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...

No, not everyone. Those people who earn loads and have loads of disposable income won't notice too much.

Actually I think people should complain and as loudly as possible. It is a race to the bottom at the moment and the government doesnt care. Most of the European governments are putting the onus on the energy companies to suffer the costs but not here. So yes people should complain, realise things dont have to be this way and vote differently.

We are both professionals but on public sector salaries. Havign jsut moved house six months ago - furniture has become a 1/4 to a 1/3 more expensive than in the summer. So we might have to buy it on ebay. But thats ridiculous and we shouldnt have to do that. Not because we are special but if professionals now look to buying second hand furniture - what is everyone else doing.

It is scary and people should push back

Great replies & thank you. @pombears22 furniture is insane, we're looking to buy a garden set seeing as we won't be going away this year now & the ones we were eyeing up last year seemed to have gone up at least 300 quid...

@Heidi451

Well, the fuels bills are going to cripple us. We live in a very old drafty house.

We both lost our occupations during Covid and are part of the army of "self-unemployed" - not on any benefits but hoping to find some business to keep going. For 2 years, no meals out, entertainment, hair cuts, no pub, clothes, holidays. Absolutely nothing spent except absolute essentials. No mobile phones -just landline. No Sky or Netflix or TV.

Our car has been sold, nice jewellery sold, furniture and other valuables sold - we have 2 chairs and a table left now as the rest has gone. Can't use the fireplace as landlord doesn't want to pay to re-line the chimney.
Garden turned over to growing veg. Slow cooker, deep fat fryer and sacks of bread flour, potatoes and lentils.
We are surviving by the skin of our teeth. We have no money BUT
we have no debt.

I really, really feel for people who can't repair things, make things, grow things, cannot cook food or bake bread from scratch, and people who are ill, old or have little children and need to be comfortable.

My heart goes out to those people.

why have you not claimed benefits?

Up until now DH & I were fritterers, thought nothing of a hotel break or coffees out, on day trips with the dc always had lunch out, this will all be changing for us..

As a wider society I think we will see increased crime as desperate people shoplift. Increased domestic violence. More strain on mental health services. More drug and alcohol addiction. Children who are malnourished and whose parents are stressed out, emotionally unavailable and unable to provide books or valuable experiences for them eg going to the seaside or the zoo, etc. Behaviour in schools will continue to deteriorate. Health services will be stretched further. People won't afford dental care. More pressure on food banks and health issues as a result of poor diet. I could go on

Totally agree, it's going do have horrendeus impacts... My cousin & her DH are wealthy appear wealthy, huge ancient house in Norfolk which is always freezing as it is as it is impossible to heat, they have 3 young children, I know they will struggle yet people won't pity them as they appear well off, dc private school etc but they will have no quality of home life at all now with the gas & electricity bills

@Southerngal5 forgive the silly question as I am not originally from the UK. What kind of houses are impossible to heat? Like I used to live in my MIL's Victorian terrace and it was so cold (and it had double glazing too). My flat feels much warmer even though it was built in 1930s and is EPC D. Maybe it's because the heat from the other flats keep it warm...all the properties around me are at best EPC C (London suburb), mostly EPC D, and all the reports which talk about insulating properties generally refer to properties that are EPC D and below.

My old rental house was single glazed, no central heating (had a few storage heaters that didn’t work) and no insultation. That would have been impossible to heat. The electric bills were just over £300 a month for convector heaters, just to keep it 3/4 degrees above outside temperatures. I’ve no idea what we would have done it we were still there and that doubled.

Prices rarely.come back down
Look at petrol. Shot up due to oil costs etc. But BP and others post record products and the price hasn't come down.

People moan but ultimately they have no choice but to live with the new prices. After a while the new prices become the prices and people move.on.
The government know this. That's why they can starve people, see UC claimants hang themselves, see homeless freeze to death. They'll be a bit of fuss now and then, but ultimately, the Tory voting middle classes don't give a shit about those they see as below them, otherwise there would have been outrage years ago.
Heating or eating isn't new, the I'll, poor, unemployed etc have lived like it for years, no one did a god damn thing...
Middle classes feeling it now... Now it's a story...

@Southerngal5

Totally agree, it's going do have horrendeus impacts... My cousin & her DH are wealthy appear wealthy, huge ancient house in Norfolk which is always freezing as it is as it is impossible to heat, they have 3 young children, I know they will struggle yet people won't pity them as they appear well off, dc private school etc but they will have no quality of home life at all now with the gas & electricity bills

They are very well off if they have 3 DC in private school! They could have spent that money on retrofitting their house but they have chosen not to. Don’t pity them.

They scrimp & save to pay the fees, the kids always wear layers inside, I hate visiting during the winter as the house is so cold. Although they do light the open fire occasionally. The house is huge, it's an old rectory over 400 years old. Both have good jobs & moved out of London for a better quality of life...

@Southerngal5 how is it better quality of life if you are freezing? Better a 2 bed that is warm than a 50 bed that is cold ..

Yes of course.

Most will suffer in one way or another. Some will make a lot of money.

[quote onlychildhamster]@Southerngal5 how is it better quality of life if you are freezing? Better a 2 bed that is warm than a 50 bed that is cold ..[/quote]
I know, they definitely didn't think it through, they actually had a similar cold home in London, upmarket area but freezing house.. They sold it for a huge price & moved to Norfolk, they feel in love with the old rectory & had lots of grand plans when the dc arrived & they decided they wanted to privately educate them (despite there being a fabulous little primary in their village they chose a private school in the big town 10 miles away)

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

As a wider society I think we will see increased crime as desperate people shoplift. Increased domestic violence. More strain on mental health services. More drug and alcohol addiction. Children who are malnourished and whose parents are stressed out, emotionally unavailable and unable to provide books or valuable experiences for them eg going to the seaside or the zoo, etc. Behaviour in schools will continue to deteriorate. Health services will be stretched further. People won't afford dental care. More pressure on food banks and health issues as a result of poor diet. I could go on

This.

@Southerngal5

Totally agree, it's going do have horrendeus impacts... My cousin & her DH are wealthy appear wealthy, huge ancient house in Norfolk which is always freezing as it is as it is impossible to heat, they have 3 young children, I know they will struggle yet people won't pity them as they appear well off, dc private school etc but they will have no quality of home life at all now with the gas & electricity bills

Well they sound like they have options, unlike some people.

@emuloc it isn't so easy to move.. there are probably people out there who would buy a freezing rectory but given that gas bills are increasing, any buyer with his head screwed on would take that into account. If they bought it recently, they may have to sell at a loss.

I am wondering now if older properties who traditionally carry a premium would fall out of favour due to gas bills. I mean maybe not as much for houses in nice areas in cities, as they tend not to be building houses, mainly flats. But in areas where there are more modern houses (not just nee build but built in last 20 years), maybe those would become more popular or people might decide to move to areas with more modern housing.

Locally the petrol went down 2p a litre recently and now it has gone back up. Crazy.

The really nice part of town in my area has beautiful red brick victorian houses selling for a million plus... I look at them now & firstly this they must be freezing & secondly how much will it cost to heat those beautiful homes...

@Southerngal5 the Victorian houses in my area are also £1.2 million plus but they are terraces so they probably don't cost so much to heat? My MIL owns such a terrace and she always heated even though she earns below minimum wage in London. Her house is worth around £750k though cos it's in a less popular area with no good secular schools but it's not that much smaller than the £1 million Victorian terraces in my area

I love those houses!

They could still put that scrimping and saving towards improving the house though. They must be paying a minimum of £12k a year on the schooling, probably closer to £30k+. For one year’s fees they could fully insulate the house and get efficient heating. They have chosen to live like that so have no right to complain!

I agree but she's still my sister & I adore my nieces & nephews so I do sympathise as I know the cutbacks & sacrifices they have made for the school...

onlychildhamster we have a flat also which tends to stay warm- even when the heating's not on...I also wonder if it is the other flats keeping it warm - we're in the top flat and heat rises as well. Should be grateful I guess!