To ask if rising living costs are ever going to come back down?

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Just reading another thread about rising food costs and got me wondering, are prices ever actually going to come down? The future looks really depressing atm, we already struggled to keep our head above water but now it seems things are much worse. Our monthly food bill has gone up significantly, same with gas and electric and some weeks I struggle to even put petrol in my car.

What has actually caused these ridiculous price rises? Surely the government will have to step in sooner or later? It's 2022, we shouldn't be living like this!

Well according to some it will change if we get a labour government , they will somehow magically fix it al
Have a look around the world lots of countries struggling and seeing huge increase in things
I don't vote tory , but this isn't all on them by any stretch and I don't magicall believe another party can fix it all either just like that so I hope they are all hones in their manifestos before the next election of what is actually achievable

No it wouldn't come down.

And its worse in other countries like the USA and Germany, they have slightly higher inflation rates.So no the inflation is not due to the tories but the conditions created by the tories i.e. 25% in poverty pre pandemic would mean that we are more vulnerable to the effects of inflation. It would easily be more than 30% in poverty by october, if it isn't already the case. By october, at least half of the population would either be in poverty or living in their overdraft.

A lot of mumsnetters would be waxing lyrical about how we can mitigate these ill effects by buying charity shop clothes and cut price cauliflower but it wouldn't be enough for 50% of the population.

Down? No, never.
The best to hope for is that they don't rise as steeply in the future.

@lillygolightly well said! I agree 100%!

The 70s ended and things got better so surely this will too?

We need to adapt more, eat less meat and change habits to an extent.
Brexit needs undoing, tho supply and demand, crop failures/ climate changes have caused this, add in fuel rises.
Food has been relatively cheap, now that has changed due to housing costs, and other factors.
Some still want the same, and don’t want to adapt ( minus medical/ health needs), personally it’s think it’s wise

A toxic mix of ten years of austerity and then the self harm caused by brexit are the main causes.

War and covid (including the £billions given away due to government bungling) have been the cherry on the cake but don't let the Tories trick you into thinking a lot of it was out of their control.

@Lillygolightly

Prices never go down. I don’t know what relevance it being 2022 is, we’ve had years of prosperity and now the bill’s arrived.

Surely you mean Austerity?

Lack of proper funding of the NHS, lack of funding for council services, wages that have stagnated so much that they have fallen far behind inflation. We all work the same or harder and we are just getting poorer!

Since when has anything ever gotten cheaper?!! It doesn’t we all just continue to kill ourselves trying to make ends meet.

Working people shouldn’t have to be visiting food banks!!! People in a country first world and rich like ours shouldn’t be visiting food banks whatever their circumstances!!!

It’s only going to get worse, and the longer we all keep putting up with this government…because if you believe they can’t do more, or that they can’t do better for those who really need it (instead of all the tax breaks they give their donors and rich mates….PPE contracts, huge furlough payouts written off) then frankly your a mug!

It’s actually sickening to see what a pass Borris the Tory party get from some people no of course they didn’t cause the pandemic, oh and at least they know what a woman is!!! What effing good is any of that….their austerity measures directly contributed to our ability to handle covid….and what good is knowing what a woman is when your not HUMAN enough to understand that someone working 40 hours a week shouldn’t have to go cold and hungry….but hey they are all alright they partied while we all locked down and with now their £2,000 pay rises, it makes and absolutely mockery of the general public!!! They do it and they do it knowingly, because they know they will get away with it, because we let them!!

This, 100%

Spot on @Lillygolightly!

Rishi sunak spoke about the 150 rebate and 200 loan (levy) helping us to "adjust" to the rising prices - ie not weather a temporary storm, we have to get used to paying what we're paying now and more. Permanently.

No, it won't come down. We need wages to rise to meet it. Unfortunately, we have a perennial problem of low wages in the UK. To drive wages higher there must be more competition for staff. That means less people and/or more jobs. However, many employers are instead looking at increasing automation. I think we will have a problem in the long term as jobs disappear from the market altogether.

It's the end stages of capitalism as everything falls to shit before we "own nothing and are happy". Research it, the info is out there.

The food prices will go up significantly after this harvest I imagine.

We are farmers and our cost of production has gone through the roof. We group veg and cereal crops which go into the UK food supply, our costs have risen almost 300% since last year. If wholesale commodity costs don't go up, we will be producing at a loss next year when we're expected to buy in fert at £1000/tonne and run tractors on diesel at £1/litre.

Add to that the UK's ELMs system is requiring farmers to take some land out of production to set aside fallow for a year, the area of viable crops will reduce by 10%. It's absolutely terrifying.

But everyone knew what they were voting for!! The dream of post brexit Britain is finally here!!

I dont think prices go down. In other times of inflation I think wages rose and things balanced out again eventually. I'm not sure if this is more like the 30s than the 70s though.

I agree the Tories arent responsible for world wide events However they are directly responsible for how resilient our society is to those events. Austerity has left huge numbers with no wiggle room. This was a political choice and other countires took different measures to 2008 which were more succesful. Track and Trace was an expensive flop compared to other countries who had cheaper systems that worked better. Theres lots of examples.

I don’t think they will come down.
Brexit I think has had a big impact and there’s been a lot of wasted money (track and trace). The billions used to prop up the economy during covid will all essentially be wasted if the economy goes belly up now.
The tories have only themselves to blame and have got us more in debt than labour ever did.
Yes many of the issues are global but the tories ensure the top few continue to do well and the rest of us pay. Electricity and gas could be publicly owned (it may as well be as you can’t switch suppliers and there is no free market in operation) and we could enjoy lower prices because there would be no need for profit

The majority of the rises aren’t brexit caused!

Regardless- I want to know is there a point the large companies: Sainsburys, Tesco, Esso etc make less profit rather than keep upping their prices?

@MissBattleaxe

The Tories have effectively cut wages, refused to make utility companies pay a windfall tax, cut benefits, lost 37 billion to a useless track n trace programme and by promoting Brexit they've cut us off from endless financial benefits such as bloc negotiation s on energy prices.

I do concede that some of this is affected by climate change and associated effects. The Tories have been in power for 12 years and there are more food and in the UK than there are McDonalds. Nobody can seriously think the government is not a major cause of austerity.

Have you not noticed the high inflation rates in other countries??

USA 8.5% - you can't blame the Tories nor Brexit for the US inflation.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers

The majority of the rises aren’t brexit caused!

Regardless- I want to know is there a point the large companies: Sainsburys, Tesco, Esso etc make less profit rather than keep upping their prices?

It's cost of raw materials and transport. The supermarkets aren't the ones making profit out of higher prices.

I doubt prices will come down again. I think companies use situations, such as Ukraine, to put prices up so they don’t get criticised.

Most won't in the short term, but some will fluctuate, heating oil has dropped quite a bit in the last few weeks for example.

@LoveBomb

A toxic mix of ten years of austerity and then the self harm caused by brexit are the main causes.

War and covid (including the £billions given away due to government bungling) have been the cherry on the cake but don't let the Tories trick you into thinking a lot of it was out of their control.

How do you explain high inflation in other countries?

And how can you suggest Covid isn't a major driver? Most developed countries can't just shut down for 2 years without major financial consequences.

We have lost so much, everything is a downward spiral and I feel we will never get back to 'normality'. I am certain we will continue to see reduced services, high prices, mismanagement because they can, they hope we will become inured to it after a while so they can continue to get away with it. The big people save money and get bigger, cheat more, care less and we get with fewer things in our control. If it wasn't so ludicrous/dramatic it would be a plot to control us and demoralise us little by little.

High inflation is not just in the UK
These are the supposed rates for Europe.

tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate?continent=europe

Companies blaming Brexit for a shortage of staff are taking the piss IMO. The Brexit vote was 6 years ago. There aren't many jobs where it takes 6 years or more to train to do it. It's just an excuse for piss-poor management.

Does anyone think our current form of capitalism is to blame? Are shareholder profits down?