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?

Yes

Lots of food for thought here. Agree that there are massive and increasing divisions in the UK, some people screwed while others rake in massive salaries. The number of companies raking in profits for shareholders while screwing their customers and employees is truly horrifying. Also, so much is set up for ‘perfect life’ people where nothing ever goes wrong and where life unfolds getting better and better, no life hiccups on that trajectory. My DP and I have had very up and down lives, jolted by circumstance and health. We have no children but the inability to pull in two salaries due to health issues has utterly derailed our ability to trot off on foreign trips or eat in fancy (or any) restaurants. Everything is predicated on two full time professional salaries (maybe £50 or £60k ish each) seemingly forever with no impediments like divorce, illness or even children. How on earth is this realistic? Our holiday abroad was 2019 and paid for by a small inheritance. My friends who live the life of Riley (many!) all bought property in the 80s and had very chronological property profiles(ie never falling off into the rented sector for any reason); therefore they had no mortgage after the boom, saving boggling amounts of money over time. At 50 plus most have received at least one substantial (£100k plus) inheritance, a lot of them ‘investing’ it in rental properties, that’s how they ‘manage’.

Yes of course we all do it's Neverending.

Particularly foreign investors buying flats off-plan as a way of moving their money away from their 15.04.1989 government.
Needs to be regulated and appropriately taxed/rent controlled.

Part of the issue is that government funding to councils is based on the assumption the council will raise council tax by the max amount, so any less and the council has even more of a deficit. But councils are constrained by how much they can raise council tax

Yes council tax is high - mainly as a result of adult and children's social care costs. My LA spends 52% of their income on just those two cost pressures.

And while the overall increase for upper tiers is 3%, there is a further 2% adult social care element plus then £14 for police and £5 for fire. And then parishes don't have a referendum limit at all - so if you have a parish council it's worth checking what they're spending your money on! So some areas will increase above 5% - even if the council isn't bankrupt!

OP you are fortunate to be able to buy a house. It's very miserable knowing that you are paying out one whole salary (literally) to live in a house that will never be yours, and you can be kicked out of with one months notice.

If your mortgage only recently went up can't you remortgage.

If you are NHS you could probably get a job in a cheaper area of the uk.

There is a bit of a uk obsession with houses rather than flats.

I save a fortune living in a flat. Heating is less. External repairs are shared. No garden cost.

I've lived in both a 3 bed semi & flats (both with DCs & I'd only live in flats now.

But yes apart from the very wealthy everyone is worse off now than since pre the 2007 crash. We've never really recovered.

The basics we need are now more eg smart phones/home broadband. There's also an expectation that people wash themselves and their clothes daily. This costs thousands over the year.

No one drives old bangers anymore. You can't buy one!

Public transport costs a fortune. But people are expected to commute far from home to work.

Childcare is extortionate.

It is harder for this generation than any other since ww2.

We need better politicians who get it & actually change things.

@unmemorableusername Flats are often more expensive than houses because of exorbitant ground rents. These can also be increased at any time, adding yet another cost to watch out for; they are often very high. It seems more sensible to buy a tiny terrace than a leasehold flat these days.

Flats are often more expensive than houses because of exorbitant ground rents. These can also be increased at any time, adding yet another cost to watch out for; they are often very high. It seems more sensible to buy a tiny terrace than a leasehold flat these days.

Where I live not bad sized 2 bedroom flats cost 220k (some are 200k), smallest houses are close to 400k. None of my friend’s DC want a flat, they are all holding out for a house and at the same time saying how expensive property is.

Qho is washing their clothes every day, that's insane. I grt two wears out of most things except underwear of course and then it's a weekly wash! So unless.you only have one outfit and underwear to your name noone needs to have the washing machines on every day.

As for old bangers plenty of people buy used cars.

Some places they do. In Australia you don’t get the tax free allowance so you pay tax on every dollar earned as a foreigner.

None of my friend’s DC want a flat, they are all holding out for a house and at the same time saying how expensive property is.

That can be quite sensible, it's expensive to move & many are now stuck on the ladder so better to future proof if you can. Plus houses have increased proportionally more in value va flats.

Just pointing out that when the golden days are mentioned it’s usually cherry picked without the whole picture, it happens all the time.

Dh and I were actually aghast at how few potatoes are now in a bag. Same price but they have literally halved the size of the big bags. What used to make several meals now barely covers a Sunday lunch. And that's just potatoes.

It's fucking scandalous.

I thought millennials were the first to be worse off than their parents?

Regardless, the inequality gap between rich/poor (or elite and everyone else) is widening at a fast pace.

Doing the food shop makes me incredibly miserable now. Looking at stuff I can’t afford and feeling hunger pains. It’s so unfair.

Could you give an example (not wanting to out you, just very interested in that point you made.

It’s awful. Everything is totally unaffordable. I don’t feel I have any more slack to cut

Petrol is expensive, rent is extortionate, food & clothes more expensive than when I went back to the uk and wages much much lower.

My dog's tinned food went up 35p in the last week, and her biscuits went up £5 (just before a "useful" £5 off voucher was issued on a loyalty card).

Life is not comparable at all for younger people. We bought our house on just DH wage of 26k in 1999 because it cost 62k. The house is now worth about 330k, that junior position now earns 40k. We rented for a couple, of years before it was £400 month rent, it’s now 1,200 per month in our area.

The average house in the UK was x3 salary it is around x7 average salary.

For most councils it's a choice between putting up council tax or cutting services. Local government is not adequately funded by Westminster. Until adequate funding happens, most of us will see either cuts or tax increases or probably both. A change of councillors won't change that.

I agree. It feels like everything is going up except my salary. I paid our home insurance yesterday and it has doubled (couldn’t get it cheaper anywhere as apparently storms have pushed it up). I got an email today to say our water bill will be going up. Fun things like going out for a meal are so expensive they just feel stressful. Meanwhile part of the business I work for is closing and lots of my colleagues are being made redundant. I don’t feel optimistic at all at the moment.

I thought exactly the same the other day. Made a cottage pie and just about enough in there. Also since new year not bought any chocolate bars except like peguins etc. Thought get 4 pack of chocolate the weekend as Ds asked and some of them were 2.00 now. I remember when was 1.00 last year. Did get some double deckers that were 1.50 on offer. My normal pack of pears were 1.90. Things just going up and up.