What did you find worse? Recession or cost of living crisis?

[ThemysteriousH]

This is not intended to cause offence

I know it’s rude to talk about money so I thought maybe asking strangers wouldn’t be so bad?

I’m early 30s so whilst I remember the recession it didn’t affect me directly as compared to me now with a household, bills and DC.

I’m personally struggling a lot, working full time, month to month, had a bit of 2023 living in a hostel homeless as my landlord sold up, but I know I’m blessed now with having a home, food, heating etc and that it could be SO SO much worse.
I wondered those that have lived through both as a grown up, has any felt worse?

I hope this post doesn’t come across as distasteful, I’m not very good with words I’ll be honest.

Hoping that 2024 will be better for us all 🤞

Good Question OP I am also early 30s.

I think there was a labour govnt in 2008 which may make a difference to feelings at the time?

Yes that’s quite true actually! I am ashamedly awful about knowing about politics tbh!

I've lived through both but have found the cost of living crisis has been awful. I'm a lone parent/carer on a low income and I still can't get my head round the fact we cannot afford to put the heating on. I mean that is basic surely? Food costs I can cope with because I'm careful and batch cook and there is only two of us so it's manageable. I don't know how bigger households cope. I hate having to actually think about using the car, can I walk or bike it instead? I've been forced to use the tumble dryer recently for the first time in over a year and it's given me anxiety. My mortgage increased by £600 a month so there is very little spare money. It's been utterly shit. Don't vote Tory is my advice.

I've lived through both and I'm definitely finding cost of living crisis worse.

However during the recession I didn't lose my job. My experience was that recessions do not treat people equally, some people lose everything and some people are barely impacted; I was in the latter group for the recession and it seemed to me like if you can keep your job and don't need to sell your house really you'll be ok in a recession.

Cost of living seems to be impacting pretty much everybody I know, though again some far more so than others.

@TheFormidableMrsC thats so shit, I empathise with the tumble dryer/car things - only go by foot/public transport now & sold tumble dryer just before xmas. It sounds really tough for you definitely not a Tory voter!

@ohfook that’s really interesting to hear, thank you. It really is affecting everyone! There was a conversation going on in the staff room the other day and various roles within the nhs dept I work in, we’re saying how they’re struggling, some in a lot more senior positions, and it made me think a lot more.

Now is worse than anything I have experienced as an adult. (44)

We earn more than we ever have but our mortgage payment has gone up a lot. (And so has everything else.)

When I was a child and interest rates topped 15% houses in our close got repossessed and mums friend came to stay with us with her kids because she had been repossessed.

Effectively they are different parts of the same financial crisis.

The Bank of England response to the global financial crisis was to drop interest rates from 5.75% (in July 2007) to 0.5% (in March 2009). Basically, the point of this was to defer pain. The people who lost their jobs in 2007 and 2008 suffered, but most others didn’t. But the ultra-low interest rates basically stored up problems for the future. In theory, the current period of inflation shouldn’t be too bad, and Britain has coped with far worse; the issue is that low interest rates, by prevailing for an extended period of time, have stripped away household capacity to cope with rising inflation and interest rates.

(Note that none of this is intended as a criticism of individual households; on a personal level there’s not much one can do to protect oneself against the forces of macroeconomic factors.)

I'm 39, I had 2 do when the recession was going on and a mortgage. My DH kept losing jobs as businesses closed, and he could only work limited hours close to home as I wasn't well but he always found another one within a week so it didn't really matter. I feel like the recession should have affected us but we didn't really notice it tbh. The same thing is happening with the cost of living - the shopping is costing more, but dh's wage has gone up a little so we haven't lost anything. My utilities haven't increased aside from a few extra quid on council tax We live in a cheap as chips area which probably helps!

I am 48 for us the recession was worse, I was 32, we had 2 pre-schoolers so needed childcare, DH is in construction so very little work coming in. I had to count every penny between 2008/9-2011. Things improved in early 2012 and TBH have continued to get better. I have noticed things going up but nothing we can't cope with.

I can remember the winter of discontent, the crash at the end of the 1980s, the dot com bubble and 2008 crash.

1980s was a whole other ball game, interest rates in double figures most of the time, mass unemployment, high inflation and a deep recession. The welfare state was minimal in comparison to what's available today and people had to be more self reliant. Money was scarce, but we also had very low expectations and standard of living was much lower than now too.

2008 crash was awful. Investment dried up overnight, banks stopped lending, jobs vanished, interest rates shot up. I don't think the economy recovered properly from that one and we are reaping the results of it still.

Successive governments tinker with the system according to their respective beliefs, whilst not addressing the fact that the system is broken. It is short term gain for a few, whilst sacrificing any long term future benefits and stability. I have very little faith that any political party can fix the country without a radical change.

I've lost my home once and came close a second time. Despite that, it's only in the past few years that I no longer see any future in this country. I think Brexit followed by C19 put the final nails in the coffin.

Hi OP I'm 45. They were different. In last recession I didn't have kids. Biggest impact for me then was buying a property with now ex and the value of it plummeting so selling it was impossible. I had to walk away from that losing about £30k (I just gave him the keys in the end). But managed to buy a decent flat with tiny deposit which would be impossible now. I don't remember feeling the day to day impact at all. Had a good job, went on holidays etc.

Fast forward to now and have 2 DC and a mortgage. We have a decent joint income with DS starting private school soon but we live very frugally. I really notice the day to day costs now. Eating and drinking out is the thing i just can't justify at all now. I shop carefully for groceries but they go up all the time

The recession by far. We’d just bought a house and then had a baby. DH had very little work in the construction industry. We struggled massively hurst trying to afford basic living costs. I remember buying nappies and milk was even a struggle financially

We’re very lucky that the cost of living hasn’t massively effected us Yes it’s not been great and I despise paying a fortune for everything but we bought a house at the right time, children are older, we’re in a better financial position, higher wages, stable jobs

Cost of living.
Although, I run a business and the recession was worse for that although I'm concerned that the cost of living will start to impact on that next.

I think the CoL crisis affected everyone. Many found it really difficult but really no one escaped without some pain. Fuel payments and mortgage/rent went up for most. In a recession it hits some people really hard because they lose their jobs and no one is recruiting so they can't get another. If couples work in the same sector they might both lose their jobs. Then lose their house. At the same time a recession drives interest rates down and mortgages are more affordable. I actually saved a lot during last recession as a teacher I wouldn't lose my job and I overpaid on my mortgage a lot. I finished paying it in August 8 years early. I'd never have managed that without low low rates over many years.

Lunatone

The biggest issue is the giverment propping up wages, things like childcare for example - we paid our own childcare and benefitted from not paying when they went to school. The giverment paying now means people don’t upskill and increase their wages or they purposely stay in low paid jobs to keep the benefit.
The reall issue is employers do t have to pay a living wage because families are subsidized.

I graduated during the financial crisis and whilst I knew it was very difficult for a lot of people, I didn’t really feel the impact much myself as I was insulated from a lot of it by my parents. The cost of living crisis is the first economic crisis my adult lifetime that I’ve personally been affected by and it has been very hard as a single parent household. My mortgage has gone up by hundreds of pounds a month and the cost of food and energy is ridiculous. I don’t think the 2008 financial crisis was actually resolved and banks/government just kicked the can down the road with ultra low interest rates and other policies which has made us all vulnerable now.

If companies can't afford to pay its staff living wages, it can't afford to run as a business.

I'm very fortunate in that neither really affected me.

Recession, as people were losing jobs left right and centre, and there were few new jobs around. CoL is hard, but people are still earning, and the economy is still turning (just).

I’m guessing people’s response will depend on age. The oldies have experienced several recessions, while for the younger folk, this is the first financial downtown that has affected them directly, as they were younger or children before.

For example, the recession of late 90s changed the employment environment completely. Jobs, which were, ‘jobs for life’ began to vanish and graduate and post-school schemes disappeared overnight. Before then, being made redundant was almost considered shameful - you have had to done something seriously wrong. Nowadays, it’s accepted as part and parcel of life.

We were ok during the recession as the sector we worked in was relatively unaffected plus we didn’t have to move house. It was also a good time to take a risk on stocks, buying low.

The cost of living has affected us more because everyone has to eat and pay for fuel. But we have paid off our mortgage and are past childcare years.

We have extensive financial records to such a degree that it gives projections on our situation in many scenarios linked to inflation and other events out of our control. The too low interest rates lasted for longer than they should and were just too low though we personally benefitted it was obviously overall a very bad scenario. People rarely look at the macro economic situation and that is understandable but now it’s in everyone’s face due to COL and impossible to escape.

For me the first recession I remember was early 90s, I was desperately unhappy in the job I had and wanted to leave and earn a decent wage and not be bullied everyday (I wasn't alone it was the company culture). I can remember going to recruitment agencies and being told "you have a job, consider yourself lucky don't leave it". I was becoming depressed because I was utterly miserable and could do nothing about it.

I did benefit as well though as house prices.were so high and just unaffordable I just couldn't get my foot on the property ladder and get out of a very unhappy home, when the recession hit mortgage rates shot up and those that were overstretched were repossessed and I managed to buy a flat cheap. It was tight but I managed and had 40.00 left each month after mortgage and bills.

The 2008 recession I didn't notice at all due to a career change that saw me working in an industry that was left unscathed thankfully.

The 2008 financial crisis led to both DH and I losing our jobs. We did both find other work, but DH took a while. Lots of our friends lost jobs in that time too. Its very frightening having no job and not many jobs in your sector to go for.

Since then wages more or less stagnated and the so i find the cost of living crisis is linked to that anyway.

So i dread big job losses across the country. Im not sure if we have escaped that yet or not.

The 2008 recession was worse for me. My husband lost job ( company he worked for went into liquidation) whist I was 3 months into maternity leave , we had 2 kids under 2 years old .

We'd bought our first house 2 years before, the bank we had the mortgage with went bust, we were in negative equity.

Everybody seemed to be losing their job or their businesses. It was grim.
Money is a bit tight now but at least we know we have a wage each month .my food bills are crazy though with teenagers

The 2007/2008 crash was, for me, more brutal. But the COL crisis feels more longer term.
I worked in an architecture practice at the time and they lost all major contracts overnight. We were all put onto a 4-day week and every Friday they let a new group of people go. I opened the mail for the practice and there was a constant stream of letters from architects, surveyors and engineers begging for jobs - they of course went straight into the bin.
Things hadn't picked up much by the end of 2010, when we were able to buy our first flat on the cheap (Estate agents were practically begging us to put offers in as the market had all but dried up). As young people with no kids, who walked to work and barely spent a penny elsewhere, we could still save a deposit.
I've always been careful with money, but I was in my early 20s at this time and it's shaped my approach to finances to this day. Our mortgage is very cheap and we will never extend it. We would never get a car on finance. We dont do credit cards. I take a packed lunch to work every day even though Im now a high earner. We both need to know that we can be laid off and survive by working a few bar shifts a week.