What have you had to cancel or give up?

[tatteddear]

Just waiting for the interest rate raise news again this morning-which will make our mortgage again more expensive.
Due to cost of living/Interest rate hikes we have, like so many others had to give up on lots of stuff that was important to us: our planned wedding, our holiday this year, eating out ever, seeing my parents who live 2.5 hours away more than once a month due to fuel costs....my dad is 93 and I don't have much time left with him probably.

I had started my own business to accommodate our childcare situation but im now going to have to fold that and go back to full time work in a career that has really burned me out after 20 years (social work team manager) as that's all I'm qualified to do that will pay me enough to make it worth while.

I don't know where we will find extra money to pay the mortgage or if there are any emergencies.

It's utterly miserable and I just can't see an end to it.

So many people have had to give up on all the things that were important to them. It just sucks.
Feeling very gloomy this morning.

The main purpose of increasing interest rates is to discourage spending in an attempt to control inflation. There are two parts to that. It encourages people who do have disposable income to save more but it also makes borrowing expensive so people are less likely to borrow. If you don't have money and don't want to borrow it as it's expensive, you'll have less to spend. Also people with money are less likely to borrow for big purchases as again it's going to cost them more.

Gym membership - I’m pavement pounding instead.
Drinking alcohol at home
Contact lenses

DS2 is in year 1 and wants packed lunches, but I’ve told him he has to have the free school meals.

DM has given up:
Newspaper delivery
Having her hair dyed - she’s now embracing the grey!
She also says she won’t renew her National Trust subscription

We can’t afford to renew our wildlife park annual passes. A luxury I know but it has payed for itself over the last year and has given us a cheap/free place to go whenever we wanted.

We’ve had to cancel Netflix and Disney+ subscriptions.

Me and my 2 girls haven’t had our hair cut since Christmas.

Our mortgage is up for renewal in September and it’s going to go up by at least £200 I’m guessing. I don’t know where we’re going to get that money from, there’s nothing left to cut.

Cancelled sky tv and any luxury subscriptions. Saved us about £250 a month!

Switched to non branded food, and get what we can from aldi now over Tesco. Another saving of around £100/month.

Teens all have jobs, so we buy them what they need and give them a small amount of pocket money, but they now buy their own luxuries.

We don’t go out to restaurants anymore. We used to have a family meal out once a month but even that’s now once a quarter.

We have a decent household income but couldn’t cover our outgoings unless we cut down dramatically. Our food bill became extortionate and our gas/electricity increased by £300 a month!

Now we are just about breaking even.

Meals out
Newspaper subscription
Charity donations
A holiday, but never really went on holiday anyway
Meat and fish we only really buy for ds as it's too expensive now.

We were really lucky and fixed our mortgage for 5 years just before interest rates went up, so we're at 2.25% and pay around £900/month (previously £750) as we borrowed extra to pay off our Govt H2B.

We've swapped/shopped about for things we can cut e.g. changed our TV package, found cheaper insurance, haggled mobile phone contracts etc.

I'm on maternity leave so walking a lot which is cutting out petrol costs, husband has also had a year off work, paid so he's not been commuting so that's been helping.

We've both secured pay rises for when we go back to work/new jobs and I'm just being mindful that we shouldn't stretch ourselves, and try and save save save to pay down the mortgage a bit ready for whatever may be in 5 years time!

Looking at moving - absolutely not a chance we can afford it anytime soon now
Food shopping drives me up the wall - £90 I've spent this week for 2 adults, 2 small children

Very aware these are luxuries but I’d say hair and nails- I just can’t justify the cost when it could cover a food shop etc

Eating out- we still do so, but the last couple of times I’ve been so underwhelmed by food and service it’s not felt worth it tbh