Rising cost of living!

[CrawfordE]

Hi, first time poster here! AIBU stressing about the constantly rising cost of everything? While fuel and food costs keep going up, our salaries have hardly increased from last year. On paper we may seem well off, but with so much going out it's sometimes hard to keep up. School fees have gone up yet again (by more than inflation) so we've now had to consider sending DC to the local comprehensive which we would really like to avoid if at all possible. We're hoping to pay down some of the mortgage with DH's bonus which should help a little at least. I know that we're still in a relatively fortunate position, but I can't be the only one feeling the pinch a bit?

Hmm YANBU, wages are not keeping pace and haven’t for many years. But I’m grabbing the popcorn for this!

YANBU about the rising cost of living, but if there are things that you’re finding hard to afford, could you look at cutting back a bit? Is there anything that you could cut back on?

We're definitely feeling it and I know others will say that we should be grateful because we aren't living hand to mouth like others are being forced to but it still stings.

Dd off to uni soon and that's going to take another chunk of our income so I'm currently making plans to save even more money one way or another.

Imagine. The local comprehensive! Seriously, maybe you should have a look at the way the cost of living is actually impacting normal people.

How awful having to use DH BONUS

Dreadful nomorewashing imagine!

Popcorn and watching .

You’re going to get grief OP but YANBU.

Everyone would like to keep (or improve) their standard of living, whatever level that might be. If your son is at private school, of course you’d like to keep the status quo for him.

Look at cutbacks, it’s only going to get worse.

And some people would love a standard of living that just means heating and food.

Well Op at least in your situation you have identifiable ways to cut back.

Imagine already being on the breadline.

Sorry OP but a lot of people are struggling to stretch their salary to rent/mortgage/bills/childcare and basic needs, let alone private school and using bonuses. You might not get a great response..

Cost of living is concerning but you are lucky if you have had pay rises however insignificant.

It's not going to get any better for the next few years but I must admit I have more sympathy for those who can't save on private school fees!

Caramel popcorn and a diet coke combo. I'm settling in..........

Hahahaha this is brilliant!

As part of my job, I visit people living on £123 per fortnight. That is for the remaining water & sewerage element of Council Tax (Scotland), utilities, food, travel, phone, haircuts and EVERYTHING else. That's hard rather than having to use DH's bonus to pay down the mortgage & have children at private school with rising school fees (FFS, can some people hear themselves?!? Or goady fucker??)

Well 52% of people voted for Brexit and the pound has gone down in value, which causes higher inflation. So the vast majority of people are worse off.

The uncertainty we have over the Brexit deal given some of the people involved in agreeing it means it is not going to be much better for many years.

It's fun though isn't it?? People so far divorced from reality they think life is terribly tricky nowadays when they have to used a bloody bonus for the mortgage! Nightmarrrr

gets popcorn

OP you are going to get an absolute flaming for this. YANBU about the rising cost of living though. But you ARE very fortunate to have options and having a DH who is still getting bonuses in this financial crisis mess (I’m assuming that’s his sector could be wrong obviously!) is pretty damn amazing.

We are hoping to do private secondary school for our kids (they are at state primary though) so I actually understand about the school fees BUT it’s really not the end of the world if you can’t do that... that would be a HUGE saving.

If you don’t want to do that, look at other ways you can cut back- I’m going to assume (again correct me if wrong!) that there are LOTS of luxuries you could cut back on?!

Yanbu re cost of living

But the rest - hope this is a joke.

I honestly think these threads are started to be goady. As a fellow fee-paying parent who also just had the letter about next academic years’ fee increases. YABVVVU!

YANBU however, your hardly uncomfortable. I know people having to live on £73 a week. Thats to cover all bills. I am sure you dont mean to sound goady...

YANBU to notice, but you are ridiculous if you can’t see what a fortunate position you are in.

You could save c.£10k a year easily (conservative estimate) on fees each child - very few have that option with little effort.

You own home - way out of reach of many people these days.

I actually work for an independent school as a Finance Manager and find the financial gymnastics some parents go through to keep their kids there insane.

Reverse/piss-take?

school fees ?? Do you pay privately ?

The reality is that for all but the very richest in the UK wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation. We were told without austerity we’d be in the position of Greece, but actually only Greece in the EU has seen worse wage repression than the UK. We bailed out the financial sector and while that sector has recovered we have paid for that bail out. Do you know based on the CIA factbook we now rank 40th globally for average wage per capita? I’m really concerned for the future.