to wonder why the govt are not doing anything about the spiralling cost of living?

[dirtyface]

they are making cuts left right and centre, but IMO are not looking at the bigger picture which is the REAL reason people are so skint. ie because of the cost of living ie food, gas, electric, (my particular bugbear) petrol , housing, local taxation.

this is why people are not spending money on the high street etc. its cos no bugger has got any disposable income after they have been fleeced every month paying for the essentials. i for one spend a good proportion of my earnings on petrol, so does dh and i am sure i speak for many people

obviously i am mostly talking about mr and mrs average joe on average incomes, ie, say min wage to about 30k or so. but am sure the higher earners are squeezed as well esp with them cutting off CB and tax credits etc after a certain income

whats going to happen? is it just going to keep going up and up. it scares me

disclaimer: i don't understand how any of this works so sorry if i sound thick. there is probably some clever obvious reason why "they" cant sort the cost of living out a bit

YANBU to wonder that, indeed. Some things they have very little control over- for example, the price of food is affected by growing world demand and bad weather over the last couple of years (yes, and profiteering by commodities traders too).

Successive governments could very well have done something about the cost of housing, by not selling off council housing stock, introducing legislation on how much mortgage lenders are allowed to lend etc, but they chose not to, as (charitable interpretation) they saw rising house prices and construction as a driver of the economy once they'd got rid of our manufacturing industries, (uncharitable interpretation) they're bessie mates with the banks, who are the true ones who stand to profit if house prices are sky high.

Fuel is expensive because it's so heavily taxed- but what else would be better to tax in its place (apart from mansions, obviously ).

And, to answer your original question, it suits this government just fine to see most people struggling, as they see it an opportunity to turn people against each other - "strivers vs scroungers" etc.

YANBU. They don't give a shit.

I can't believe how much rent is.
We are in SE London and we have a mortgage on our 3 bed terrace. The mortgage is £800 a month repayment.
The house next door has gone up for rent and it's gone on for £1650 a month....who the hell can afford that?
So loads of people could afford a mortgage but can't get one cos of not enough deposit or someone decides their salary is not enough.

As someone said, David Cameron thinks he's typically middle class so what's the big deal?

Broken, the VAT system already does what you are suggesting (to an extent).

Someone is making money off it ... That is whose interests they serve.

Also the Tories are in the pockets of business - they complain about Labour and the Unions but at least the unions fight for workers' rights.

I heard a business man complain about paying people the minimum wage - as if it was a burden to actually pay a decent wage. How can it be good that people are forced into low paying jobs which cannot support a family, therefore needing welfare to prop them up? Businesses bleat about the costs but they have a motive to make money, plain and simple. It's disgusting.

I agree 100%.

I earnt £36k last year so am on a higher income than many. DH isn't working and looks after the children. We are not entitled to any benefits other than CB although I recently found out I was entitled to around £7 a month in CTC which I am not going to bother claiming.

By the time I have paid bills, car, petrol, mortgage, insurance etc etc, I have very, very little left. I know I am better off than many on here (and worse off than many also) so I'm not moaning as such.

But I hold down a professional job, work hard with very, very unsociable hours etc and have worked continuously since leaving FT education 20 years ago and sometimes I think that why shouldn't I be 'entitled' to a few luxuries, e.g a 5 star holiday rather than Pontins or Haven which we did earlier in the year.

My last job (which I was forced out of - long story), I was paid £7 an hour for waking night shifts.

I was one of the highest paid staff there.

Unsustainable is indeed the word.

So how long can we all sustain it? Or, better yet, what do we do about it? Can anyone fix it?

The main problem is for those who live darn sarth. I live up north in a detatched pad i paid off the mortgage on 5 years ago, and im fecking minted!

Fatal, that is so harsh. I bought my first flat in the early nineties on my salary of £10k pa with 100% mortgage that lenders were throwing at first time buyers. I was 22. It makes me fume that my DC will not be able to do the same. My mortgage was much cheaper than renting so it was a valid financial move.
Where did it all go wrong?

I will tell you where a lot of it went wrong katie. Greedy by to let landlords eating up available property, thus squeezin already limited supply and forcing prices up. Plus london properties being snapped up by rich foreigners, often as a way of hiding cash.

Just dreadful. A home of your own shouldn't be an impossible dream for an employed adult in this day and age. It's all wrong

It's all a big mess isn't it?

Plus the problems are different in different parts of the country which means people get envious of each other when really it's a bit crap for most people, just in different ways.

ie, my rural friend can afford to rent a 3 bed house with a garden for less than our one bed flat in London. But when she was looking for a job she couldn't find any for love nor money (she's SAHMing now). On the other hand, it took me 6 weeks from getting my qualification to getting a fulltime job (in the exact same field as her).

And I can't imagine how we're ever going to afford babies but our household income is bang on 'avarage' - including presumably for people who have 2 or 3 children.

It's easy to say "should do/have done something"

But what is that something?

When I bought there was a tax exemption, Miras, I think it was called. Plus an availability of 100% mortgages for first time buyers. That would be a good start.

The rise of petrol costs and minimum wage raises the cost of everything imo. When costing the manufacture of an item, transport and the cost of employment is included which raises the cost price. Of course its no excuse to pay less than minimum wage to people but it does impact on the cost of an item or service, which is why importing goods is more cost effective but then add the increasing cost of transportation and raw materials (copper has shot up in price) and then it's spiraling. I can't really see an easy way out tbh.

I agree that the affluent govt will never understand how hard it is for us to live on a limited household budget. Poor job security, rising costs of living are demoralising and depressing day to day hardships most of us have to live with. I suppose most generations will believe they had it the hardest too, I guess I expected our lives to be easier than this in 2013.

Well because due to the fucked up economy, the Brits decided their best way out of it was to launch (I think it's three now) rounds of QE (Quantitive Easing - i.e., printing enormous amounts of money). This devalues the currency on the international markets.

As we import petrol and energy for heating - can you guess what the consequence is yet?

That in addition of course to the fact everyone expects to stroll around indoors in t-shirts in the winter.

The government can't really do much about energy or food prices which are global and simply a case of supply and demand. More people on the planet plus China and India industrialising = higher demand = higher prices.

How to fix it? Have fewer kids, become a vegetarian, commercialise cold fusion.

They could reduce tax on those things though, especially petrol.

Yanbu!

Wages could and should rise. The top earners have had huge pay increases over the last ten years and shareholder dividends are massive but still the lowest paid in those companies earn shite money and it's getting worse.

It would damage them none to be more responsible with sharing out profits more equally, but this government won't put pressure on them to do it as it hurts their financial interests.

I wish we had More and better unions and a proper socialist party to oppose the current four main parties who are varying degrees of right wing... And so is most of the media.

It's all self interested, free market capitalism and I expect to see more privatisation and a bigger divide between rich and poor.

The government has plenty of levers to make a difference to prices and the cost of living. It can introduce a better minimum wage and incentivise business to pay better wages because they won't do it off their own backs.

Just sitting back and thinking nothing can be done is exactly why nothing is done.

The Governement did abolish Labour's fuel duty escalator -how much tax could be taken off fuel without hurting revenues too much? And would any cut really reach the pockets of households?

I can see it could make a big difference to distribution costs for all sorts of goods, but I don't see how the Government can ensure that savings to companies would be passed on in lower costs for goods on shelves.

Most food is VAT exempt,so I don't think there's a tax cut to be had there.

How much would the minimum wage have to rise by to make a difference?