to ask why life is so expensive?

[clam]

It's just one thing after another. We're on a more-than-reasonable income, yet if I feel we're struggling to stick within our means, how the hell are others on a lower budget coping?
Every month I think things will calm down, but this month alone we have haircuts needed for all, a trip to the vet (£60) 2 dental hygienist appointments (£50 each!!!!!) and a check up (£35, no NHS available), new tyres needed for the car, MOT coming up, dd has only one pair of wearable shoes other than school ones, ditto ds and his feet have grown, ds theatre trip for drama GCSE, next installment of dd's school residential trip, music lesson fees due for the new term, exam fee, plus we have to pay the accompanist.... you get the picture. Plus I forgot to pay off the sodding credit card last month so just got hit with a late payment fee, plus interest.

Whether you are well off or struggling prices have risen dramatically and the bills keep coming in. I think that's what Clam was trying to say. If you are well off there are things that can be cut back if necessary, if you are not then there's nothing to cut back and it must be heartbreaking to have to say no to a child when it is because there is no money rather than because they have enough already - heartbreaking and tragic if the child has to sit in a cold room with an empty tummy.

In simple terms - I earn a reasonable public sector manager's salary. Nevertheless, in the last year or so I estimate that I am spending at least £100-£150 more at the supermarket each month and in the blink of an eye the cost of filling up the car seems to have shot from £45 to £100. As I am at the top of my payscale I haven't had a reasonable pay rise either for the last three years - something like 0.2%, £100 for the years and £125.00 for the year! If mine was the main income and we had a mortgage and two or three young children it is not difficult to see that times would be very tough in the niche between enough to ineligible for tax credits and looking forward to a cut in child benefit and not quite earning to maintain the standard of living we might have been used to before the recession.

bumblequeen "Some people are and always will be going on long haul holidays etc" Yes, you are right but I somehow feel that the numbers of us who can afford the things you mention are dwindling. (No figures to prove this I'm afraid)
amicissima Yes, as an older Mumsnetter I am with you. Life is getting tougher than ever for us. Particularly as the DCs are still at school.
Just had the reminder from DVLA to renew the photo on my driving licence (ten years already?) £20 fee plus another £4.50 if I use the Post Office service for the photo.
In the same post my Tax REturn stuff for the 2012-13 Tax Year.
Everybody seems to be after our cash these days, don't you feel.

I do think there is something awry with the economy.

We both work full time as lawyers and have no DCs. We are well off and I am grateful for this. We can afford to buy clothes when we want to and take holidays. I know this makes us more fortunate than many. However, I do marvel at the fact that we are both in our mid/late 30s with two good professional incomes and yet we can only afford to live in a 3 bed semi in an "up and coming" (read: somewhat dodgy) area of South London. I drive a 7 yr old car. It's not ancient but it's certainly not a gleaming new Range Rover. We don't lead extravagent lifestyles at all because we can't Most of my peers are in similar positions.

My parents seemed to have it rather better. Only one worked, so they were never doing washing at 10pm like we are. They had a new car every couple of years (there were tax benefits to this back then) and they were nice cars-BMWs and similar. We took holidays. They seemed to both have it easier (in terms of not having to work and take care of the house) and be more well off than we are.

I agree, in the 70s housing was cheaper, alot cheaper.

I remember my best friend and her 3 siblings lived in a big terraced house in the suburbs with a garden - 3 or 4 bedrooms. OK the furnishing was basic, no fashionable clothes, very basic holidays, no car etc.

But the parents had incredibly modest incomes, shopworker and p/t nurse. Probably in today's money around £40,000 salary combined. The house they lived in then would probably cost nearly £300-400,000 or more now. Today the same couple would lucky to afford a one-bedroomed flat, never mind four children.

That's interesting eurochick. Interesting to hear what other people's lives are like. London prices always scare me when we do a quick sight-seeing visit. I take your point too about your parents' generation being better off in real terms.
Of course, petrol and food price rises are the same for us all, whether we are on 7k or 70k per annum. The hard fact for Mumsnetters is that DCs eat a lot and also need transport so we are hit by a double whammy. Even the bus fares are going up now too. They can't all walk to school, it just is not practical or safe in certain cases.

eurochick yes I agree good post

I agree that property prices are a huge factor. It is not just the size of mortgage but the huge deposits . It must be very hard for first time buyers who do not have parents to help out. We are creating a society in with certain strands of society will be prevented from ever buying.

Totally agree with you clam, and finding it tough aswell - and not looking forward to yet another dip in income at the end of this month when dh and my pension contributions go up (sorry if you'd forgotten about yours and I've depressed you even more).

eurochick you are so right about our parents generation.

When we were growing up, my Dad worked and my Mum was a SAHM for a long time although she went back to work when we were older.

Big house, 2 cars frequently replaced, 3 holidays a year (at least 2 abroad including skiing), nice food, good wine.
Interestingly the things they didn't spend money on were constantly replacing things for the house, new clothes and certainly no labels, 'beauty products', and of course there were no expensive personal gadgets like phones, iPads and so on.
We used to eat out very occasionally, but there was no Starbucks or similar to hoover up an extra £20 on a trip into town, and for days out we always took a picnic and a flask of tea. An ice-cream was a major treat and buying lunch or even a cake on a day out was almost unheard of.

Yes housing costs were more manageable in relation to income, but actually they spent a lot less on day to day things such as I've listed above, so there was more money for holidays and so on.

I agree that holidays aren't a necessity but sometimes you can feel that you will go mad if you keep looking at your own four walls. A trip away can be very restorative to the balance of family life.

I consider pets and smoking luxuries, but not music lessons.

According to MN we are on a reasonable income, live in an average house and have an average amount of DC. But it's a financial struggle, and we are unable to save.

I am when people who must surely earn less than us buy new cars and go on foreign holidays. I have no idea how they do it. I consider myself very savvy, but won't compromise on heating. I hate being cold.

I think that it's this one generation - the baby boomer types and a bit after them - that had this real golden age which has never happened before and will never happen again.

Compared to the average victorian person we are all wealthy beyond imagination - and to most of the rest of the world as well.

Still that doesn't help when it's your here and now and things are tight and jobs are going and mortgage rates are going up and food is more expensive and it's all getting a bit stressful.

I agree. I think there was a sort of post war blip where things seemed propserous for people who weren't mega high earners and we all expect it to be the same.

Budgeting, budgeting and thinking very carefully about what you can lose and what you can't.

On another note, I wish there wasn't such a moral hierarchy about the things you buy. There always seems to be this implication that some people are being precious because they pay for music lessons/cars/holidays/haircuts/meals out etc. As if some non essentials are outrageous and others acceptable. For God's sake, it's out money.

Our money. Not out money.

Post war myth that living standards should or will keep rising & rising.
Actually living standards were very up and down historically, looking back hundreds of years, but we have lost the cultural memory of that, and anyway I guess it's scant comfort when it's your own living standard that's fallen.

That said, most of my living relatives have had living standards up and down sharply in their lives, so it doesn't seem weird to me at all.

Some excellent posts on this thread. I think everyone is feeling the pinch these days, whether it's their 'diamond shoes' being too tight, or stuffing cardboard in last years wellies to make them last.

We are doing 'OK', but this time last year were doing 'Well'. Who knows what next year will bring? There is certainly less money at the end of the month, everything is more expensive, food, clothes, petrol, everything.

I used to be able to just buy what I wanted. I'm not a 'clothes horse', very much George and Tu. But if I saw a top I liked when doing a food shop, I could buy it. These days I see one, check the tag and if it's more that £20 I put it back. Even at £20 I find myself weighing up how often I'd wear it, what it would go with, pulling at the seams to check it will last. I can't actually remember the last time I bought myself something, but I'm sitting here looking at DD's arse showing because her leggings are too small realising that I need to take her shopping and wondering how much it will cost this time.

I could have retired this year. My contract ended in the summer and I was looking forward to it, I really was. But when the chance to extend for 2 years came up I jumped at it. It's 2 years more wages, 2 years more savings and 2 years not having to worry.

5 years ago, hell 2 years ago, I didn't think it would be like this. It just seems so wrong.

nkf and rhonda- to put in context, I was polite to the OP, she was rude in reply, hence harsh post

She wasn't rude, she said you had missed the point, which you had.

You were pretty rude in your original post too (diamond shoes?) and fifteen years without seeing a dentist goes against all the nhs guidance, I'd pop down and get checked if I were you.

Round my way the cinemas and restaurants are all full and if you want to book any beauty treatment at Clarins in John Lewis there is 2 month wait - I find this completely incomprehensible in a recession

Oh yes and the airports are all full too

We are supposed to be in a recession and Poundland/World etc are opening everywhere as other shops close. Tesco/Waitrose etc are proliferating and people are flocking to Jo Malone etc. I can't understand how this shopping mania happened. Do we need chutney at 4am? Petrol is expensive and likely to go higher. My parents worked v.hard but for sure stuff was cheaper then (1960s) and there was less 'stuff' to buy. Food/clothes etc were neccessities. I'm 50+ and can remember a time not that long ago when people who drove a Mercedes/Jaguar etc were quite rare but now you see those marques and others all over the place. Company cars can create an illusion of success. I know someone who had an AMG Mercedes as a company car but got rid of it for a pick-up truck as the Merc cost £10k per year in tax and a realtive works for range Rover and gets a new car every 11 mnths (generally a hi-spec range Rover) that costs him £250 a month all-in excluding petrol

In 2010 the ONS reported 55.6M visits abroad by UK residents - a drop of 20% since 2006.

I therefore conclude that it is still far more usual than not for people to go abroad on holiday and that many people on less than average incomes still go abroad at least once a year.

Does that include business trips though efa?