To ask why everything is so f**kin' expensive?!

[MummyStruggles]

Just that really?

And, also, there's ALWAYS "something" that needs to be bought or replenished i.e new pillows and duvets for the whole household! Grrrr!

Meant to be a lighthearted thread but you know, I get really bloody stressed about it!

Anyone else?

Things you cannot live without have all gotten soo expensive:

housing
travel
food
childcare

it doesnt matter that clothes, music, dvds etc are all cheap if the basics are crippling.

Salaries have gone down massively in real terms.

I put the salary I was on 10 years ago into an inflation calculator, it would be 45000 now. Salaries in my area are around 30000 - 35000.

So I'm effectively 10k poorer

happy days!

I live in a very old house wh our everyone said 'don't buy-it will cost you a fortune' about.
They were right. We had the windows repaired, it damaged the render, we had the render repaired, it damaged the render above it...and so it goes on...

That as well as every living which does as you say op seem to be going up and 3 major household appliances going on the blink since Feb and we are really brassic just now-despite careful planning.
It's very disheartening.

I agree, it just seems never ending.

The warm weather has arrived and I looked out the summer clothes. DS1 needed about 5 new pieces of clothing, plus sunhat plus sunglasses but annoyingly so did DS2 because the hand-me-downs from DS1 are in an awful condition.

DS1 gets holes in socks and trousers like nobodies business.

We seem to be permanently buying books too (no decent libraries here, especially not with English books).

I do have to say though that food in France is much more expensive than in England. I am always surprised at just how cheap stuff is in England. I find children's clothes much more expensive here too.

Gave up my home and gave up a lot of nice things for free to move in with my him. He then turned into an abusive twat, now living in a refuge, costing me over £1000 a month until I can get a home through the council, as I have no money for fee's, deposit to go into rented and every letting agent I spoke to said I need a guarantor which I don't have. If I do get a home to move to I have no way of furnishing it. I looked around ikea the other day and got a few bits of kitchen stuff and buying the cheapest it still cost me more than I expected.

You don’t need to spend £250 quid on a Hoover! The advertisers may try to convince you that you do but you really don’t. Our supermarket one cost £60 (so not bottom of the range) and still works perfectly after 9 years. And pillows and duvets of reasonable quality can be got for not too much money- Argos, George at Asda, Amazon, Tesco. My sense is that you are a bit of a brand/label snob...

Son needs new school shoes. Dog needs grooming. Our youngest son decided to pick a scan on his knee and crawl across our pretty expensive white bed sheets. Can’t get the blood out, they need replacing. Our bath panel has cracked and needs replacing

I hear you. It's the same in this house. Though I do know what my mother would have done:-

*School shoes - non-negotiable.
*Dog - groom it herself.
*Sheets - dye them dark colour.
*Bath panel - repair/leave it.

Not saying I'd do that myself so I know how you feel, but we were brought up on a very tight budget and I guess that it how it was managed.

I don't think life is that expensive. Petrol I guess is but food is so cheap. The very large Easter eggs were being sold for 1.25 in tesco this weekend I remember growing up these were hugely expensive in woolworths. So much so I never got one from my parents. I can get tins of beans for 14p and loaves of bread for 34p if I wanted to. Pots of jam for not much over 20p. I bought a large chicken for 3.20 this weekend. All of these used to be far more expensive growing up. You can get few reasonable bottle of wine for a fiver. In aldi or lidl.

Housing costs however are huge and holidays are camping for us. We are working so hard to pay off our mortgage and this is our priority.

I do wonder about some people's standards though constantly whinging on about being skint yet have a 68 plate car on finance and a brand new iPhone. My car is 8 years old and is still perfect, lots lore lif e in it yet. My phone is a 90 quid smart phone. These things just aren't important to me.

Do dogs really need to be groomed? I thought that dog grooming parlours were a relatively recent American style import. I can’t think of any dog owner I knew growing up in a reasonable sized regional town who would have taken their dog to a groomer.

And if you have a high maintenance dog like an Old English sheepdog or a topiary poodle then surely you factor that ongoing cost in beforehand you buy it?

We finally got out of debt and then the boiler, car and dishwasher went wrong in the same week and we are creeping in again.. A food shop is so expensive, ours is £120 a week and that's getting cheap meals. It feels like we have no money for fun stuff.

OMG RussellSprout I found the inflation calculator and worked out I earn slightly less now than 18 years ago, and I considered my wage pretty shitty then! Also my mums house cost £55 k in today's money..worth probably £300k now..

OP - maybe you could try looking on some of the frugal threads here and some of the other frugal sites. It can become addictive and quite fun even - seeing how much you can save. Start a savings account and every time you make another frugal decision (eg, grooming the dog yourself) put the £££ saved into the account and watch it add up.

There’s always something isn’t there? I always think “oh, I can save some money this week as I don’t need to buy anything”, then the tumble dryer breaks, the car needs tyres and the kids need shoes.

this thread is

to the poster saying about increasing weights - buy a set of barbells with add on adjustable weights. Mine are from Argos, re different weight for different exercise, I got spare barbells from ebay so I can just pick up the different weight right away. That's all weight increases sorted up to about 12.5kg I think, so all variations for £30 in total.

£200 for haircut and dye? £100 for trainers?

didn't understand £250 for hoover either.

poster who said builders had deemed things "unsafe" - they have an interesting definition of "unsafe" so do check this, sometimes they just mean "in the modern age, we wouldn't fit xyz".

Dog grooming - well pets aren't cheap and does the dog really need it?!

as for the queries over the cost of Disneyland - the mind boggles, it really does.

I've not found that buying things like cheaper kettle or hoover etc has been a problem at all. My mum is currently using a spare kettle that got left behind by a flatmate I had 20 years ago. I'm not sure what the total usage is - maybe the flatmate and I had it for 5 years, and mum's been using it about 7? We would have bought it in Argos I think.

Flatpack furniture lasted about 40 years in my olds' house - still remember the swearing when the MFI furniture was assembled. That stuff all survived the rigours of us running around as kids.

housing is expensive, but that's not what this thread is about, clearly.

JessieMcJessie What have I said that has made you believe that? Your "sense" is completely incorrect. Today I'm wearing a £6 t-shirt from Asos so please don't judge. I have mentioned the £250 vacuum because, yes I'm lead to believe they are the best but also because I don't want to have to fork out again each time something doesn't work anymore. Just because your £60 vacuum has lasted you 9 years doesn't mean to say that the next one would, but I'll give one a try and let you know how I get on!!

oh one poster talked about books - any book swaps in your area?

Luxuries like easter eggs are cheap, basics like housing and council tax are ridiculous.

It was the £250 vacuum MummyStruggles. Meet you back here in 9 years 😀.

This thread is a really good illustration of why we'rein environmental crisis. Always wanting more, and newer, and better. I know it's supposed to be light hearted but really? Who are this people who are supposed to work for nothing to keep us in consumer durables?

Petrol might seem expensive, but it's significantly cheaper than it was a few years ago. That's one reason why the official inflation figures might seem artificially low, because it includes things that have gone down, or stayed the same as well as up.

Many people have so much more these days, no wonder they're running out of money, because they've spent it all. I know some people don't have enough to cover the basics, but many are just spending too much on unnecessary shit.

Children used to get one easter egg if they were lucky, now they get loads of them. Countless other examples like £1000 smart phones, coffee and lunch out every day, dozens of pairs of shoes, handbags or clothing items. Houses stuffed with cushions and candles. Perfectly serviceable appliances, furniture or decoration replaced because it's no longer the height of fashion or 'to freshen things up'. It's endless and a lot of it isn't quite as necessary as people think.

Tell me about it. We're in the process of buying a house which is constant money, I need a new car, DD needs a whole nursery kitted out, cats need haircuts, I need a hair cut. We rent atm so when our house is ready we need a fridge, washing machine, dishwasher etc. Family wedding abroad which I don't think we'll go to as it stands. It's constant.

OP, I really recommend trying a cheaper vacuum. The warranty will be the same on all of them anyway.

I understand trying to reduce waste but don't let the marketing hype lead you to think that more expensive means it will last longer.

JessieMcJessie

Jingle "DD needs a whole nursery kitted out"

okay.....this thread is not aimed at people like me is it!

I've noticed in the past couple of years our basic living costs (food, petrol, buses, council tax, electric etc) have gone up a lot. Our mortgage payment hasn't changed much thanks to intetest rates being fairly but flats on our street that used to go for £400-450/month now go for £700 ish. I think money for extras, for most people, is getting more and more squeezed.