How is this all going to end?

[Ghostsapply]

We are a relatively high income family but we are really feeling the pinch. Our fuel bill has increased massively (more than tripled) as has our food bill. We are both professionals but DH has just lost his contract (I'm hoping another one won't be too far away) and my job has a ceiling in terms of pay. We work really hard and yet we have less disposable income now than when I was a SAHP (kids have become more expensive as they've got older). Our house feels like it is falling apart but we can't afford to do the work. Holidays abroad are not feasible anymore and we are cutting back on the extras that we have previously enjoyed (tutors for kids, extra clubs etc) which will have a knock on effect for local businesses. We pay so much money in tax and yet our public services are not fit for purpose.

I just don't see how this is going to end? How will it get better? With Hunt announcing further cuts to public spending and more tax how are we going to grow the economy. I feel like we are totally beholden to financial markets who don't have the interests of the general public at heart. Even if we held a GE and voted the Tories out then a new Government would have to deal with the shit they have been left.

Please help me understand how it is going to get better. For the first time ever I am actually scared that we will lose everything. FWIW I have had really hard times before but now it seems there is so much more to lose.

I remember the days when tax was something like 17% and we both worked long hours with lots of overtime to try to negate the tax on our wages.
I remember high electricity and gas bills and this was at a time before central heating was the norm so when we came home from work we ate our evening meal in the kitchen with our coats on and the gas oven door open for warmth.
I worked long hours. I cooked a meal every night from scratch - no takeaways for us, There was always washing drying on a rack in the house in winter and we only had one gas fire then,
Bedrooms were just for sleeping in. The day we got central heating was the day our home seemed like a proper home.
We holidayed in a caravan at the seaside
We saved as much as we could
We did not go out unless it was a family day. We did not drink or smoke and we did not spend money on luxuries at all.
Most people we knew were in the same boat.
We bought our house though.. it was the most important thing on our list to own our home so we would have something to leave the children.
And now they call us boomers !
At least we were were not like those in negative equity or those who lost their homes because they got massive mortgages and could not pay them when jobs were being lost left right and centre.
Those times seem to have been a blur but they were bad times and people survived.

This latest horrible time will eventually pass. It's almost like life is a circle with the good and the bad revolving around one another.
This time though... the government seem not to care. It's almost as if they want to bring people down to rock bottom so they are grateful for a few crumbs

Well given you don't actually have a crystal ball, I can't see how you can possibly know something leading economists don't! You always get one that thinks they know it all.

Four kids is a lot, four teenagers will be eye watering.

Why did you have so many kids if security is important to you?

I can absolutely understand why you're worried and fed up. You have the uncertainty of your husband getting another contract, doubled up with all the general uncertainty we are all facing.

I'm a dreaded boomer and have seen (and experienced) bad times before. Ironically our worst times have been when things in the economy were good for other people, and felt very alone at the time (my divorce - my parents had to support me financially for a while) (threat of redundancy for my second husband).

I was talking to my husband about it all yesterday and said somehow this feels worse than anything previously. I think it's because it's absolutely challenging on all fronts - terrible public services which have been to be pared to the bone over 12 years and are not fit for purpose, high inflation, huge increases in fuel bills over which no-one has any control, income tax and council tax about to increase and obviously the cost of food. I don't share the other poster's optimism that this will be over in two years either, and am very concerned for my adult child and her family. She has done so well and got a much higher paying job recently, but like everyone that payrise will be swallowed up by increased mortgage interest and other cost of living stuff.

So I get why you're so worried, OP, you haven't experienced a perfect storm before and it's so stressful living with uncertainty. But you sound as though you and your husand have the right tools to survive this - I hope he gets a new contract soon, so you can begin to get control of your lives again. Best wishes.

Because the world she brought them in to isn’t the world we are in now.

wasn’t even on the horizon.

it’s as useful as saying in 1945 “well I don’t know why these parents are moaning about their children being killed in the war, they shouldn’t have had them”.

we make the decisions based on the situation we are in at the time.

I rent. I’m fucking petrified of the future. The world I had my children in, I never expected to never be able to buy a home for us. We are good earners. Historically we should have been fine. Yet we aren’t.

We should be thriving and things should feel easier

Why? Did you miss the COVID bit with three lockdowns and the economy going tits up?

Of course it will take time to recover.

It was your choice to have four kids. Did you not consider that this might make things a bit more expensive? I'm one of three kids but we did 'hand-me-downs'. Do you?

Go through your bank account and cut right back on everything. Negotiate with broadband/phone providers etc. You can usually get it reduced.

Could you get a pay rise? Support your Dh looking for work. Or is he the stay at home parent? If he's not working, that might save money in childcare.

?? Economists do know this. Our economic black hole and barriers to trade are facts not predictions. Michael Saunders was saying only yesterday that the need for tax rises and public spending cuts wouldn’t be there if Brexit hadn’t reduced the economy so much.

Rather than arguing coulda/woulda/shoulda - tell us, what’s going on with the £700 energy?

is that your DD or your usage?

if it’s your usage then you need to stop heating the outdoor pool 😉 - and if it’s your DD then you need to get in the meter cupboard with a torch.

If it is true that Putin is very sick then hopefully things will get better once h is forced to step down. He is currently too powerful to challenge but his closest allies such as his confessor, while powerless to influence him, realise that he is acting unfairly. That will immediately have a positive impact. The Brexit price rises were well known anyway. Once disposable income no longer feels threatened, things will gradually improve but we are the sick man of Europe again, so only modestly.

Maybe read my posts and you might find the answers to your questions.

Read everyone else's too. There are some lovely people on here which might help you develop your empathy skills and broaden your perspectives.

It would really help if the war ended (us but obviously Ukraine too). So much if the downward pressure is due to the energy inflation.

It’s a tough time but I just hope it ends sooner rather than too far away

@Thatsasmashingblouseyouvegoton I agree wholeheartedly. We pay a fortune for shambolic services.

@Venetiaparties You’re staggeringly unpleasant, and without any discernible empathy.

*Hooverphobe" If only!! Yes that is based our usage. Mainly because we bought an electric car 18 months ago and have to do quite a lot of work related miles. However, it is based on the usage from the last 12 months and we have solar which wasn't working for a long period without us realising so I am hoping that after a few months it will go down. This is the first month we have paid £700 and are monitoring our usage closely. I think we will be around £150 in credit after this month but we have barely had our heating on which isn't sustainable for the rest of the winter. Goodness knows what will happen in April.

We have an old Victorian property which still needs work. We have insulated all upstairs and put double glazing in but the windows downstairs are all huge single glazed bays. We had saved to do them for this winter but it doesn't seem wise to use that pot of money now so we have plugged all the gaps and shut the shutters to keep the draughts out. We have insulated downstairs but it doesn't make huge difference.

Holy fucking ouch! Ok, tbh I’d be closing off a few rooms and putting caterpillars at the bottom of the doors until spring. Yes… they might get fusty and a wee bit damp - otoh the single glazing has kept the whole place standing 150 years, one winter won’t bring it to a pile of rubble.

Very much on topic and not derailing at all. Someone else said it's not political, and I explained how it very much is bloody political.

Exactly this

Exactly! The bloodymindedness on this thread! “Don’t be anxious, you can sell the house” – as though falling off the property ladder isn’t something to be anxious about. “Cut your cloth” – as if most of us aren’t already doing that and sometimes there just ^isn’t enough cloth”.

Life should, surely, get better generation after generation? Instead of “Well, if my grandmother had to break ice off the outside loo to have a wee and she was grateful for the steam rising up from the bowl after the wee – really fuelled her on the nine-mile walk to the factory, if you want anything more than ice in your outside lav you’re an entitled wretch”. Fucking hell.

Anyway, OP, I once thought that hopefully it’ll end when people stop voting Tory, but climate change is here to put paid to any idea that the world economy will improve. Individually, I hope something changes for the better for you. Try licking the frost off the inside of windows instead of buying drinks at the pub, it’s free.

On the plus side you will have fireplaces so you can have an open fire. Super warm and relatively cheap.

I think it's partly to do with the "game" many people get caught up in.
We are taught by society, via school and other means, that if you " do everything right" so in the Uk it means something along the lines of , concentrate on education and acquire the right qualifications, build a career, find a partner and buy the most expensive house possible , have children and restart process, then nothing can prevent you from living a comfortable lifestyle as a reward.
Life doesn't work like that though, but people don't want to hear about when things don't work out due to external forces, they create reasons to explain it like they weren't committed enough, but I will be etc.
Yes OP, things are not good right now, but don't look at it as if you have been cheated out of a certain lifestyle, it will only get you down.

There you go, OP, just choose your two least favourite and pop them on the doorstep of your local workhouse, problem solved.

The problem is that most of us have only ever lived in an age of prosperity so it doesn't fully make sense that we are not entitled to it until we actually acclimatize to the permanent decline in living standards which has begun. My family would always talk about the hard times of the past in great detail. It did not mean much but it registered.

OP, on the glazing, you can get this sort of clingfilm stuff that you stick on then heat with a hairdryer so it shrinks, and gives a double glazing effect – temporary, we used to apply it each winter when I was in a rickety old house share, then you peel it off in spring. Could help your heating bills because it’ll help keep heat in even if you only have radiators on a little bit in the morning and evening to take the edge off.

What an utterly miserable existence.

We have an old Victorian property

Of course you do.

Op I just read your replies. I’m answer to where will it end your dh securing another job will make it all feel much better, won’t it?