rising food, fuel, housing, gas and electric prices, are they sustainable, what will happen

[superv1xen]

if they keep spiralling upwards like they are doing?

wages are not rising in line with the cost of living, in some cases they are not just being frozen but being cut, extra financial help such as tax credits are being cut, everything costs a fortune so everyone on a low to moderate income is being squeezed to within an inch of our lives (stating the obvious here i know)

but my question is what is going to happen? is it going to get to a stage where people literally can't afford food or to run a car or afford to get to work or put their heating on in winter? it probably already is like that for people even less fortunate than us.

or will the prices of everything eventually stabilise and/or go down and/or will wages etc pick up as the economy recovers (if it ever does). or will vast profit making companies be forced to lower their prices (can't see that happening) ....sorry if i sound thick but i just don't understand how things work, all i know is every month things seem to get tighter and tighter for us as i am sure it does for many other families.

i'm finding myself dreaming about a lottery win a whole lot more than i ever did 5 years ago....

amicissima Actually you are spot on here.

I think the only thing that annoys my family and I (my brother and SIL, my DH and I, some of our friends) is that we have lived very prudently throughout this whole thing.

We haven't taken on large debts just assuming we'd be ok because everyone else was doing it too.

We were saving money.

And now interest rates have been cut to nothing so our savings are becoming worth-less to service the debts of others and we haven't benefitted from the things other people took on huge debts for.

We don't own a lot, but everything that is ours, we bought/own outright.

So it annoys me when I hear the gov going on about us all benefiting from it. I had no say, no choice in government spending but didn't indulge in huge levels of personal borrowing/spending/debt. We could see where it was heading and my DH based his understanding on everything he learned at Economics A Level.

edam - not just diabetics. I have a disabled son who needs physiotherapy, and we have to pay for it all ourselves now. Fortunately I have been able to come to an agreement with the physiotherapist by offering to teach English to his children in return for the physio sessions, but most people just have to find the money. He also has hearing problems - we have to pay for all of that side of his care, too. And I just heard yesterday that pregnant women now have to pay for their own blood tests.

Supervixen - Does it really sound that bad? I try to make the best of things - I like walking, it's good exercise, good for the children too. I think we are probably eating a healthier diet now and we are much less wasteful. And the children love helping and felt that they are really contributing when they brought home pinecones and various branches for the fire last winter. It was good for their self esteem. Plus, I don't see myself as particularly poor, lots of people are much worse off than us!

yyy itisnearly. We deliberately stayed on a small mortgage while others were borrowing up to the hilt - because I'm risk averse and knew there would be a downturn at some point. Sadly dh then lost his job and my freelance earnings dwindled - along with everyone else I know in the same field, really really good people. So we have ended up with loads of debt just to survive and pay food, energy bills, council tax and so on.

Now I've gone back to work full-time with a mahoosive commute which is a. knackering b. means I barely see ds in the week - but also pay thousands to a crappy rail company which is going to stick up fares by something between 8 and 13 per cent. (Dh is out of work again...) And yet I know we are some of the lucky ones as at least I have a job.

i agree with everything edam said,

the winter fuel payments to the elderly are being cut

whilst the 50p tax rate is being abolished - the tag lline in the papers said something about it benefitting the middle class. i don't know how much you have to earn to pay this tax, but i think it would re-define middle lcass to many mnetters who consider themselves so.

unfortunatley where i disagree with edam is in collective action.

there will be no collective action, it is something we rarely do as a country - i mean there are a few marches in london, but y'know - its a march in london not a country wide thing.

i dont know why the govt is doing this to this extent tbh. every single day i link to something in the politics section and only get the same three of four people reply, and the majority of them are tories.

i dont know how anyone who can fully explain it.

i saw an amnesty video today talking about cluster bombs (another thread) but a journalist stopped an RBS banker outside his work and asked him what he thought

he said

"jolly good, how much is it making us?......[gets reply] well how do you think your benefits are paid for" at which point the guy pointed out he was a jounalist.

but it really shocked me. MY GOD there are people out there who have never been poor and they think poor people and working class people are poor through their own fault. and that THEY ARE THE BACKBONE of society.

and the bank (which the taxpayer bailed out. which we own 84% of = pays the feckless poors benefits

that is the indemic, fundemental attitude that we are dealing with

the next thing will be mortgage interest rates start rocketing

then it will be like the 80s when people were being repossessed left right and centre

It's never sustainable when average house prices are way more than average wages. It can only benefit the well off. Me and dh both work. Yet we will never be able to buy as we have no spare income to save for a deposit. And can't borrow enough to buy more than a studio bedsit that needs major work.

Custy, I hope for collective action, but I don't expect it. Depressingly enough. What I expect is social unrest that will be shit for everyone. Apart from the rich who will be insulated from it.

Alex, that's shit. And appalling - if your son needs physio, he should get it.

alphabettyspaggetti - here the link from one site globalcoolingnewiceageuk.blogspot.com/2011/01/uk-summer-and-winter-weather-forecast_31.html
All the other sites I have looked are saying the same

I just assume we're all screwed. I've discovered I'm very good at growing potatoes though.

custy do you have a link for the Amnesty Video? I do see a lot of your threads in politics and agree with all of them whole-heartedly!

Thank you Welshbyrd.

A lot of the UK tax came from our banking sector - the fact that large banks (like RBS and LLoyds) are making losses cuts down so much on the revenue that the tax man collects.

The loss making banks shed staff, increasing the unemployment, tax revenues (both personal and company) are down and more people are looking for govt hand-outs from a smaller pot.

Most of the food, energy and other resources are heavily influenced by factors outside our control and by international markets. It is scary that the FTSE index has very little in reality to what is actually happening in the Uk.

We are looking at increasing inflation, higher food prices and a huge recession. Before the housing market and cheap credit has stimulated the economy and we have bought ourselves out of one (averted the inevitable).

The Western economies are depressed - the cash and financial power is heading Eastwards ..

also terrified.

The one silver lining for me atm, is that I've just moved from an oil heated home to one with solar heating and electricity, that is also a new build with proper insulation and double glazing.

Hopefully high heating bills/electric costs will be less than the oil. At one point during the winter it was costing approx £75 per week to heat the house.

i'm growing food and will continue to do so, and making crafty things for sale at markets etc. ebaying and freecycling anything I don't use.

In one respect, I'm glad that people are realising the worth of things again and are learning old skills that will now be useful. It will lead to less landfill as people reuse and recycle more.

On the other hand, it's not sustainable short or long term and salaries must rise in line with the other costs.

For too long the markets have been owned by mega companies creaming enormous profits whilst their staff and everyone else don't see their income rising to meet the spiralling costs.

and I'm sorry homeowners, but the property market must crash. It's not sustainable either and salaries will never rise sufficiently to meet the cost of property.

Yes, house prices must come down - it's terrible for everyone except many of the baby boomer generation who have had enormous unearned gains. But not all of them. We are lucky in that we have lots of equity so could survive a crash but what about people who have bought in recent years? It'll be shit for them. My sister's just bought a shared ownership house after years in rented. Valued at £180k, she's bought half and rents half, but if the property market crashes, she'll be in trouble.

and I'm sorry homeowners, but the property market must crash. It's not sustainable either and salaries will never rise sufficiently to meet the cost of property

agree bornsicky it makes me laugh when on the news it says house prices are rising like its a GOOD thing! erm, hooray, higher rent and even less chance of buying for those of us that couldn't or didn't buy when property was still affordable to the average joe.

I bought 5 years ago when I was 18. 100% mortgage, then the year after took out another 10k for a private operation (my home had risen 10k in value in that first year).
Ive always been on interest only payments.

Its now valued at 95k and Im fucked. 2 kids in a 2 bed, no room to swing a cat. Totally and utterly fucked and I cant sleep because of it.

Well first people have to start choosing between food, or electricity, or heating, or water. Oh sorry, thats already happening.

Then when they get squeezed further, there will be peaceful demonstrations, which will intensify and eventually lead to riots and looting . Oh sorry, thats already happening too.

Whats next?

Well in history they have found various solutions:
Chop off the kings (or rich peoples) head,
Revolution - overthrow the government
War
um.. quite often these rumble on for many years causing many problems. Poor health etc leads to disease..
A particularly history tells of plagues of frogs/locusts and high childhood mortality etc.

The root cause, always, is high inequality. The problems reduce when greater equality between people is created - and all are able to afford life. This creates prosperity. For us, overthrowing the government seems the safest route. David "let them eat cake" Cameron really doesnt have a clue, so lets get busy before the really bad stuff catches up with us!

I've just realised why the Rail fares have gone up so much...

It just because they are pricing people out of getting to Lodon to march against anything. It's a conspiracy I tells ya!

Our commuting fares are £500 each per month and going to go up 8-13%. It will be very tight if it's a harsh winter and i know we are the lucky ones with a decent income and a job each.

I cannot believe we pay 1k per month in rail fares and spend 4 hours each a day commuting. we leave at 7 and get in at 7.30 at the earliest and are exhausted, in bed by 10pm. Spend all day Sat cleaning, cooking and preparing for the week ahead.

We just live to work and even then people are only just scraping by. I feel so sad for everyone.

My parents never lived like this.

I am a single parent, on benefits for now (for reasons I CBA to go into on this thread). I am having to make HUGE cutbacks, from September, instead of getting the bus to do the school run every day, I'm going to have to walk at least 3 days out of 5. Almost 3 miles each way. So nearly 12 miles a day. Bus fares have just gone up to unaffordable level. My electric going up, well, that IS worrying me, I've worked out it's going to be £18.22 a week now. It was £15.76. It may only be a 'small' increase, but these things are tipping me over the edge, and due to rises in the gas prices too, I'm now worrying about how I am going to afford to heat the house in the winter.

I've already cut my food budget to the bare minimum, haven't had a holiday in 12 years, don't drink or go out to socialise at all, My sofa is held together by nails and MDF (It was from a charity shop 10 yrs ago), and I've only been an LP for 10 weeks, before that Ex-DP was working FT (but for a very low wage). There IS nowhere else I can economise, I HAVE to have internet for DD to submit her H/wk, she needs 1-2-1 help from an adult to complete it due to sn, and doesn't get that if she stays after school in the ICT suite. So I class it as an essential for her education.

I only buy supermarket clothes, can't afford anything else, and for the older dc, there's never anything in the charity shops that fits. Mostly because older dc tend to wear their clothes till they are threads. School uniform is crippling me this summer, and the dc are having to make do with their old, rather tatty schoolbags when I'd normally get them a new one each year. I need a new pair of shoes, because my £6 pair of 'plimsoll' type things from tescos aren't suitable when it's pissing down, but I can't find winter boots for less than £20 - even in the cheapest shoe shops.

Loudlass - Im in the same boat as you even with my DH working, Im also panicking about winter, DH and I have just been discussing this.

Its horrible at the moment, we really are struggling, DHs wages this week, we are minus £40 . Will have to catch up next week, on an already tight budget.

Using the heating in the winter is terrifying me, I have now started topping up extra each week, ready for the winter.

School uniforms have whacked us this term, thankfully, my sister spotted some brand new school jumper/t-shirt from a charity shop, buy one, get one free, so paid £6.50 for 2 t-shirts and 2 jumpers, instead of the £80 I would have had to pay.Just got DDs shoes to get, DS bought his with his birthday money . Also got the extra school packed lunch items to add to my already stretched shopping budget
Its shit!!!

spuddy am at your 1k a month commuting costs. its scandalous, it really is.

we have the most expensive railways in Europe and the government has just smugly decided to put fares up by between 8 and 13 per cent telling us 'passengers have to bear more of the cost'. WHY? We are already paying far more than any of our neighbours! And why is public spending on public transport called a subsidy when investment on roads is not?

superv1xen yes i know it makes everyone pull that face!

We live outside London but the only work we can get i inside London. We rented our house out and moved to a flat in London but it was £1200 per month and we had a shortfall between rent and mortgage of £200 and were still paying over £100 each for tubes.

So we decided to move home and now pay out that amount and spend 20 hours a week on a train.

Rock and a hard place scenario.

When i was made redundant the jobcentre told me i should go for min wage jobs in London - But it would have ended up costing me money.

I do understand when people say working is not worth their while. And when i started this job 3 weeks ago i had to stump up £500 for the travel card in advance as i get paid monthly.

I said to the Jobcentre, there should be some relief like a gov subsidised pass for the first month. I was lucky i could scrape it together - others aren't.

'' Stagecoach, owner of the South West Trains and East Midlands Trains franchises, has risked the ire of passengers, green campaigners and trade unions with plans to return £340m to shareholders ? including an £88m windfall for the brother and sister who founded the group.

Under the shareholder payout, worth 47p a share, Stagecoach's chief executive, Sir Brian Souter, will take away £51m and his sister, Ann Gloag, will earn just under £37m

The announcement comes just days after commuters learned that they faced the highest rises in rail fares since the industry was privatised in the mid-1990s''.

I'm speechless.

I know there are individual stories of hardship, but I think really, although we might all be finding things less comfortable than they were, in a society where 27% of all food purchsed by families ends up in the bin, we've got a long way to go before we can consider ourselves desperate source

I keep hearing how everyone's having to economise yet, there's always a queue at Pizza Express, Take That sell out within days of the tickets going on sale, Theme parks are crowded everyday all summer...it seems there are still plenty who aren't feeling the pinch

The heating thing really annoys me actually. We've become spolied. Yes, the elderly must have the means to keep warm, but I wear the same clothes in the winter as a I do in the summer because shops, offices, friends houses are all so warm. You're supposed to put some jumpers on in the winter. I only ever need proper winter clothes in my house.