UK cost of living is beyond miserable

[bookworm8500]

I'm just so sick of it and to read that council tax may be increasing where I live by 20% has sent me over the edge. I don't know where the government think people like us will keep getting extra money from.

It's pay day today (NHS). My pay covers our mortgage without much left over, so on 1st Feb my salary is gone. Both my husband and I have good jobs, but salaries have never gone up like other things have. Food, energy, mortgage, council tax, bills.

It honestly feels like we just work in order to pay for a house we are hardly in because our mortgage went up so much.

I find it all utterly miserable without a way out.

I don't need advice on how to make our money stretch further. We have a modest 3 bed semi, we both work full time, not alot of debt but everything has gone up to the point that it's utterly miserable. I know we are in a better position than many too

I remember being excited for pay day about 15 years ago, when my salary actually covered everything nicely and I had money left.

Anyone else find it relentless?

This is one of the reasons why the birth rate has gone through the floor

It's just shit
Everyone is "oh min wage is going up!"
Great, I'll be better off for 1 month then my council tax, gas, electric, water, car insurance etc etc goes up and I'm back to no money again until the next pay rise

Nah, house prices were a lot lower and Buy to let wasn’t rife.
Not having the internet was not a bad thing, as you didn’t have to worry about comparing yourself to strangers everyday.
It is totally shit for younger people who are not on mega bucks.
You are right about it getting better financially once they have grown up but with housing being extortionate they may well be at home for a lot longer.

If you are working full time but your whole salary is taken up by your mortgage then either your salary is not that high or your mortgage is very high.
Eg the take-home of a salary of 30k after say 10% pension contributions would be something like 1800-1900. That would be quite a large mortgage payment?

M’y friend in France is thinking of moving from her two bed apartment to a one bed, as she is struggling to afford the equivalent of council tax. She says the price of everything has soared, and the quality has plummeted.

Europe is broken.

I thought council tax could only go up 5 percent unless your council is bankrupt because of overspending and then it was 10 percent. I know Birmingham is going to be 9.9 percent this year and it was similar last year but they always overspend. When most other councils have been having 2 weekly rubbish collections for a few years Birmingham only did it this year after they were bankrupt and had another person in making them do it. Where on earth do you live for council tax to have gone up 20 percent in one year? Who is in charge of your council? I'd be trying to vote them out and get better councillors in.

You're right and the last government and current one only allow 2 DC to get child benefit.

I hear you… We’re both working, one child.
Two bedroom house. We don’t have much spare.

We haven’t had a holiday since COVID.
I’ll have to try hard to make it happen this year.

I don’t know how friends afford holidays…
Gigs, meals out, weddings. Must be credit cards!

@whirlyhead @TheYearOfSmallThings I have to disagree it's not like that everywhere. I lived in London for 12 years then moved to Switzerland 5 years ago. When I moved it felt very expensive here compared to the UK. Now it feels like it's the same. I really sympathise with everyone in the UK- you pay high tax, cost of living is high, inflation is high and nothing works (health care, transport, infrastructure, roads full of potholes, education is a mess). In Switzerland wages are higher, you pay less tax, everything works, quality of life is so much better, minimum wage is around £22 per hour. Yes cost of living is high but no different to London now, infact our rent here is cheaper. I advise anyone who can leave the UK to do so for a while, because there are better options out there. We have been able to save alot of money in a relatively short space of time which we never would have been able to do if we had stayed in the UK. I even looked at coming back and the same role salary was less than what it was 5 years ago. Salaries are stagnant. Brexit has made it harder to move for alot of people but my God if you can get out, then do it. If you don't like it you can always go back. I have no idea how anyone saves money in the UK. Even on a decent salary its hard.
I will add I have friends who moved to Switzerland, did the same job as in the UK and earn double. They got promoted in 1 year, with a 25k pay rise. They get paid overtime. It's a different work culture, much more balanced. And the mood is different, everyone is happy, positive, optimistic. Now when I come home to the UK people are disgruntled, fed up, desperate for change, struggling. It's really sad to see.

It’s “death by a thousand cuts”. Everything seems to have gone up in price a little bit to the point that collectively, it’s all way too much of a financial squeeze to cope with.

Why?

Written off 😱 they made my exh pay it all back and he owed almost a whole year. They put him on a repayment plan.

This is the 102982734th thread on this subject lately, folks. Mostly by people with no previous posts on the site. Just saying....

Thanks everyone, I'm so sorry that so many people are trapped in this relentless cycle.

Yes children definitely don't help (I mean that nicely 🤣).

Our mortgage is £1400 a month. It used to be £900 before it went up so much.

Funnily enough my neighbour and her family just moved back from Switzerland after two years - they hated it! Although I believe it was good for them financially TBF.

What didn't they like about it?

If a property is empty the owner LL would have to pay the council tax and if empty for over 12 months it doubles then another year it doubles again so if a house is left empty the LL would be paying 4x council tax on it.

Why should they pay triple? A lot of them are in jobs we desperately need people for. Healthcare, care, research etc. British people literally aren’t applying to these roles but we need them filled.

if it makes you feel better they do already pay extra tax in the form of the nhs surcharge. Currently it’s an extra £1000 a year for them to be able to access public services. This is on top
of national insurance which they still pay despite often not having access to the pension later on.

Totally had enough of having zero to show for what feels like enduring and existing.

Once nursery fees are over and DC at school things get easier. Childcare is so expensive and I really do believe our governments should subsidise it more. Unless we have more DC there will be less workers for the future. People have less DC because of the cost of childcare.

In England anything over 5% should be subject to a local referendum, but councils can appeal to the Sec State to override this as you infer. Democracy in action - NOT

I gather Windsor and Maidenhead is pondering a big increase. Plus one of (seemingly many) councils in Somerset.

Birmingham - something like 10% in the current year and talking about another 10% rise this year coming.

Council elections - certainly where I am - only ever four years.

Now I appreciate holding a local referendum costs money, but if somevcouncils really feel they need to increase over 5% they really should get buy in from their residents. Somehow I can’t imagine too many in a local referendum would tick the increase by a double digit percentage box.

MN is an interesting place as people will complain about the rise in Council Tax but also bemoan the lack of support and funding for SEN education etc. We literally can't have it all! Someone has to pay for all these hugely expensive services in the end.

I read that interest payments on our national debt are now equivalent to our annual education budget or 2/3rds of budget for the NHS. We can't keep adding debt and asking the already over burdened to pay more and more. Somewhere along the line we are going to have to cut public spending as this is clearly completely unsustainable.

They reckoned it was about equally expensive overall, housing better but even more expensive, and people polite rather than friendly, and dismissive of anything not conservative. In fairness my neighbour is quirky and I often have to say "Hmm, interesting idea" whereas I gather a more honest discourse is favoured there. Also she felt there might be some racism towards her husband and his culture (no idea if that is fair).

The pictures look beautiful.

Agree.

I struggled and had to add up the shopping as I was going round the supermarket. Sometimes I couldn't afford to eat.

Now the kids are older, I'm earning a bit more and we luckily have a small ish mortgage.

There are SO many ways the government waste money on things that are of no benefit to our country, but instead they keep throwing billions at things and keep punishing tax payers with the burden.