). Have a strict budget for shopping now. Holiday will be caravan off season (DS is not in school yet). No birthday gifts for me or my DP. I have also done overtime.

I consider ourselves lucky as we can survive well enough without too much stress - barring something costly and unexpected happening. I'm much more worried about my sister and her family who are on a much lower salary than us and have no options to increase income. She is already very frugal so I don't know where she'll cut costs other than heating.

@SoManyTshirts

Yes, my much anticipated comfortable retirement will be less so. Particularly given the rampant inflation on the horizon, but I’m getting too old and creaky to earn much so there it is.

absoutlely this.

For moaning that others are worse off why are you evening bring this up obvisouly dont understand ecomonics.

people stop spending on luxaries like manicures, trips to cinemas etc - and then those orgs struggle and close and more unemployed... the middle classes keep a lot of business bouant with the flow of cash. it becomes a bitter cycle downwards for a while.

Scary is to strong a word, concerning is more appropriate. We are not going to have issues with utility bills or food but that extra money has to come from somewhere, in our case less meals out, no last minute mini breaks ... which of course doesn't matter compared to those loosing their houses BUT if we stop doing these things, the peoples whose jobs rely on these activities will find themselves out of their job. The middle, which most of us are do fund directly or indirectly a lot of employment.

I have no right to moan that my quality of life will deteriorate but I'm concerned that the £100 a month or so I divert from leisure will have consequences for others in a less favourable financial situation.

Yes dp & I aren't doing valentines or bday gifts this year or mother's day/fathers day or anniversaries! We've decided just to cook a nice meal with a couple of bottles of wine at home.. Pre the cost of living rise we would do hotel breaks, dinner out spa days...

We're comfortably off but also don't have lots of discretionary spending so I'm not sure where we'd see any difference in our quality of life. No hair salons, pedicures, gardeners or ironing services here. We pay out a lot in school/nursery fees and mortgage but have enough of a buffer to absorb rises. Don't do much shopping as a leisure activity although we spend a lot on days out and holidays. I expect prices to rise there but we'll still do them because, well, the kids are only young once.

I imagine some people will be wealthy enough not to feel the squeeze, but not anyone I know. We can personally cover our bills and mortgage still – we managed to fix our energy and mortgage last autumn and this weekend we renegotiated our broadband and Sky contracts – but we won't be holidaying abroad this year and we're making cut backs o luxuries like I've started dyeing my own hair again rather than going to the hairdresser etc. We know how lucky we are that we can manage.

Also not replacing our cleaner after they left recently.

@PinkyU

I think you're being a bit unfair. Everything is relative. Even the poorest in this country live a life a luxuary compared to those in Afghanistan who are forced organs, or even their children.

Does this mean that we should tell them to shut up and stop moaning because other people are worse off?

This will affect everyone's quality of life, though obviously some will be hit harder than others.

Absolutely.

I am comfortable compared to a lot of people but have already started cutting back to try and absorb the higher costs. This in turn affects business and their employees.

We are in the same boat and will be cutting back massively. We don’t be able to afford days out etc as a lot of people probably won’t and so that’s less into the economy.

It’s very annoying for me having scrimped and saved for years to pay debt so I can finally have a couple of hundred spare a month and it’s been swallowed up instead
People are in a worse situation than me granted but I’m still allowed to be pissed off!

There are people who are going to be in dire straits due to this, it's terrible. Nobody is forgetting about them for one second. However many of us are also the "squeezed middle" whose taxes support the less fortunate & who employ them directly or indirectly so worrying about ourselves & our little luxuries actually affects them greatly... I'm in coffee morning group of schools mums, we usually go to Costa but as the weathers picked up we've started meeting in the park with flasks & home baked foods, go for a nice walk after... The idea was the few quid is better in our pockets than costas... I'm actually teaching the dc rte same concept is the pound better in your pocket or Claires accessories & applying it to all our spends at the moment...

Everyone saying you're comfortable and you'll be fine, presumably you mean while you stay in work. In the last recession DH and I lost our jobs in the same week.

We had respectively 15 & 23 years' service with the employers in completely different sectors.

When this sort of thing happens, tax revues reduce, so even "nevessary" public sector jibs aren't safe. People have short memories

Yes I’m petrified- I know we can eat and heat the house but I literally will never go out with my friends for the foreseeable, no beauty treatments, no dates with my husband. I don’t want my kids lives to change. I still want them to go places and have the odd treat, which basically means I’m going to live a miserable existence.
I know I’m considered lucky because it’s a race to the bottom in the U.K. but it feels shit!

@CrinklyCraggy

Everyone saying you're comfortable and you'll be fine, presumably you mean while you stay in work. In the last recession DH and I lost our jobs in the same week.

We had respectively 15 & 23 years' service with the employers in completely different sectors.

When this sort of thing happens, tax revues reduce, so even "nevessary" public sector jibs aren't safe. People have short memories

Absolutely but we have always factored in losing our jobs at any point in time but even with that we have switched to saving rather than spending surplus money.

Even still @stuffin that money saved that you worked hard for could yet be needed to cover inflation, it's horrible.. It's uncertainty for everyone but it looks like the working class & squeezed middle will be the ones most affected & bare most of the brunt... We certainly aren't all in this together

We are quite comfortable at the moment, but DP’s contract is up in the summer and will need to find a new job (no chance of extending), and we wanted to TTC later this year, and move house (we are in a 2 bed city terrace with tiny courtyard garden, could have DC here but not ideal). The uncertainty means putting TTC and moving on hold until DP has passed probation at a new job. Fortunately I’m young enough to wait but I can definitely see the economic circumstances having a further impact on birth rates.

@PinkyU

Have you not seen the posts on here from people asking for ideas on how to keep themselves and their children warm because they can’t afford to heat their homes, or people asking for advice on cheap recipes because they need to cut their food bill to afford transport to school or work?

The post of the (disabled) person asking if she can spend all day in the library with a packed lunch and a flask just so she can keep warm, being advised that she could sit on the bus all day for heat and electricity to charge her phone.

Can’t you see how in such poor taste this is when you’re bemoaning your potential inability to provide “luxuries” to your children, while tens of thousands of children (who previously wouldn’t have) will go to bed hungry and cold over the coming days?

It’s not a competition to see whose is worse off

Everyone is going to be affected in some way, everyone’s standard of living will drop, don’t be such a twat

@PinkyU

I am one of those people you mentioned, where I am going to have to choose between which bills to pay, what I can put off, not put the heating on added to the increase in daily costs etc etc, once again my PIP has stopped and I have to go through that whole lovely process again.

But I think the OP has a perfect right to be worried about how her lifestyle is going to change and what things she can do about, I can tell her how to survive on your last 23p at the end of the month, but when she might have her last £30 there is a difference, I wouldn't want to eat value baked beans at the end of the month if I had the money not to, so by pointing out that she is not at the bottom of the pile, she might get some good advice that will actually help.

Its not a race to the bottom

I think the worst that will happen here is that I won’t change to the bigger car I had my eye on. Not earth shattering stuff and not even a real complaint given how so many people are forced to live by our shower of bastards government.

Everybody will be affected.

It's not just domestic fuel costs that are going up, it's commercial and industrial too. We have had letters this week from school and all clubs have had a 100% increase in costs. So breakfast club, after school club etc have doubled in price from the start of the next term. Our local pool has said they are increasing their costs too, but that is yet to be determined. I dread to think how much it costs to heat the pools!

Supermarkets will be increasing their prices because factories will be increasing their prices.

EVERYBODY Wei feel the effects of this. Some more than others. I feel really sorry for the parents at my nephews schools. Some of the parents are on minimum wage and now have to find double the cost of breakfast club and after school, the cost of childcare doubling and then the cost of domestic fuel and shopping climbing Sky high. They are already living on a shoe string and visiting food banks and food waste programs.

It's so sad when the kids have to miss out especially stuff they really enjoy.. We'll be able to continue or dc's activities but I feel desperately sorry for the kids who'll have to miss theirs, they have missed out on so much already with the pandemic...

We'll have higher bills.

And the infinite security of knowing it won't matter at all.

This did not happen by fortune, chance or by accident. It was my deliberate policy and agenda since age 13 when my lovely/tough/foolish/resilient mother warned me never to repeat her mistakes; I listened and didn't. Of course I made different mistakes of my own but money isn't one of them .

And the infinite security of knowing it won't matter at all.

Who has the infinite security of knowing it won't matter at all? All of us? Or just you?