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 🤞

COL worse for me. The cost of energy especially. I can't believe that I'm paying £300 a month just to stay warm and powered. This is the first time in my life I've had to think twice about putting the heating on, and the tumble dryer has been banished to the shed, only to be used in emergencies.

I've been through both and this is much worse even though I earn much more. We are all being squeezed in every direction. And during the recession it didn't impact on everyone and we had the EU to help. I think because I'm older I'm less resilient.

I also went through the 1970s as a child and whilst parts of it were grim housing was relatively affordable and there was available social housing.

It's so upsetting.

The economy never really recovered from the 08 crash & it’s part of the reason we now have the COL crisis. Plus it meant many people have seen little wage growth & low interest rates inflated assets so some people will have be impacted indirectly.

Definitely the cost of living crisis as the things most affected are absolute essentials; food, energy etc. The recession did not really affect us directly but after the recession came endless public sector pay freezes for at least the next 10 years which continues to affect my public sector wages today on top of all of the rising costs.

In the very late 70s/early 80s (1981 I think), waaay before kids, I worked 3-4 jobs every week probably for 6-8 months to afford the mortgage (I think it was 15%, no fixed rates back then!). I cleaned a pub Mon-Sat, went to work 8-4 in day job Mon-Fri (no restrictions on other jobs), worked a pub shift 6-11 Wed-Sat, then Fri and Sat I worked in a night club 11.30-2.30 (which paid a very good rate). I also worked on an ice cream van on Sundays (11-7.30). Knackering but necessary.

For us the 2008 recession was far worse. We had completed on a house a few months before with an interest rate of 8%!! We didn’t benefit from the reduced rates until our fixed term ended. We then went onto have two small children and cost of childcare plus living in a too small house in negative equity was hard.
We rode it out and house prices recovered, we moved and over the past decade our wages have trebled.

The current cost of living crisis hasn’t really impacted us and I appreciate that we are in a fortunate position.

If the COL crisis had happened 10 years ago and we’d still been paying a mortgage interest rate of 8% plus childcare fees on lower wages we’d have been in trouble.

The recession did not really affect us directly but after the recession came endless public sector pay freezes for at least the next 10 years which continues to affect my public sector wages today on top of all of the rising costs.

That’s a massive impact though. Low interest rates masked a lot of it.

For me the 2008 recession was ok because I went from being a mature student to working. But even so I don’t remember the cost of stuff shooting up like now. I had a job, Dh had a job, interest rates were low, food went up a bit, energy costs were ok.

And I know we’re not technically in a recession now but dd is in the building industry and they all talk about it being a recession currently. Jobs in her sector are few and far between. There were literally two jobs advertised outside of London in a period of a few months.

@CormorantStrikesBack I see lots of redundancies in IT, sales and other sectors. Jobs being advertised at pitiful salaries. I too think we’re headed for a recession, despite some of the big talk from govt.

Liz Truss’s financial fuckup last autumn has added hundreds of £ to our mortgage. And now she’s stuffed the HOL with her mates.

Recession. I echo what someone said about recruitment agencies telling you to sit tight if you could bear to - I was temping and my agency told me 'we can find you a new job but we can't guarantee that the funding won't be cut and the job pulled. You have a job, can you grit your teeth and stick with it?' Eve in 2010 jobs were difficult to find - unlike now, when my agency's practically begging me to take work.

Plus on a more personal level in 2008 DM was diagnosed as terminally ill, I went out to Oz to see her and when I wasn't with her I was on DB's laptop trying to find out what was happening in the UK with the banks.

2008 crisis hit me more. I was in my early 20s and the sector I had chosen to work in was hit really badly (and never really recovered). I had a couple of freelance jobs on crappy pay while living at home with my mum as I couldn't find a permanent job and then eventually ended up making a sideways career move and taking a job in Asia for a few years. When I came back things were somewhat better in the UK but career wise it set me back at least five years, possibly more.
COL hasn't hit too badly as DH and I live in a small, cheap flat in a not particularly fashionable area of London, and we still have a few years to go on our very cheap fixed mortgage. We tried to sell the flat last year to upsize but failed to do so due to the market being so weird. Because it's a flat the heating and electricity bills haven't been too horrendous. So that's really insulated us financially from the impact of huge increases in food bills and other daily expenses. Both DH and I have had pay increases and I've moved to a different industry where my skills are more in demand, so we are good for now and coping with the higher cost of food, transport etc. However, CoL has really shown me the importance of living within your means and not overstretching ourselves. We would really be under the cosh right now if we lived in a "nice" house in a "nice" area and gone for a big mortgage.

2008 recession for me. I lost my job and our income was cut by 2/3rds as I was the higher earner.

We had just bought a house and DS1 was 2.

Nearly lost our house and had no money to spare at all.

I managed to get back into work 18 months later but had to take a 50% pay cut. My income has never really returned to pre 2008 levels.

Agree with this, lived through both. Didn't lose job as I work in healthcare, wasn't too affected although no pay rises and some pay cuts etc but I found you could cut your cloth to suit....and you could get groceries cheaper if you shopped around and utilities too. Now it seems everyone is feeling it although obviously some can afford price hikes and some can't. For some it's going on 3 holidays a year instead or 4. For some people it's not earing proper meals 😢

For us the 2008 recession ended up being almost a blessing. Dh was made redundant in 2010, but found another job within 2 months which was better paid. He got quite a large redundancy payment as he'd been working for the same company 15+ years. Then house prices dropped around 2012 so we could afford a better house.

We're fortunate that the COL crisis is still manageable for us, but have noticed food shop costing significantly more month by month. We're going to fewer restaurants, buying less clothes but can still afford holidays, the dcs activities, etc.

The recession was worse for me personally as I lost a job due to it. COL crisis hasn't been so bad for us due to a combination of income and fairly low expenses.

In 2008 we had lower wages, a DC in nursery, a mortgage on interest only and childcare payments that were as much as our mortgage. We bought at the height of the market and then within a year the banking crisis happened and we were in negative equity. Plus we had quite a lot of consumer debt.

Now we are feeling the pinch but at least we no longer have any childcare fees, have switched to a repayment mortgage and have maybe 40% equity. Our consumer debt is low and should be paid off in about 10 months.

Later this year the COL crisis will really hit: one child will age out of child benefit, and go to Uni (we're anticipating this costing us around £500 pcm) and our mortgage fix ends.

I remember the recession being something I constantly worried about. I think I can plan for, adapt etc and cope with the COL.

We're looking at the next 8 years (from September) being Uni expensive. Degrees in Scotland are 4 years, our DC are 4 academic years apart.

So maybe in 9 years time things will be better for us??? 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

I lost my job in 2008 then couldn't get another. We were in poverty for years.

But we were slightly sheltered from it due to very low mortgage payments < £400 pcm due to low interest rates.

Also as a homeowner I could get low interest credit so had £10k plus debt but it was manageable. This meant the DCs didn't feel the full force of poverty as we could still do nice Christmases, hobbies, trips away, run a car.

It feels like more people are broke now esp those with DCs or renters.

I felt quite alone amongst my peers in suffering after the last recession.

Now everyone complains about inflation, the cost of things, rent, house prices all the time.

The only people ok are older people who've paid off their mortgages and high earning DINKYs.

That’s a good point about more people complaining about money. IME I’d never hear that, even some 5 years ago, now it’s a topic that’s ok to discuss as it affects everyone.

For me personally the recession was worse, but that's just because of personal circumstances. I had young DC then and was working part time, so far less money coming in. Now two of the DC are living away at university most of the year so the food and energy consumption is less, which has mitigated the price increases. I also work full time now and have had several promotions so am earning a lot more.

OP I hope 2024 is better for you than 2023 was.

Definitely now - CoL.

During the recession following the 2008 crash I was a single parent on benefits. Labour government so I was doing fine (no caps, no bedroom tax, no 2 child limits etc). During that time I also completed an OU degree funded by grants as you couldn't get loans for part time studies.

I know food prices have increased, but I still get shocked by the increase in my energy bill. 18months ago I remember listening to my then DH complaining that using the hottub put our bill to over £100 a month. £100 a month?? Gosh that would be a dream today. It went up to £300 at the worst point (now £250ish). At least with food you can choose to swap to cheaper brands etc.

I was born in the late 70s and the recession in the '90s was the kind of pits that just hasn't touched me in my adult life.

I'm 43, recession was a harder time for us. We were really poor and struggling to feed our children let alone ourselves.

CoL has been horrible for sure but we have still managed a decent standard of living.

2008 was a global financial crisis which was caused by the sub prime mortgage crisis which engulfed the US

If you haven't watched The Big Short you really should

In 2008 we had a labour govt who have been congratulated by most global financial institutions for their handling of the crisis (the late Alistair darling was Chancellor at the time..)

It was scary. I remember seeing the run on the northern rock bank on the news.

I think the failure of Berings etc was a huge shock.

However, we still had a functioning infrastructure such as schools, nhs, sure start centres, walk in centres and libraries

It all feels far worse now ime

I remember at at 1987 Labour conference Neil kinnock cautioning people to "not get sick and not get old in tory britain"

How sad that I echo those words today

I'm 45. Cost of living has definitely effected us worse.