Money saving expert thinks civil unrest is coming

[ivykaty44]

There was a thread on mumsnet recently about civil unrest, views seemed to be it wouldn’t happen, the British don’t protest

Martin Lewis thinks hungry cold people will protest

I think he could be correct, what have people unable to afford heat and food got to lose?

@NotQuiteUsual

I absolutely see it coming, but not from where people think. I live in one of the poorest towns in the UK. Benefits is a genuine lifestyle for many, many families here. Everyone's used to having nothing and band together. Everyone knows what they're entitled to and how the system works. We'll be fine here and weather the storm no problem, we all know what we're doing when it comes to poverty and have more slack than a lot of working families.

It's the middle classes who will be kicking off. Both working parents, still needing benefit top ups, payrises lead to being worse off due to benefit cut offs and tax brackets. Even with benefits, working means you aren't entitled to a lot of extra things. How long will full time workers accept going cold and hungry? Not as long as the unemployed by choice I am certain.

Powerful! And I get where you’re coming from 100%. I’m dirt poor right now, have come to terms with it and am “good” at being poor.

People would be surprised though with my cut-glass accent, STEM degree and being multilingual.

@desiringonlychild2022 I agree & I had help but I feel like it's another world now. I know local friends who get 200k plus to move up the ladder. I've sold my property to a cash buyer who is buying it for her dc. That's the 3/4 property on the street to go like that. Historically the demographics were young families (good schools) & older professionals. The only 20 somethings were in rented house shares.

But it's not great if your future economic prospects rely on parental help rather than what job you do.

One of my wealthiest friends in theory did everything wrong on paper. They left school at 18 (when everyone was pushed to uni). Got a job in a retail shop (wages were not so bad then). Lived at home & then bought a flat on an interest only mortgage with a 95% mortgage. She switched jobs but has never been a high earner but because she was a bit older than me she has benefited massively from the 90s & 00s property booms so is in a 1m property virtually mortgage free with a 2nd home by the seaside.

People don’t riot with full bellies. People who are cold and hungry WILL riot. It may be a matter of time but they will.

I agree with the PP about a period of warm weather. When it grows warm people’s tempers grow short.

I am expecting things to grow very ugly and I’m not sure what the outcome will be.

I'm a prepper. I'm also old and lived through Thatcher. I anticipate pockets of protest but as pp said, government will rely on dissipating effect of charities (which didn't operate to same extent in 80s).

@colosmbo

Are they not having a cost of living crisis in France? How has France managed to insulate itself?

😆 I'm not sure how you extrapolated that from my post. The French are pissed, there's already been a national strike over pay & more social protest is expected. Yet inflation isn't like what we are seeing here nor are energy bills.

I'm sure i read somewhere that french gov have capped energy companies from charging too much...something like 4% cap and many have received a cheque to assist with the cost of bills

You've only got to look at history to see that we do just that when pushed too far. This will not end well unless the Government steps in to help.

@colosmbo it's wealth inequality..shows that if isn't just the Sunaks that are the problem. 'average' people giving away 200k to a child? Not average in terms of assets of course, but people who just happened to be born at the right time and bought at the right time but are otherwise average in terms of profile.

And its all untaxed? This is ridiculous. While some people are struggling to choose between eating and heating and we apparently don't have the money to help them.

@desiringonlychild2022 I agree & I commented as much on the Rishi threads. Personally I think CGT should be bought in line with income, 2nd homes should have higher levies etc but it's not popular as many "normal" people have benefited this way.

Nothing will happen. The British will just put another layer on, eat a tin of soup and stay indoors. Unlike our French neighbours we are useless at doing anything constructive. French govt is scared of the public. Here we are the mugs.

@desiringonlychild2022 I live in a what was rough area that has hugely gentrified. There are houses on roads not far from me that when I went to uni were 300/400k & 10 years later were 1.5m, my wages didn't grow like that 😆

As much as i hate the tories, the minimum wage has increased under their watch, however the middle income is the most affected by their policies as many are priced out of home ownership due to a combination of low interest rates and wealth accumulation at the top (which is often invested in property), high childcare fees and negligible state entitlement.

So what is responsible for this level of poverty?

1. Single parent families?
2. High childcare costs that mean people can't work?
3. High housing costs (see above;also national obsession with BTL by amateurs who know nothing about maintaining a property to a high standard; just seems accessible to any mug with an extra few hundred k).
4. Lack of job opportunities even for minimum wage jobs (are there areas in the country where you can't even commute to a minimum wage job?)

Or a combination of all those factors.

As PP, we do have cheap supermarkets. I agree the utility bills are high esp when most of our housing stock is poorly insulated and old.

Pull yourselves together!
Don't you think Putin is watching this and actively inciting unrest. Suits him down to the ground to have you lot wittering on about riots.
Cut back on outgoings, give to food banks, support each other by building up local networks.We all have to get through this.

Historically the Brits are good at that so show some backbone and don't agitate!

And when there’s no more outgoings to cut back on, you can’t give to food banks because you are struggling to feed yourself, then what? Round my way (HA estate) everyone is doing what they can but most are cold, don’t know how they’re going to pay their bills and are exhausted. There’s a community gardening project and some tenants are growing fruit and veg which is great but it will not address the basic problems that we are facing. I’ve got a backbone. I grew up poor and cold and always ill. I don’t want that to be how I spent my last decade or two.

And when there’s no more outgoings to cut back on, you can’t give to food banks because you are struggling to feed yourself, then what?

I could definitely give more to food banks rather than eating out, but how to cover the energy bills for so many. Its going to increase again in October. If our energy companies were government owned, we could have a moratorium for the poorest but sadly they are not.

All of the leaks about the government that have gone on over the last several months - partygate, Russian donations, golden visas, fucking up Rishi (aka, the previous golden boy next in line for the top job), and so on - people get angry and then it simmers down but not entirely, the anger levels never go back down to what they were before that story came out. It's like a can of pop and it's being shaken each time, shaken a bit more, shaken a bit more, and (soon I think) one of the people in one of these departments is going to leak something they'll pop the top of that can.

Yet record numbers are going away on holiday this Easter.
What's going on apart from the Brits moaning. Statistically, we have too many indigenous members of society who are net negative contributors to society. Eu migrants skilled and unskilled happen to be net positive.
Why?
I just think we have a swathe of people who are incapable of making prudent well thought planned fiscal decisions. Then want everyone else to pick up the slack.

I live in a disadvantaged town. 30% FSM in the schools, lots.of deprivation funding and initiatives. Some people have it really hard, of that there is absolutely no doubt.

However, there are many others felling really rather flush still. People on London salaries still WFH, people who haven't spent anything on holidays and days out, clothes for 2 years.

I couldn't get a ticket for a film DC wanted to see all weekend and they're £16.50 each!

There's no point going to any local restaurant at the weekend unless you've booked.

I'm going away this weekend. Booked ages ago, but friends decided they'd like to come about 6 weeks ago. No accommodation to be found in the place we're going to.

And yes,lots of foreign holiday being booked.

When I got my new fuel pricing I could have wept for families already only just making ends meet, but there still seems to be an awful lot of spending money out there.

I can totally understand the royal family thing. Somehow I can't see people bowing and scraping like they used to, to this extremely privileged family who won't be affected in the slightest by all the misery of rising prices. I think the days of looking up to our betters are gone.

I can totally understand the royal family thing. Somehow I can't see people bowing and scraping like they used to, to this extremely privileged family who won't be affected in the slightest by all the misery of rising prices. I think the days of looking up to our betters are gone.

But there are so many people in london who are richer than the royal family... I mean, I am a republican so I don't think having a royal family is in line with the 21st century but the royal family being wealthy isn't the reason that I think it should be abolished. Sometimes I think that getting rid of the royal family might be a step in the right direction in abolishing the class system, but some members of the landed gentry are far from rich and we still idolize them as a society. Even the fact that their clothes are covered in dog hair and they drive a beat up car.

It depends what % of people are really struggling and who those people are. Are they the people who will take "action"?

There are still plenty of people feeling very comfortable, WFH with reduced costs etc.

Where you don't have Royalty you have Oligarchs and the like. I don't know which is the better system, but abolishing royalty won't help the poor. Royals do at least usually feel some responsibity to their subjects (charitable works etc) and so do some other wealthy people, but there are more there through corruption.

[quote colosmbo]@desiringonlychild2022 I agree & I had help but I feel like it's another world now. I know local friends who get 200k plus to move up the ladder. I've sold my property to a cash buyer who is buying it for her dc. That's the 3/4 property on the street to go like that. Historically the demographics were young families (good schools) & older professionals. The only 20 somethings were in rented house shares.

But it's not great if your future economic prospects rely on parental help rather than what job you do.

One of my wealthiest friends in theory did everything wrong on paper. They left school at 18 (when everyone was pushed to uni). Got a job in a retail shop (wages were not so bad then). Lived at home & then bought a flat on an interest only mortgage with a 95% mortgage. She switched jobs but has never been a high earner but because she was a bit older than me she has benefited massively from the 90s & 00s property booms so is in a 1m property virtually mortgage free with a 2nd home by the seaside. [/quote]
This ^^

The Government loves to rile up hate against landlords but in reality a major pressure on house prices is parents giving their offspring a massive cash boost so they can outbid people who can only offer based on their salaries and savings alone.

So no matter how hard you work or how clever you are (unless you are an outlier designed to be a chief executive or top business owner) your wealth is based on the wealth of your parents. If you don't have wealthy parents, you are unlikely to enjoy the same standard of living as your own parents did.

Ways to tackle that are notoriously unpopular amongst generally otherwise quite socialist Brits - higher inheritance tax, lower taxes on medium level salaries and so on. And yy to living in a rented house share in your twenties close to your work - why is that considered so terrible? Maybe if you are still doing it approaching your forties but it seems quite normal in Belgium, The Netherlands, etc. still.

Oh and the total astonishment that housing in city centres is expensive. Lets see more investment in infrastructure and being able to deduct travel to work costs from your personal income tax bill at source by giving your employer a code to do it, as in Switzerland and The Netherlands.

All measures that would improve the affordability for people in the middle income bracket or those who aspire to it rather than continually fleecing them.

Wfh won’t reduce costs now. You need to heat the place you work

I think that getting rid of the royal family might be a step in the right direction in abolishing the class system, but some members of the landed gentry are far from rich and we still idolize them as a society. Even the fact that their clothes are covered in dog hair and they drive a beat up car.

I'm a 2nd gen immigrant & the whole deference to someone who is upper class just because they are upper class is weird to me.

[quote desiringonlychild2022]@cakeorwine China's houses are far more expensive in terms of income multiples than even London, but the home ownership rate is still 90%..this is because home ownership is generally a communal activity, the parents and kids club together to buy a property. In Singapore, expats always tell me how expensive their rent is but for locals, home ownership rate is 89% cos of government subsidized housing which is sold mainly to family units (couples, siblings, parent-child) or singles above 35. The UK has a nuclear approach to our lifestyles much like the rest of Europe but we lack the incomes! Nuclear living is traditionally associated with richer countries as it's more expensive to run smaller households but I think we seem stuck with the illusion that we deserve it despite not having the incomes to support it.[/quote]
in china everyone invests in property, there are entire ghost cities that no one lives in just built for investment (very shoddy and they often collapse because of poor building regs), you are expected to buy property when you get married for example. they try to avoid the banks as they are run by the ccp and can freeze your accounts at any time and take all your savings, so banks are not seen as safe, putting all your spare money into a mortgage on a property you think you will profit from selling on in 6 months+ time, now that is safe, its the safest thing you can do with money in china, altho now more and more of them are buying abroad because of the shoddy building regs and places falling apart, no refunds.

chinise students invest in foreign property on parents and other relatives behalf while studying abroad.

@SucculentChalice my colleague bought a 2 bed house in Essex as a single guy with help from his mum. He was giving advice to another colleague on how his mum structured the gift and that colleague is trying to figure out how to buy a 2 bed flat for her 18 year old son who is looking for an apprenticeship (so has never worked a day in his life).These are not rich people. can you imagine what the rich people are doing?

I mean, I am a 20 something who bought my flat cos i lived rent free with DH's family for 3 years (and DH was on free school meals as a kid). I did get money from my family but only fairly recently and after I bought (around £11k). But I feel sorry for the 20 somethings who never got such help, I don't know anyone who didn't get help tbh. Maybe i am sheltered. but on mumsnet, there are people nonchalantly saying- I am giving a deposit to my kid (who is still in his/her teens) as if it was as natural as saying I am paying for my DD's piano lessons and buying her first perfume on her 16th birthday! Its almost as if it is expected and you are a bad parent if you don't plan to give your adult child a deposit!