AIBU to be totally confused (cost of living crisis)

[LittleBitHeiressLittleBitIris]

AIBU to not be able to understand/ grasp the scale of impending disaster that is building over the increased cost of living?

I genuinely don't see how millions of people with outgoings that are about to be actually higher than income is going to play out.

I'm not trying to be goady and obviously realise no-one has a crystal ball but am I missing something? Has this ever happened before in other recent times/ other cultures and what was the result. I can't even imagine what could happen.

I feel really clueless! Any ideas/ opinions/ further reading much appreciated 👍

@alltheapples

Poorer women were working.

Most weren't, though. It was the exception rather than the rule.

I don’t know anyone who didn’t have enough to eat

I don't know anyone who doesn't have enough to eat right now. But clearly there are people or there would be no need for food banks. Just because you didn't know anyone in the 70's who had a difficult life, doesn't mean no one did.

Johnson doesn't give a f* about ordinary people. It's going to be dire for many people and our politicians are not listening.

@fallfallfall

what did people do in the 20's; well simple meals, extra clothing and nothing new. homes were tiny and furniture sparce. people used their time making and selling. no tv, no "nail art", no phones in most homes, people added things to meat to stretch it out (oatmeal in ground beef, eggs and breadcrumbs). oil filled lamps for a couple hours after sunset and in bed by 8-9. awake with the sun. they used scraps of material to make rugs in the winter. but everyone was in the same situation (although some were very wealthy).

Average families yes, but unfortunately it wasn't like that for the really poor.

I'll tell you what my mum did in the late 20's.

She went to school with a potato which was baked by the side of the fire in the classroom all morning. That was the only thing she had to eat all day. She slept in her school uniform as it was the only clothing she possessed, and if her parents couldn't find anyone to give them their children's worn out old shoes, she and my uncle went to school barefoot. Some Sundays they were lucky to have a boiled egg for their dinner. The whole family got TB and three of them - my grandmother and the two youngest children - all died within a few weeks of one another in 1935.

My grandad had no work and no money. He was a master cobbler. People don't buy new shoes or pay you to mend their shoes if they can't afford to have them mended. My mum had to leave school aged 14 and get a job, and her younger brother, my uncle, was sent to Barnardo's children's home.

People had to get on with the cards life had dealt them. I only found out most of this after the last of them died and I started researching my family history. They rarely ever talked about it when they were alive, it would have been too painful so they blocked it out I suppose. It was how they dealt with it.

@FlowerArranger

when you pay taxes for the majority of your life and get taxed AGAIN when you come to draw your pension on money that's already been taxed when you are working

@PurpleThursdays - You don't pay tax on pension contributions or NI...

NI IS a tax when you work.

You get taxed on your pension when you draw it down. So you work and you are taxed. You finally get to retire and you are taxed. It's a crock of shit.

Same with fuel, you pay duty on fuel and the 20% vat on top. Greedy fuckers everywhere.

@DressingPafe

I don’t know anyone who didn’t have enough to eat

I don't know anyone who doesn't have enough to eat right now. But clearly there are people or there would be no need for food banks. Just because you didn't know anyone in the 70's who had a difficult life, doesn't mean no one did.

I knew plenty of people who had difficult lives, mine wasn’t a bed of roses. The reason people didn’t starve was because benefits were enough to live on in those days and there weren’t sanctions.

@speakout

I think we will need to re-learn old skills. I grew up in a house with no central heating, no phone, no fridge. Clothes and shoes were mended at home, food stretched- I grew up on root vegetables and cabbage! We foraged for wood for the fire. We had no car, no holidays. I had no idea we were poor- it's only looking back I realise that.

I have all those skills. I sew clothes, knit jumpers, I make sausages and bread. I lived in a house only heated by a wood burner (five years ago)

It’s not cheaper. It’s more expensive. We don’t have a fire in our newish build and school has this ridiculous idea that my child should attend daily, rather than go out foraging for firewood. Also, we don’t have enough wood in the whole country, let alone within easy reach of most homes. It’s not actually possible for most people to live like that these days even if you want to.

@DressingPafe

I don’t know anyone who didn’t have enough to eat

I don't know anyone who doesn't have enough to eat right now. But clearly there are people or there would be no need for food banks. Just because you didn't know anyone in the 70's who had a difficult life, doesn't mean no one did.

I definitely did in the 80s. And kids who came to school in shorts & plimsolls in winter because those were only clothes/shoes they had

@Grantanow

Johnson doesn't give a f* about ordinary people. It's going to be dire for many people and our politicians are not listening.

If hyperinflation, I think even he will have to care. As him and the MPs[apart from the very richest] cannot afford hyperinflation either[definition of hyperinflation is costs going up 50% one month, then 50% on top of that the next month and so on and so on..]

VAT on utilities is only 5%, so no biggie if it gets removed. What we need is a windfall tax on energy companies

1970s

Benefits were enough to give people the basics , council housing was affordable and available and good quality

Possibly helped by the fact that the highest rates of taxation were significantly greater than today

Income tax was favoured over VAT , the later affects those less well off more

People didn't spend thier lives miserable though - and once you have the basics ( food and a roof over your head ) your happiness is barely affected by your wealth , it can be affected by your relative wealth - be that compared to neighbours , or your past life

And your pensions savings get taken off your salary before your salary gets taxed, because your pensions savings get taxed when you draw on them later on in life instead. You aren’t taxed twice.

How would you know if someone couldn't afford 3 meals a day or to heat their homes? You wouldn't because it's not the kind of thing people brag about. When I had no money years ago I didn't even confide in family and friends because I was so scared my children would be taken away and I was embarrassed I had got into such a bad situation. The children were fed and clothed (albeit in school uniform that had seen better days) but I lost a lot of weight and was unwell.

You pay tax on your pension. Not NI though.

@PurpleThursdays I don’t think you know how pension tax relief works. If you tell us what you think happens, we can explain it to you. You’d don’t get taxed twice on pensions. You get tax relief on the payments you make - up to a maximum payment of £40K pa, but capped on your gross salary.

It’s only when you draw it down that you get taxed on it, and even then you don’t get taxed on your personal allowance (currently £12500) and then only on 75% of the rest.

So you could put £40K in this year and pay no tax.
And if you took that out all in one year in retirement, plus approx £9K of state pension, you’d only get taxed on £36750.

And in reality, you wouldn’t be taking it all in one year, so less tax than that 🤷🏻‍♀️

@douper

There's a troubling air of what can almost be described as glee that people who don't make the same or sensible life choices might come unstuck here.

Yes also the very progressive "I coped without food or heat, so should you" 🙄

Agree. Playing at being frugal, cutting back, making savings, make do and mend is all fun when it's not real. When people have the healthy savings account that they could tap into in an emergency, have their nice house, garden, access to free entertainment and the time and the headspace to think of things to do, ways to cut back.....all the while knowing that if they needed to they could take the hit and turn the heating on, buy that bar of chocolate or have the gas to cook that cheap piece of meat for hours.

When it's real, it's not fun.

I’ve been having same thoughts. We are really fortunate to be comfortable, but I have started making cut backs. Recently went to see my friend, off work long term with cancer. Rent has gone up by a quarter!, heating is constantly on as she is poorly and windows need replacing. Money now half from work and everything costing more. She was extremely worried and it really upset me that she was in this position at the time she should be recovering and relaxing. It’s shocking and it’s so heartbreaking. People are going to be pushed into serious debt it’s so worrying.

@beguilingeyes

You pay tax on your pension. Not NI though.

More correct to say pension is taxable income. Whether you actually pay tax depends on your personal allowance. And there’s the 25% tax free drawing, either as Tax Free Lump Sum, or ongoing via drawdown.

VAT on utilities is only 5%, so no biggie if it gets removed

Or of course they could always increase it

Even at 5% it's not hard to see why increases in utility prices are useful for them ... after all those Covid costs have got to be recouped somehow, and never mind that so much got spent on cronies rather than the greater good

This isn't about people who took on huge mortgages (although clearly they might have to make changes), but it's about people who were already managing their incomes down to the last penny. Who didn't have any wriggle room, not because of decisions they made, but because their wages and benefits aren't high enough, and because food, fuel, rents, and everything else have outstripped their incomes. They are already heating just one room. They are already cutting back on food. They have no luxuries. They can't afford bus fare even. That's now. It's going to get much much worse.

It's not about learning to cook - most do that. It's not about porridge, or allotments or gaming consoles. It's simply that those people do not have enough money. It's desperate now, and it's only going to get worse. The only people that can do something is the government. And they really don't give a toss about poor people in this country.

@Silvershroud

We are in unprecedented times. The disaster of Brexit, then Covid, now the brink of WW3 in Ukraine. What will the next 12 months bring?

At this point, an alien invasion would not feel out of place.

@itsnotdeep

Absolutely, perfectly put

@itsnotdeep I have a massive mortgage and I couldn't agree more with this.

@XenoBitch

I can give you an example...I have a relative who can no longer afford to eat and heat. He has had heating off for ages... was in tears to his mum that he was done with feeling cold. His landlord has increased rent by 20%... a huge amount. He is considering suicide rather than living now.

Can’t move in with others?

@alltheapples

It reminds me of the 1980s in parts of the country decimated by Thatchers' policies. I lived on a council estate and loads of people had their heating turned off and used those awful paraffin heaters to heat one room in the house. Ice on the inside of windows in the winter was commonplace. Most kids did not do any paid activities except for maybe cubs and brownies. And the food was basic and cheap. And we had the threat of nuclear war then as well.

It is shit and it is because of the government we have. They do not care about ordinary people at all. Lots of people will suffer even more. And you will still get well off people on places like MN patronising and lecturing those struggling.

Yes, I remember this in the mining communities of South Yorkshire. And children sharing beds to keep warm and wearing older siblings hand down clothes, even shoes and underwear. Fortunately fish and chips were relatively cheap......