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?

Well clearly not everyone is suffering, and there are people who would be paying back minimum payments each month, and they could be cutting their food bill to the bone, for all anybody knows.

We are very nervous about the potential increase in council tax. We live in Somerset and according to a news report the main council has transferred lots of services to the local council budgets so they need to increase the council tax to cover that.

is there a limit to how much they can do this by?

I agree. I’ve seen newspaper articles about Australia’s housing crisis which is similar to ours with young people stuck in share houses.

Its happening in a lot of places.

my Husband and I go abroad 4 times a year and my husband also goes away for 10 days with his friend because of their hobby!
No it’s not paid for on credit it’s paid for when we book with our wages!!
just because people have nice things doesn’t mean it’s not paid for using their earning!!!

End stage capitalism innit

Possibly credit.
But also possibly that other people earn much more than their outgoings.
And they actively drive career progression to ensure that every single year their earnings increase % much exceeds their cost of living increases %.

i am on mat leave and my other half hours got cut ,its gonna be a fun year rip

It’s bloody ridiculous and a lot of this is because we are insisting on chasing a pointless Net Zero target, which means absolutely nothing in isolation, as a tiny island.
Our money is wasted, and then they need more.
This country has been badly managed for years. I remember it being good around 2006, but it’s been downhill since. Labour have done what I thought was impossible and are making things worse. It’s no wonder so many people are looking at the USA and wishing we had a leader like Trump.

As a PP mentioned the cost of living cannot be attributed to climate change when all the utilities, fuel providers and supermarkets literally report “record profits” year after year. We’re being bled dry to line the pockets of foreign corporate stakeholders, it’s obscene.

My monthly food shop is about half my only income from benefits so yeah I agree with you.

It's madness. I'm another in an area where the local authority is almost bankrupt so council tax likely to go up.significantly. Also news headlines saying tax will go up again ( maybe just scaremongering). I'm at an age where we can manage as mortgage paid off and kids all grown up although two still at Uni who we are supporting, but I feel so bad for young people.

It might be pointless me saying this but I think there's too many houses in this country as it is. If everyone had bigger gardens rather than no gardens or tiny gardens then we could all grow a lot of our own food

And they shouldn’t be allowed to use the NHS free of charge until they have lived and worked in the UK for a certain number of years.

Well you will have a house that you own outright one day and your raising children so that's what you have to show for it. Just so happens doing those things costs more right now.

Perhaps other people are earning more, maybe their mortgage is still in a fixed rate at a very low %, maybe their kids are older ao no childcare expenses.

Some might of got an inheritance 💁‍♀️

Times are certainly tough and I can’t see them getting easier. I haven’t a clue how we get ourselves out of this hole, with Russia having turned off the energy supply to Europe everything has been impacted and even if they step back from the war with Ukraine they aren’t going to start supplying us with gas again are they?

Dont worry. All their plans are fully costed. They told us so over and over during their election campaign.

But we know that’s just not true as so many houses will be eaten up by care costs in old age. There’s no point making out that eventually home owners own their homes and that becomes the legacy for the children etc etc. Bollocks will that be the case in the future. Even if there are loopholes currently in regard to trusts, the government will make damn sure that those loopholes close and you will work all your life to buy your home for it to disappear into a void in your dotage. Excellent.

My council tax went up a lot last year and it will be going up a lot again this year. On top of that the services provided have been cut (sometimes cut altogether) and we have to pay top-up fees for some things that used to be covered by our taxes.

At the time of the Grenfell fire there was a scandal about how low the council tax was in the richest borough in the country and one of the richest places in the world. I was pretty shocked that someone living in a multimillion pound property in Kensington was paying almost exactly half what I pay. It doesn't seem quite right that council taxes are higher in areas where there is more social deprivation.

I agree with you but I’ve got a massive garden and don’t have the time to use it to grow food because I work all the hours to pay half my monthly wage to the supermarkets for the food instead! Madness isn’t it. That said, I work in housing and know hundreds of families who don’t work who live in houses with enormous post war gardens that are never used for anything beyond letting a dog shit.

In think the post war era was probably the utopian time to live in the UK…decent housing for the majority that could be run on one wage, decent free education, community spirit & patriotism. We’re utterly fucked at the moment.

And yet its often pointed out on here that people should put up with living in flats and not think its beneath them

@dottiehens you're kidding right, your transport works and goes on half the night, better job opportunities, free museums... Londoners get lot more benefits for their tax than huge swathes of the country. You drop it.

OP, I feel the same as you. Our household income is just under 50k, we have a small mortgage and are supporting my dd1 at uni and dd2 at home.

We live in a v small 3 bed semi-detached cottage, we don't have holidays even in the UK, only eat out or have takeaways on birthdays and all our clothes are second hand - a new jumper from Tesco is a treat. We run two old cars. I feel very lucky to have been part of the last generation to have been able to buy a home but having worked relentlessly all my life (almost all self employed), taken 3 weeks max off with each baby, and struggled financially the entire time, I do feel pretty aggrieved that there is nothing left, ever. Once dd1 leaves uni, dd2 will be going but luckily she won't need a huge top up for tuition fees (dd1 is at a private, specialist uni for a specific career and despite taking all the loans she's entitled to the shortfall is crippling).

I hear my parents' generation talk about buying a (normal, smallish) home on one very average wage and just can't believe it was ever possible.

I think this too but successive governments do not seem to agree 🤷

There is but a lot of councils are ignoring it and raising CT above what they are supposed to