Cost of living rise? Pubs and restaurants packed.

[MakeMineALarge1]

Ok. I'll be honest, this post is only a reflection of this weekend.
Peter Kay tickets flying out at over £50 a ticket and pubs in Manchester absolutely packed to the rafter's, with standing room only

Grocers' apostrophes. 🤔

Why do some plurals warrant an erroneous apostrophe and others don't, OP? I am genuinely interested.

<misses point>

Lovely weather yesterday I had awful hospital procedure on Friday so OH treated me to lunch at local pub. It was rammed full of dog walkers, ramblers folks enjoying the weather. Lots of Xmas shopping going on in town to. Chef closed the kitchen to orders for half an hour so the staff could catch up

The weather does help

Ain’t that the truth. Some people here seem to be thoroughly enjoying telling everyone how much they’re going to suffer and how awful it’s going to be, when they know nothing of the sort. They’ve read what the rest of all have all read in the media too, except the some of us are able to understand that the dramatic headlines are just that: drama designed to sell papers and garner clicks, and the reality is more nuanced.

Misery wankers, the lot of them. They do nothing but make the world a worse place.

Well, I went out for a friend's birthday last night and the area of London we went to was DEAD. I lived in the area until about a year ago and it's usually packed at the weekend. The place we went to eat at used to have a queue out the door, but it was maybe 50% full. All the restaurants were the same.

I was told by a boutique last week they have been busy . Busy with people going in with knives , threatening staff and stealing expensive clothes. The lady had caught a regular customer stealing a 150.00 jacket the week before!

Looks can be deceptive - this is commuter belt area from central London and it’s not a rough area

Yep. It's the equivalent of telling your friend you're struggling with your three year old and they go "Aha! Just you wait until they're teenage! You've got 10 years to dread the real deep shit."

I earn well in a professional role, I'm not struggling. MN is the only place I see struggle. It's a race to the bottom here at the moment so

yep

girlmom 21 so how did you come to that assumption?
My daughter is on benefits but it didn’t stop her Mum from treating her to Airbnb in Bristol and a really amazing Rugby match in Cardiff yesterday and hitting a few bars …pleas accept my apologies on her behalf for having a much needed night out !! .
She is back in Uni tomorrow finishing her SW degree..hope that is ok 👌

Because the last kid left home. So don't have to pay for a family of 5 to go away in school holidays. Or feed them all. The mortage only has a few years left to run too. In fact bills have gone down.
That's my neighbours, but there will be others in their 50s just like them

Spot on.. they’re the same “You don’t know what goes on behind closed doors’ brigade.

I mean yes, Doris and Dave next door might be eyeball deep in loanshark debt, selling their children’s kidneys for holiday funds, and plotting the murder of rich Aunt Ethel OR they could just be good at managing money, prioritize differently, or have higher wages than average.

If nothing else, I do enjoy a bit of fan fiction

No one is happy. Nothing is real. No one is real

DS works in a kitchen in a village pub and they've been really, really quiet recently. 4 covers in 3 hours on Friday night. Even Sunday lunch time was slow today. I don't understand how they can keep the business going to be honest. We're in a fairly affluent area.

and it’s not a rough area

well it’s a rough area now 🤣🤣
people have always travelled in to the nice areas to shoplift I have a very funny story about accidentally stealing £1000 leather jacket from Rosebay in 2001. I’d come all the way from Melbourne for that 🤣

We have one of these threads every week now, don't we? Mirrors my experience in real life. These days everybody seems to be terribly envious of everyone else and very keen to find out how anyone affords anything.

Not very pleasant.

I just got back from holiday with my family. We are very fortunate family. I still feel the price rise and but it doesn’t affect me so much. I’m sure there is people waayyy richer above me who doesn’t even feel the cost up. So thats why everything still packed. Because some people could still afford it

It just means people could be cutting back in other areas of their life? I will still go out but maybe not as often as I used to. Energy bills haven't really hit yet so hard to know how much I need to rein it in.

You think that it’s the government posting, or having people post for them?

Any other conspiracy theories you’d like to share?

The COL crisis is only at the very beginning. Post Christmas debt and then the end of the Energy Price Guarantee in April is going to be when people really start feeling the pinch. For now, it looks like people are enjoying things while they still can.

Both our neighbours are retired with index linked pensions, they're pretty immune at the moment they said. Energy being a fly in the ointment. They're pretty savvy technology wise keenly aware of food prices. Shop around for bargains. They like to lunch out regularly. Evenings not so much

"I've been out twice this weekend. In the pub on Friday I nursed a line and soda that cost £1.70. I went out for lunch today and ate the cheapest thing in the menu and drank tap water. £6.50" could say anyone out when you saw them

Do you begrudge people trying to have fun OP?

@Christmasamtryigtogetexcited I was being sarcastic because that's clearly the vibe the OP was going for. That's not how I feel.

I’m watching the pennies as still saving for and decorating our home but we can absolutely afford to go out and about a couple of times a month maybe more. We don’t do expensive anyway and often support local smaller businesses restaurants and bars. It’s important to us to do so. We have fixed a mortgage for 5 years and we’re low energy users so while bills are ridiculous they aren’t like quoted on here, I’m careful with food budgets. So people can adjust other things too to help manage.

If everyone stayed home that could afford it we would be in a worse position. Friends are on similar very average wages but still can spend some money each month.

On the other side of the coin it’s not just mumsnet’ I’ve worked with/working with many families that are absolutely struggling it’s awful. I work with staff topping up wages with extra shifts because nursery fees and life eat any extra up,

To be fair no one in poverty is queueing to get in to 20 stories!

Like the pandemic, the impact isn’t being felt equally. Our heating and mortgage costs for example are fixed so this winter our costs aren’t really changing..

There are people who will be struggling with basics though quite clearly. I don’t know why these threads always seem to assume everyone is hit the same. There are some very poor people in this country as well as very rich ones and a whole spectrum of incomes in between.