To ask for your rising cost of living examples

[CervixSampler]

Inspired by another thread but mainly by my own experiences today.
In February it was 20p to use the public loos at our favourite seaside town. Today it has doubled to 40p! There are now contactless points incase you don't have any cash. 40p to pee!
Mr Kipling cherry Bakewells have jumped to £1.90 in Asda and I'm sure they used to be £1.40 or sometimes even £1 and that was only a few weeks back. Cake isn't essential I know, but peeing is. Things have gone up generally but the odd pence here and there isn't always noticed but these are huge jumps.

I agree @XingMing - my experience of inflation is much higher than the official figures. At least 15% but maybe even higher than that.

e.g. my current dishwasher is broken. When I looked to replace it, the same model that I paid £700 3 years ago, is currently being sold for at least £1000 (brand new), often higher.

A friend of mine paid £25k for a brand new T-Roc about 3 years ago. This last week the VW garage just called her up and wanted to now if she'd trade it in.

They offered her around £28-30k for it (depending on condition) as a sale or trade in.

She has literally made money by driving it around for 3 years

The increased value of the car doesn't surprise me at all. Used cars have skyrocketed in price due to lack of supply for a variety of reasons

the new price is £2.50 per dozen, and they are the best, freshest eggs, straight from the hens. Not complaining! I don't grudge the producer the proper price.

Wow, that's comparable with supermarket prices. Absolute bargain - and definitely worth supporting a little business.

Garden compost has gone up about £1 a bag and no cheaper multi buy offers.Even the cheap small Wilko bag that was 99p is now £1.50.Perlite and vermiculite were £7 and now £9. Pretty much all gardening and growing essentials have gone up and the likes of Wilko who are cheaper than the garden centres have very little stock.

Totally agree with @XingMing and @Ferntastical that inflation is double the official figures at least. It is nearer 50% on household energy, around 20% on fuel, I think, maybe 8 or 10% on food although some items much more. These are the things that actually affect people, not the occasional purchase of a TV. Also, even the politicians and central bank agree that it will continue to rise.

Everything!
My rent went up £25 a month, my council tax has gone up, my food shopping bill has gone up, could easily feed 2 adults and DS for less than £30 a week but my shop today was £40!! Formula (only has top ups from BF luckily) has gone up a pound!

The chip shortage is probably to blame here too for your dishwasher.

it’s not just cars but almost all household goods that use them.

we can’t prevent everything from breaking but we really need to be much more careful with our appliances and seek a repair first if possible.

I am hoping that some of the shortages will make otherwise wasteful people look at repairing things but on the other hand it’s poorer people who are going to be hit with the supply/demand price rises.

Slightly OT I’ve been pondering here where my nearest laundrette is should washers break or to use the bigger driers in winter to ‘pre pay’ drying clothes and there isn’t one. I live in a very deprived area and there isn’t a laundrette within walking distance. It’s a 20/30min bus journey away. So many people who who could need of this service and it doesn’t exist.

communal resources like laundrettes, tool hires etc really need to return to being the norm imo.

Asda multi buys have increased in price.
It was 3 crisp multipacks for £3.50, now £3.75
Meat was 3 for £10, now 2 for £7 and doesn't include lamb which it used to.

On the plus side, my car insurance has gone down by about £50 this year.

The loaf cakes are 2 for £2 now, 2 weeks later

I do think that the supermarkets are "jumping on the bandwagon" somewhat. What a great excuse to make some extra profit. No way is it costing them double to make loaf cakes in Asda.

These little loaf cakes at asda in the bakery section used to be 75p each or 2 for £1. I loved the lemon one! They're now £1 each or 2 for £1.50. Just seems like a big increase.

i heard something on the radio yesterday about lemon cheesecake - many supermarkets sell lemon cheesecake (slices or whole cheesecake) and they're all made at the same factory out of the same base ingredients

The packaging is what makes them either value range or luxury "Finest" plus the addition of words like "Sicilian Lemoncila" can add £2 to the pack! Daylight robbery by the food industry.

DH spent over £80 in Sainsbury's but didn't really get much, just bits. I was pretty cross when I realised he'd bought 4 x 50ml showers gels for our holiday, 2 x 50ml sun creams and 2 x mini toothpastes. £9!!! A big thing of shower gel can be bought for 50p and you can buy suncream over there.

@TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo

Just saw your post regarding the new tax threshold being per job.

Could you explain a little please.

I am about to lower my hours in my paye job and am taking on a part time self employed role elsewhere to earn more money.

How will the new rule in July change how my tax works?

@wtfisgoingonhere21 it's the NI threshold not the tax threshold - sorry if that wasn't clear!

It will depend on how much you will be earning in your new reduced hours PAYE John but I'll add a screenshot of a table that shows the difference for different levels of earnings.

Just be mindful that if you are earning less than 12750 per year (the new threshold) then ideally you should be paying a NI stamp directly otherwise you may end up losing some of your state pension and access to some benefits. More info here... www.gov.uk/voluntary-national-insurance-contributions

Hope that helps!

No idea why my phone added a random John into that sentence!!

@EveningOverRooftops - Yes, I think the chip shortage is related to the dishwasher price increase, but I don't think it's the whole story. I work in IT (in an area that relies on chip suppliy chains) and the price differences we are seeing at work are not in the same league as the dishwasher price increase. Though some of the lead times involved now in chip supply are mind boggling.

Luckily, it was always very likely to be fixed not replaced, if at all feasible. It's just as part of that process I had looked at the cost of new ones and was shocked at them. The high cost of the fix, however, may be all chip (it needs a new control centre): £280!! eek.

@TheDoveFromAboveCooCoo

Thank you so much for that info.

Yes I will definitely be paying extra stamp for national insurance if I need to for state pension etc.

I'm just working things out so I'm not stuck forever in the mill of earning for others and not myself so been readin a lot on tax vat n ins and what can be claimed etc etc.

Thank you for your help

For me I noticed that the baby wipes in Aldi went from 64 individual wipes in a pack to 60. Then a couple of weeks later I saw the price has risen from £2.99 to £3.29!

So not only have Aldi deprived of us 24 individual wipes within a box. They’ve now put the price up by 30p too🥲 I can’t take this life anymore!

Me and dh have been working our full time jobs plus a side job between us since October last year due to covid ruining our finances over two years

It's helped us claw bak into the not so tight squeeze we were in and also helped to clothe th dc when they've needed stuff but it's been really friggin hard and tiring working 7 days a week and the added rushing round whilst still juggling home kids etc etc.

By March after a big car bill we managed to pay off things got easier so we lowered the amount of hours in our side jobs to have some time off the manic loop.

However doing our household figures in March and realising how much our outgoings would be going up by from April onwards we've had to up the side job hours again

We got to Thursday and I sat and did figures for the month of may and pay etc and it dawned on us both that we are now after getting straight for one month going to have to keep on with all the extra hours because we have birthdays summer holidays and all the extra expenses to cover that's now not going to be covered from our main salaries because the cost of everything has gone up by hundreds each month

It's like a friggin hamster wheel of keeping everything going and not completely losing my shit.

I feel really angry and frustrated a lot of the time and it's a horrible feeling.

Add to it that I had not even a few percent pay rise (for the fourth year running now ) and my national insurance has gone down as well as dhs im at the stage where I could humanly combust at times it's dreadful.

What a fucking way to live in the times we are in eh.

Daisychain01, I bought DMum a Morrisons extra special or whatever their fancy schmancy brand is, lemon cheesecake. It would serve 4 normal people, was, admittedly, pretty tasty and was reduced to £1.07 from £4.25 - no way would I have paid full price for it.

Your situation is exactly the same as ours. I took in my second job to have money for nice things but now it’s all going on bills. It’s utter shit.

Ouch but much cheaper than the new dishwasher. Ive budgeted a replacement oven heating element £120 😬 as that’s ‘due’ to give up sometime this year.

yes, chips are only a fraction of the issue. It’s the transportation too and that’s been iffy since trump started a trade war with China and it’s just got exponentially worse with each new event. Covid was the speeding train and Ukraine is the broken track.

all those parts required to make a single machine heavily rely on the just in time system. If factories are having to slow down production due to any part being delayed they have to recoup the cost somewhere and I do believe some of the price rises in consumer products are in part potentially down to that.

food prices have a different set of issues. Fuel and transport is one but climate change, fertiliser and production costs and delays due to covid and for the U.K. a brexit related lack of workforce

there’s so so much going on globally that rely so heavily on I can see where some of the extra costs are coming from. But do suspect some are taking the piss with some of the rises.

either way, I don’t think it’s going to slow down soon and it’s part of why I adopt a prepping mentality to daily life.

sat here knitting jumpers, blankets etc ready for winter with the fuel prices expected to skyrocket.

next up will be sewing curtain liners, more draught excluders and window quilts for the coldest rooms all from the odds and ends I have around the house. I might be barmy but I might just be ok 🤣🤣

cat treats from £1 to £1.15

Fish and chips for 2 last night was £30.45 up from 17.45 when we had it last ( January). A rare treat and even rarer now!

Fish and chips in our town is getting expensive we share 2 small portions between 4 of us and it is still £20.00