Is expensive living here to stay in the UK?

[BestThingAtThisParty]

Curious of people's thoughts, the MN wisdom and insight is often on the money, so to speak!

Obviously lots of us are either struggling or at the very least having to make a lot of changes to how we live, thanks to the combination of energy, food, mortgage rises. Plus, the knock on to everything else - whether that's businesses also paying out more for the above so charging more, and/or a spot of bandwagon jumping. I may be way off but I really feel there's a mentality in some places that 'everything's more expensive now, so let's just double our prices and see.'

We went out for cake as a birthday treat recently and the hot chocolate was £7! We all had tap water instead - and things like fizzy drinks now costing £4 just makes eating out so crazily expensive, even when it's budgeted for or for a special occasion. A few years ago there were a lot of offers flying around at places, and eating out, tickets to days out etc. were so much more manageable. Now, I feel like we need a minimum of £50 for a lot of stuff for me and the 3 DC. The average burger in a pub I'm sure was around £8/£9 - now it's more like £13-£15 - it's madness. We're in the midlands for reference.

Is this just how it's going to be now? Or do people forsee a change?

I'm definitely having to cut back, can't save much and would worry if a big bill came out of the blue, but can pay the mortgage, feed the kids and get by including still having holidays. But I know it must be so much worse for many people. I was on Universal Credits a few years ago for a year, alongside work, and I could still afford a UK holiday for me and the kids, but sadly can't imagine that's the reality now for people in that situation. And even if the holiday can be paid for, an ice cream or doughnut is probably minimum of a fiver now and fish & chips totally out of the question. It just seems ludicrous😕

@Bjorkdidit some live rent free of course but not all. And don't forget wage stagnation which has had a huge impact. Younger people have also moved away from alcohol, pubs, clubs, cigarettes & that spend is on coffees etc instead of

ignore the of!

In the 80s and 90s and even more in previous decades there wasn't such a culture of discretionary spending. People just didn't have the spends and didn't expect to.

@RosesAndHellebores do you mean in terms of expectations about experiences and such? I think this is a huge thing. When I was growing up there was the cinema or bowling, but that was it really. Now there's so much to do and an expectation, probably inflated by posts on social media, that we should have an experience every bloody week.

Even taking the kids to a country park, which used to be completely free, now seems to necessitate the experience of a signature coffee / brunch / cake from a truck / tea room. We don't partake, because: mortgage and stuff, but it adds an uncomfortable element to having to say no to the kids, again. Whereas it just didn't used to be a big 'thing'.

@frozendaisy that's a good call on books. I need to rejoin/find my library membership.
I only really buy my clothes from charity shops or Vinted, though was thinking this year I'm going to try and buy very little even so, I have more than enough clothes!

I get torn with money though, as I want to enjoy life and the kids' childhoods. So I have cut back, and need to continue to do so (especially by the sounds of this thread!), but I still want to be able to do fun stuff with the kids, and them not feel as though they are missing out compared to the friends. I know that sounds very Keeping up with the Jones' though.

I just really wish it was more affordable, as an average of £50 but sometimes easily more for tickets for a day or even a few hours out is a killer.

@BestThingAtThisParty i'm not sure where you are but Im in London & for example have a fair few cinemas close. One will always show a family film for £20 for 4 of us if we are flexible & we generally bring our own popcorn/sweets. For days out I will pack some food but buy a cake/treat for us to share. It's just finding a balance with what works for you. It's very similar to what my parents did when I was a dc.

I buy pretty much all my books on ebay as the dc read a lot. Quite a bit of 2nd hand clothing. We rotate the streaming apps, eg 2 months of Netflix, cancel & switch to Disney etc. We have really cut back on takeaways, used to think nothing of a Friday night McDonald's or fish & chips. So we will either make our own or buy a nice dinner from Waitrose.

In the 80s and 90s and even more in previous decades there wasn't such a culture of discretionary spending. People just didn't have the spends and didn't expect to.

This is so true. My parents were born in the 30s and had their first holiday abroad aged 50+ in the 80s. Most of their friends were the same. We did go to restaurants in the 70s and 80s but only for big birthdays, and had no starters or pudding.

In my first full time job, mid 80s, after board money and bus fares to work I had £60 left to last the month. No foreign holidays, running a car, meals out. Clothes were a treat, expensive but they were better made and lasted longer. I don't recall having any money left at the end of the month to save for a deposit on a flat let alone a house.

I can see how hard it is for younger people now to afford housing and bring up a family and my heart goes out to them.

I don't think the ordinary people of any generation have had a particularly easy or charmed life.

I was a tween & teen in the 90s & early 00s. I definitely felt my money went further. My weekend retail job paid a good wage, I could fly to Europe for £20 or whatever, the megabus to uni was £4. Primark was super cheap & I had 100% cotton, good quality clothes from the likes of Topshop, Oasis etc. What I should have done is forgot university, worked f/t in my retail job and bought a property on a 95% LTV or interest only mortgage!

This. I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. We had porridge, branflakes or toast for breakfast. Ham or cheese sandwich for lunch with an apple and a packet of crisps. Tea was sausage and mash, fish fingers and mash, pork chop and mash, roast chicken and mash. I remember a handful of days out. I think my Mum did one day trip a summer to knebworth park. We had the odd fish and chips maybe twice a year. The odd birthday meal in a Happy Eater on the A1. Holidays were a caravan at Clacton.

Compare to the lifestyle my kids and their friends lead it’s a world away. The food is fancier. My daughter has Greek yoghurt for breakfast with the odd avocado Age 10. Meals out a once a month, days out once a week in the holiday. And I’m tight compared to many of their peers - they regularly go for pizza, holidays every year are expected, new outfits for most occasions. We had to wear our school uniform for family funerals as it was the smartest thing we had.

I think the COL is so high now.My DD and I went for a coffee and cake x2 £15.00.not long ago about a tenner .We like the 15th Century cafe! Would often go for lunch now for about £30.00 for 2 .We often take a packed lunch in summer and visit NT homes (members) DH is retired, but I am awaiting my pension so being careful.My DC is getting married in Scotland in the Summer so all savings for that!

@BestThingAtThisParty Our DC were brought up in the 00's. They are 30 and 26 now. It has always been about expectation management. If we went to the park, or as you put it to a country park, they were not brought up to expect a yes every time. We took a flask and some drinks and often they were told that it wasn't a special occasion so no, I wasn't spending £3 on two lollies from the van when they could have one at home from a box of six that had cost £2.

If we went to a museum, we took a packed lunch and they could have a lurid jelly with a snake on top in the cafe, and it was up to them if they spent their £2 each in the shop. Often they didn't.

Similarly if we went to Legoland or Chessington, it was a packed lunch, an ice-cream as a treat and the strict understanding that the entry fee was high and they weren't having vicarious additional spends on hook a toy, etc. Those outings were once a summer holiday or a birthday treat. I recall a mum ringing because she was taking her dc on Friday and wouldn't it be great if we went too. I said no because they had been two weeks before and I didn't want to form those sorts of expectations.

We have simply never just spent on discretionary stuff and that includes takeaways and meals out. DH and I would rather go once a year (or twice) to a Michelin starred restaurant and have food I couldn't cook/compete with, than spend £90 for two at a local restaurant.

I believe children have to understand no and to be taught to respect money and I say that from a position of relative wealth.

The memories the DC recall fondly are the afternoon when after it had rained heavily all day, I waterproofed them up and we went to the park and they collected hundreds of conkers and came home to an early bubble bath, hot chocolate and a video, and the cheerful bucket and spade holidays of their infancy, when of course they got a cornet on the way back from the beach.

What helps in a way is that a lot of places are rubbish food wise now. Legoland is dreadful for example. My dc would rather I make a nice lunch than eat what's on offer there.

Also, the cost of living crisis isn't just in the UK, it's everywhere.

I'm always amazed at how full the shops and cafes/restaurants are and wonder how people do afford it or whether it's all on credit

Newcastle city centre…. A bog standard glass of wine is anywhere between £8 and £10!
Try asking for a bottle of Prosecco …£6 at Asda ——£25+ in a bar.

I'm an 80s child too and our lives were very basic. I still haven't been to legoland 🤣

Even going to the cinema was a once in a blue moon treat.

I'm always amazed at how full the shops and cafes/restaurants are and wonder how people do afford it or whether it's all on credit

Lots are mortgage free or have very little ones.

Yes. I have £30 leftover each month after my essential spends - I appreciate that it’s a luxury.

I use that money to pay for my gym membership to go swimming a few times a week. That’s my only luxury. It is a concessionary membership (due to my disabilities) at a council-run pool.

I dread any further price rises so I won’t be able to continue swimming or not to be able to afford my essential spends.

Definitely agree with packed lunches and not spending extra on top of entry fees. It's always what I've had to do, but I think I feel it more now because the entry prices etc. and what would have been an odd treat food wise has shot up so much on top of already having to budget. Plus how the majority of the families I know don't seem to be squeezed in the same way/aren't adapting much. They're all holidays to far flung places and regular meals out and takeaways. Maybe we need new friends 😆

@RosesAndHellebores I like the 'it's not a special occasion' line. I hate saying to them 'we can't afford it', rightly or wrongly - but I don't want to stress them out worrying about financial stuff, but this covers it in a simpler (and final!) way.

This is really sad, that you might not be able to afford to do something that has such a positive impact on your health, physically and mentally. I really hope you can continue to go. Also, kudos for prioritising this. I love swimming too and feel a million times better when I'm able to go.

@Coldanddamp thanks re- cinema. We sometimes have fakeaways, where the kids decorate boxes for our oven pizzas, then go outside and deliver them! Obviously, I'd love a takeaway but yes definitely hardly ever justifiable now.

@BestThingAtThisParty it's all about teaching them about value for money and thinking through the options. It helps to instil some wisdom later on regarding their own choices. My dear wee lad loves a pair of Calvin Klein underpants - he won't spend his own money on them so asks for them as part of his Christmas presents and they come from his £150 gift allowance.

While I admire this attitude in many ways, I do think it risks slipping into joylessness.

Frivolous spending is only a problem if one can't afford it and it causes financial problems.

A coffee, an ice cream, nice underwear - if you can afford to not have to think about whether you can afford these, why deny yourself?

But then I've never understood the desire to hoard money and minimise spending.

That’s why I love Greggs x

Why do you think they would find it stressful to be told "no we can't afford it"?

I grew up in a poor family (and by current material standards would be considered dirt poor). It didn't "stress" me to be told "we can't afford that" - it was simply how things were. We could mostly afford essentials (often due to parents going without and working their arses off for a very basic standard of living). The lack of material wealth wasn't a big issue, just something which would have been nice to have.

We were short of money when our DC were small and we were early in careers but still well off by comparison with my parents. We took flasks, pack lunches and expensive venues such as Legoland were exception trips such as birthdays and not casual fillers for the holidays. Holidays were bucket and spade, camping in Europe as the children grew older and our careers had taken off. We just didn't spend money in the casual way of coffee shops, paid lunches out (as opposed to meeting in each others houses or taking lunch out) and take aways. I told the children when younger that "I couldn't afford it" if they wanted random spending money outside of my budget.

My children are all young end millennials and doing well professionally. They rarely buy coffee out and take their own lunches to most places. Takeaways are occasional not monthly or even weekly. They might go somewhere fancy for a birthday or an anniversary but not frequent mid range places where too often the food is brought in anyway.

I suppose I'm wondering where the drive to this kind of discretionary spending comes from and who responds to it. It is often presented as generational but I'm not convinced. I suspect its decades of "aspirational" advertising when food and material goods were at a low cost point compared to income. Now the cycle has moved on a bit to less disposable income again and the discretionary spending just isn't possible.

it's all about teaching them about value for money and thinking through the options.

I think it's easy to say this but what's the actual reality? DH is prudent, etc but there is a relaxedness there because he had and has a safety net. It's hard to put my finger on it but there is a difference, I see it in friends who take risks setting up a company or borrowing the max mortgage etc. Would you say your dc had a safety net or not?

Our lives have been far from joyless but it's important, in my opinion to differentiate between needs and wants and instant gratification. And I agree that meanness sucks the joy.

I liked nothing better than being able to treat my daughter to coffee and cake when out shopping and still, even though she's 26 will buy her a new top if I see something I think she'll like. Because I can.

I quite fancy a Loewe Puzzle bag and could buy one but I won't.