If you are middle class do you feel your lifestyle is eroding?

[ceramicwitch]

Now I know that as long as we can afford to heat your home, pay your mortgage / rent and afford to feed yourself and your family you can't complain too much. However I am interested if you feel you used to have a a middle class lifestyle, able to afford nicer bits or activities if you feel that is being eroded?

I think I am feeling it, we used to be quite free with putting nice things in the basket at waitrose (not where we go all the time but where we get treats and more premium things) and not we are holding back quite a bit more. We usually go to the Theatre a few times a year and the ballet, especially at Christmas but this year we are giving it a miss due to ever increasing costs. We've stopped going to cafes if not on holiday.

I have good friends who live in quite an expensive part of town, He is a Doctor and they seemed to be quite oblivious to cost of living the past few years but the other day I was talking to him and he was saying how he doesn't much enjoy eating out these days as the cost of it sticks in his throat, even cheap and cheerful is quite pricy now.

Anyone else feeling that quality of life even for the supposedly well insulated middle classes is in decline?

The current ageing population have benefited from massive unearned house price wealth, so they should be funding it tbh.

lol, you saw the outcry over means testing winter fuel?!

Middle class is so outdated. I don’t think it’s a real statement anymore. If you have to rely on your wages to survive you are working class

i worked for a woman who was worth £12m due to land and businesses, private school for 5 kids the lot. She always said she wasn’t middle class she was working class with money

Not all of them. Some of them rent. Generalisations are not helpful.

We used to go out for a meal as a nice thing to do.
Can’t justify it now unless it’s someone’s birthday or a family Christmas get-together.

@24karatPalamino

I'm not sure how I confused you? I certainly don't live to work & would not suggest that. I just think blowing through wages & downsizing to camper van carries some risk.

’d actually rather we went to an insurance based system as a country, than end up paying taxes only to not benefit from them and have to pay privately anyway.

I much prefer a model like France but that means higher taxes. We can't afford the NHS & state pensions with the changing demographics.

Of course, but it’s the only real solution. The govt will tax middle earners instead though, despite the fact that it will crash the economy. Anything rather than get the people sitting in the houses to pay for themselves.

The irony is that eventually that generation will have to sell, but nobody beneath them will be able to afford the prices. So the houses will crash in value eventually too.

All because since 2008 every government has done everything in its power to keep the housing bubble inflated. For 25 years now instead of encouraging people to invest in productive ways in the economy, they’ve just been selling the same housing stock to each other over and over again at ever increasing prices. Now we have a massive housing behemoth that sucks all the wealth out of everyone below 50, but also crumbling infrastructure, productivity levels through the floor, and no economic prospects for middle earners other than paying more and more and more tax just to service it all. 🤷‍♀️

We have sufficient disposable income to be comfortably off, but not wealthy. We certainly eat out much less than we used to pre-Covid. Not because we can’t afford it, but because we can’t justify the cost.

Eating out, even at pubs & chain restaurants, has become ludicrously expensive and it now feels like you’re being mugged. I completely understand the cost pressures the hospitality industry is under, it must be very difficult to cope with. But that’s not really the point. Value for money, or rather the lack of it, is the issue. And until that changes, restaurants will be for special occasions only, just as they were for my parents’ generation.

Look at the proportion of owner occupiers and owner occupiers without mortgage by age group. Very very few rent compared to the majority, and also compared to younger cohorts. These are not generalisations. They are facts.

What are we meant to do, allow vast swathes of older people to sit on most of the housing stock whilst also taxing younger workers (who already have much higher housing costs) to pay for all their pensions and healthcare as well?

To be fair, most countries with ‘socialist’ health are systems are now insurance-based or you have to pay to access healthcare (e.g. France, Sweden). Both very different systems but with a socialist base.

If a working class person suddenly wins millions on the lottery do they change class? No.

Class is about privilege, yes wealth - usually inherited, but also accent, education and in-group cultural signifiers.

The op has that typical dismissive and ignorant snobbish attitude toward the working classes that they can’t possibly feel the pinch as they’re probably piss poor and didn't ’work hard’ like her and her chums.

Meanwhile here in steerage I know plenty of working class millionaires still shopping at Aldi in their Range Rovers after they’ve dropped the kids off at private school. Class has fuck all to do with it.

It's tricky isn't it. I started work in 1980 and am 65 and still working. When I retire, I'll still pay tax, as will DH. Do you not think that many older people have paid their dues, including at 60% tax rates in the 1980s. They have also repaid their mortgages over many many years.

What do you expect us to do? Vacate our houses and decamp to a cardboard box under the arches at Waterloo so the youngsters can move in rent and mortgage free whilst refusing to pay anybtax and NI.

I don't recall thinking in my 20s and 30s that I shouldn't have to pay tax and resent my grandparents and parents having paid for houses whilst being eligible for the pensions and healthcare for which they had worked.

Do you not think that many older people have paid their dues, including at 60% tax rates in the 1980s.

People haven't paid enough, that's the point.

To pay enough taxes to fund the state pension for 20 years you would need to earn 50k for more than 20 years. Thats before you even consider healthcare costs & education. The model works with a pyramid shaped demographics not when it changes.

Vacate our houses and decamp to a cardboard box under the arches at Waterloo so the youngsters can move in rent and mortgage free whilst refusing to pay anybtax and NI.

What a load of nonsense but it proves why we can't have any reasonable debate and the government can get away without planning.

It’s what someone else said. I can’t enjoy eating out anymore knowing how much it costs compared to a few years ago. Same with Christmas events for the kids, we can afford them but don’t want to spend the silly prices.

I’m totally with you. I suddenly have an urge to build up savings instead of spend frivolously - literally a shift in the last few months. I am more worried about job security that at any other time in my career.

Well, I’m probably not middle class but, no, not particularly. I grew up with no money, had no money when my kids were little.
Now I earn a bit more, plus kids are working, and even though I have a big mortgage I still go out for lunch regularly and have day trips, and the occasional package holiday.
I don’t really save but I have a side hustle on top of my full time job, and might start investing a bit.
I never expected to have the sort of middle class lifestyle I read about on here ( private schools, skiing) so its no big deal to me.

Yeah, increased inequality eventually gets rid of the middle class until there is just the super rich and the poor. It’s in almost everyone’s interest to oppose inequality.

We have in spades. For more than 40 years actually. We have private health care and educated our dc privately.

We owe the state absolutely nothing and we will be remaining in our lovely big house.

We have in spades.

Fab! You are aware you aren't everyone...

We owe the state absolutely nothing and we will be remaining in our lovely big house.

What a bizarre response 😆😆

We have maintained lifestyle but what we can’t afford to do are any major works on the house.

The kitchen is 15 years old. It wasn’t a huge problem affording it back then. I’m aware it’s getting old but replacing it is totally off the table as it would cost £20k plus to do a basic like for like. We always planned an extension but that’s never going to happen now as it would cost more than £100k.

We basically haven’t replaced anything expensive in the house for over 10 years now including carpets.

I run a holiday rental business in the UK. Going back before COVID, I would say most of our customers have come from a working class background for four decades. Now it is middle class who cannot afford the holidays to Europe in school holidays they once went on annually. The working class families are either bringing other people (family, neighbours, friends etc) to share the costs, or just not coming on holiday at all as they battle the cost of living. Many of our customers used to book a week or fortnight, and now they book 2-4 night stays typically due to the costs. This is not just the hire charges, but the costs for entertainment and transport which all add up in the economic situation we are all faced with.

Don't you expect a kitchen to last at least 20/25 years and carpets 15/20 or until they are worn?

Eroding?! No. Entirely disintegrated.

Edit - I apologise for the quote! No idea how it did that.

Agree broadly with many of the above posters. Many of the things I never used to think about - night at the cinema/pub lunch/takeaway now seem expensive and poor value so I prefer to eat at home. I have mobility issues so my last holiday abroad was 7 years ago. Even were that not the case I think I would balk at the money it would cost for a rip off single room in a moderate hotel. Everything, including taxes, are far too high. Im not surprised some people I know do cash in hand work gardening and cleaning.