Life is too expensive and not enjoyable.

[buildingourdreams]

I am only 26 years old and I am tired

H and I both earn okay money both work ft and I sometimes do part time work too

We've 2 boys under 7 and After rent bills and food and petrol we have not a penny .
This is with our parents helping with childcare we don't even have to pay childcare for the boys thankfully 🙏

We Can't go on holiday. Can't even have a takeaway or my nails done

We rent and Can't save for a house to buy don't get any benefits other than the basic Cb about £200 month. (And I don't expect or want handouts anyway)

Is this our life now ? Don't tell me to get a better job as I might do as I get older but this is not the point I'm making . If someone works full time they should be able to afford a few treats in life and specially with 2 incomes!

I worry constantly that we are failing our kids and should I even have had them? And also Like, what will even become of people like us when we're old ?

Look @ElliF , you've made it very clear from all of your posts that you pride yourself on being frugal. And you consider that other people who don't wish to live such a constrained life to be profligerate wasters who only have themselves to blame.

As I pointed out previously, people's circumstances differ from your own for a great many reasons. Some will be single parents with huge childcare bills. Others have to live in far more expensive areas due to caring responsibilities or work, etc.

Yes they could probably tinker around the edges and try to convince themselves that they're virtuous for sitting in a freezing cold house and eating lentils every day, and if you enjoy that and your spreadsheets to keep track of every penny you've spent over the last few decades then fine. But what I've tried to explain to you is that there are structural reasons why people at all levels of earning in the UK are becoming increasingly worse off than their counterparts in comparable countries. And that this trend will continue unless the very obvious actions I've set out above are taken at a Government level.

Most people do not find it fun to be forced to be frugal in every aspect of their lives. And why should they have to when their counterparts with similar jobs/ careers/ education in the countries which have historically always been our comparators are not suffering the same, extended drop in living standards? Yes all countries have suffered due to geopolitical events, but most of our historical comparator countries were in a better situation to deal with it at all levels of society because they had not just had 15 years of zero productivity or real-terms salary growth. And they have Governments who actually have a plan, who are trying to find solutions with national strategies to improve things for their citizens again moving forward. No country is perfect but the management of the UK economy in the last 15 years would have been better if it had been based on a random coin flip for every decision. Why should people accept this and be worse off than is necessary when there are things that could be done to create a sustainable rise in living standards for everyone?

I do not understand your obsession with criticising individuals for wanting a better life, which is absolutely achievable if the Government took the appropriate and absolutely obvious steps set out above, and telling them effectively that they should just suck it up and enjoy getting increasingly poorer when this is completely unnecessary.

You can economize all you want but at some point the savings will run out and inflation will kick in..for my friend in Wolverhampton, rent has doubled in two years. It can happen to you. You can budget all-day long but at a certain point, if rent becomes 60-70% of what you earn, utilities have increased, you will be at the food bank. This is less of an issue for richer people as food is a small percentage of outgoings and so are utilities. Only issue may be the mortgage but many people have fixed term mortgages. Also richer people have more potential to increase their salary. Like warren buffet said, the only thing that will beat inflation is skills as there would always be a demand for highly skilled people who would be paid accordingly.

Really @ElliF all you are doing is playing into the hands of the incompetent idiots who created this situation. What they want is for everyone to fight amongst each other about how what is left after their mismanagement is divided up. To convince people it must be other people's fault that they are in difficult situations. This is all a distraction from the fact that everyone's situation, including yours, would be better if they were doing their jobs properly. It's depressing that you have fallen for it and are apparently unable to see the bigger picture despite these explanations, and as @socialmedia23 just pointed out there is only so far that your approach to it can take you because if the issue isn't fixed then you will see your own situation become poorer and poorer no matter how "virtuously" you budget.

And the things we take for granted - free healthcare,.state pension, free education are only possible for a rich country to pay for. If we continue down this route, we would not be a rich country..I would like to point out your meticulous budget assumes that you are not paying for healthcare and education. It all flies out the window if you have to pay for healthcare cos the NHS doesn't work on top of having no state pension.

I think the biggest thing couples do to ‘trap’ themselves financially is have children before getting on the property ladder. It will naturally be incredibly difficult to buy a house now

Well, indeed. It wasn't always so (that there were state support and services), and in many countries around the world such things do not exist. I find it baffling that people do not grasp that countries are not always on an upwards trajectory - you have to manage them properly to make that happen - and the services people took for granted and are now missing simply won't continue to exist at all unless we find a way to increase productivity, especially with the demographic time bomb of the ageing population that will need supporting. This has been known about for 40 years. At the moment we borrow every year to plug the gap between services and revenue. If people still want services - with a lower and lower proportion of working age people to fund them - then how do they propose to pay for them? A smaller and smaller proportion of even the working age population has been funding everything, now only the top 10% of earners are net contributors and those of them on PAYE have already been milked dry and then some. Is it not obvious to people that we have to find a way to make productivity and salaries rise across the board so that a much higher proportion of people are net contributors? Stop the brain drain of our most intelligent and highly qualified young people leaving the UK to escape the punitive tax rates and lower living standards for the same qualifications? Invest in schools properly? Get rid of the stupid new trade barriers so businesses can invest in the UK again and create the high margin businesses we need in sectors with real growth prospects like tech and energy, that can them pay decent salaries?

Where is the economic plan? Likewise with the NHS. The state public and state pension ponzi schemes. Energy security, food security. Pandemic planning. 🤣🤣🤣 Where are the plans? What are all of these successive Governments doing?!

I think they deliberately defunded state education to keep a large proportion of people so oblivious to basic economics that could be taught in just a few hours of school time out of the entire 12 years of compulsory schooling, so that people are so ignorant of things that they'll put up with all of this nonsense, or even vote for their own demise a la Brexit. That you actually had many, many people saying "I don't care if we're poorer..." was just so unbelievably stupid. Do they not want healthcare or education or heating in their homes? Not just shooting yourself in the foot but in the face. I wonder where they all are now, that their chickens have come home and are making a racket.

It's all very depressing and makes me sad that even when I've taken the time to try to explain in completely politically neutral terms (I don't support any political party and never have, I think all current prospects are imbeciles. I would support competent Government of any coloured) the economic facts, basic mechanisms causing the issues and simple proposals for how these could be addressed, you still get people saying they don't get it or it must just be some individual's fault for not budgeting properly. 🙄 There isn't a face palm in the world that's big enough.

I totally agree OP. My household income is £45K, which has been plenty in the past, even when we had to pay for childcare. I find myself watching every penny. My son asked for some clothes yesterday and I said 'no' because I felt that he has a couple of months growing room in them. A couple of years ago, I would have said, 'yes'. I'll have to get him some in a couple of months anyway because the child is shooting up! I'm turning down meeting up with friends because I can't afford to eat out. Luckily, everyone is in the same boat and are happy to have tea (or wine) around someone's house. God knows how those on minimum wage are coping.

On the political side, if the government hadn't provided ridiculous subsidies for their billionaire friends in the fossil fuel industries and invested in renewables as they should have done, then we wouldn't be reliant on gas from Russia and fuel prices wouldn't be such a problem. A friend who works in off shore wind, says that it's really hard to get investment because the government keeps moving the goal posts. They don't even require government money, just clear guidelines and legislation that will allow investors to feel secure. The same is true of things like electric cars. These simple fixes would reduce fuel and food prices. (food prices have gone up because of fuel and fertiliser (based on fuel prices).

The other things that the Tories have done over the last 12 years is made public services hard work. Every single thing that you need, you have to fight for with time and energy, which makes life miserable. Whether it's getting a grit bin, a GP appointment, disability benefits, SEND provision, social care, youth services etc. etc. One woman I know was in tears at her PIP assessment because it was so humiliating. Do they think that she's magically going to regain her sight? Perhaps it's her own fault that Jesus hasn't turned up. She's not the same woman as she was 10 years ago, her mental health has deteriorated so much.

Public sector workers hate this. They'd like to be able to provide what's needed without having to prioritise the most desperate and failing everyone else while working ridiculous hours. And they're in the same position financially, having not had a pay rise for 10 years. I've worked in the public sector under Labour and I've worked in the public sector under the Tories. It's vastly different!!

Jesus, the race to the bottom comments in this thread are hilarious. It's absolutely fair that the OP should lament not being able to afford a takeaway, just because you didn't have a colour TV or think reusing tea bags 16 times is essential doesn't mean OP can't have a moan!

Budgeting is key. Get a spreadsheet setup in MS Excel, I have a weekly budget but monthly might work better for you, in this put the money coming in and a list of the things you HAVE to pay in your outgoings. This leaves you with a figure for how much you have left to spend/save on other things. It can be a scary thought to put this together and the amount left over each month might be disheartening, but you really need to know where you are at so you don't overspend and you'll feel better for being in more control of your finances. You may also be able to identify things you can cut. For example I got rid of Sky TV as it was poor VFM versus how long I spent watching it. Without some idea of how much money you have to play with, it's easy to spend what you can't actually afford.

And no, this is wrong. In an unstable world economy, somewhere like Britain used to be a beneficiary of people looking for somewhere safe to invest their money. Stable Government, rule of law, separation of Government and judiciary. When international markets were turbulent it was a boon for the UK, just like money rushes into what are perceived to be "safe" assets like gold and property.

However, very unfortunately, we've spent 7 years undermining our international credibility, reducing our international influence, destroying our infrastructure, and on top of that have had politicians undermining the independence of the judiciary and also breaking the law, even constitutional law, with no consequences. Destroying all of the things that foreign investors valued about the UK. Thus, much of the business community elsewhere in the world now views the UK as a bit of a basket case, with no plan or prospects and not such a safe place to put their investment, aside from the limited prospects from self-imposed trade barriers. In 2014/15 our currency was considered so stable it was on the cusp of being considered reserve currency status again. Now, that is a pipe dream.

So of course business investment is not forthcoming! Which is very worrying given that our balance of payment deficit has quadrupled since Brexit from 2% to 8% so we literally cannot keep the country afloat without foreign investment. We are absolutely dependent on it now. So much for sovereignty, eh? Idiotic to say the least.

If we want things to change then we need people managing the economy who will implement proper long-term economic plans for the good of the country and its citizens, not for political optics. Some people won't like them, because they also hold such views as yours where they do not understand that the point of investment is that you get your money back afterwards and a profit on top. As opposed to just spending more and more on unsustainable costs you cannot afford, a country has to find a way to produce more to fund decent living standards. We need to make the UK a place where businesses want to invest, and cut the crappy tax disincentives that stop people being able to participate and actually get a personal benefit from that which is worth their while.

You call it ‘borrowing’ but you are mischaracterising what is happening though. Governments don’t ‘borrow’ anything. They print Treasury Bonds and sell the to the Bank of England, and the BoE prints money (figuratively) and gives it to them in exchange for the Treasury Bonds.

The money supply is inflated. We have already devalued our currency by 75% through Covid. How much further poorer do you want to make people? The rich don’t suffer cos they understand how the system works.

And if you devalue the pound further, and you can’t convince all the other countries in the world to devalue their currencies in tandem, how do you hide the falling pound from the public?

The fact that most people think that the pound is stable and don’t understand that it is falling is because they don’t understand what inflation is and where it comes from.

I just don’t understand how you can justify further inflating as a solution to solving an inflation problem.

The government has still not paid back the money they ‘borrowed’ for World War I. Those Treasury Bonds just keep getting rolled over when they expire and have stayed on the national debt for over a century. The government, every government, ‘borrows’ more and more money every year and never pays any of it back. We both know that is not sustainable. You can’t keep buying food and fuel on your credit card year in year out paying minimum payments, and asking your credit card company to just keep increasing your spending limit because you have no intention ever of paying them back.

Its a noble idea, and I understand that it works, but your proposal does not work for on the other side of the equation.

What I think will happen is Labour will be voted in, they’ll spend lots and lots of money, and, like every single time they have been in power in this country, they will bankrupt the nation and walk away leaving a subsequent tory government to step in and decimate the welfare state and working classes of this country.

I don’t vote because I know neither party has a cat in hells chance of balancing the country’s budget and setting in course for a sustainable future. I just don’t get how more debt makes us stronger, and I feel for the people who are confused by the maths and don’t have the ability or inclination to save.

And like you said (I think), don’t save in anything that won’t keep up with inflation.

A friend who works in off shore wind, says that it's really hard to get investment because the government keeps moving the goal posts. They don't even require government money, just clear guidelines and legislation that will allow investors to feel secure.

Yep. A stable platform. Nobody would take the risk now with what, 5 Prime Ministers in 7 years? Many of whom attempting to implement their conflicting policies without any mandate from the electorate. 5 Business Ministers in the last 2 years! What trust would anybody have to put their money into investing in that environment?

We have a very windy country, surrounded by thousands of miles of coastline. Yet have proportionately very low amounts of wind power, and we import hydro-generated power from Norway. 🤣 I mean, how stupid do you have to be?

Wait, didn’t Gordon Brown sell half of the UK’s gold reserved at the lowest possible price he could find? Didn’t he like tell everyone before hand that he was going to do it to make sure the market tanked so he could get the lowest possible return on the nations reserves?

Christ almighty!
Try living on a joint income of £40k , yours is nearly three times what ours was before we retired. Now we live on half of that. How? By living frugally, making wise decisions and never expecting to be able to buy immediately anything we fancy - always saving for what we needed.
We live in a throwaway society where a whole generation has been brought up to expect to get what they want when they want it, even if that exploits much poorer countries. And to always expect someone else to help them out and to always blame everyone and anyone other than themselves.
I’ve seen this with my nephews and nieces, overindulged and now unable to live within their means.
Carry on and blame the Tories, Labour are utterly impotent and look where voting them in in Wales has ended up.

Yep.
How to budget should be taught at school.
At the very least it should be taught at universities because they are supposed to be or brightest individuals.
But when you see programs with people talking about money, none of them have ever written down what they spend until a film crew and a presenter is there showing them how to do it.
We all have excuses for not making changes.
None of us should have excuses for not knowing where our money is going unless a partner is concealing some gambling habit or a mistress, or there is fraud happening on your account and you don’t ever look at your statements.
Do it once a day. It takes 10 minutes. We succeed at what we focus on, so focus on managing your money.

I try not to follow the news about Wales.
Its gonna become Britain’s California.
The intelligent and skilled will leave and those that remain will turn the place into a socialist shithole.
Scotland is going the same way.

But I don’t think it’s a Tory/Labour thing.

@ElliF you really do not understand how inflation works. Your comment earlier about how salary rises would generate inflation was like this. The causality is the other way around, even Friedman accepted this.

QE not "printing money". You seem to be stuck in some of the misguided narrative about how the money supply works that was circulating after the financial crisis 15 years ago. At that time everyone was worried about deflation.

Current inflation rates are not being driven by bond sales, they are being driven by international issues primarily supply chain issues post-Covid (including Americans now buying so much "stuff" they are driving prices up, as their economy actually recovered to pre-pandemic levels, like much of the rest of Europe...) and the fact that Russia was a huge supplier of gas and Ukraine a huge supplier of vegetable oil and grain - the "breadbasket if Europe" as it was always known. What is not helping those uncontrollable factors - from a UK perspective - is that: 1) most people at all income levels had little slack in their budgets following 15 years of zero growth in productivity or salaries in real terms; 2) our Government had no energy or food security strategy so a much larger proportion of these essentials are imported than in many of our comparator countries; 3) our Government had trashed the value of GBP through Brexit making said imports far more expensive; and 4) the Bank of England only has one lever it is allowed to pull to control inflation which is to control interest rates, when in this situation that will obviously have a minimal impact on reducing it because the inflation is not demand driven. In fact, it has increased inflation by raising housing costs.

The Government's solution of "oh well everyone should have a real terms paycut of 10% and just accept being poorer" is not the answer. BoE is in charge of monetary policy. This issue requires fiscal policies to mitigate/ solve. Our elected representatives, including the opposition, appear to have no credible plan about what to do about it.

Selling bonds to invest in infrastructure to create an environment businesses can invest in will have close to zero impact on inflation, and the inflation rate will actually reduce when productivity increases, by definition. Inflation is happening because GBP is being devalued, relative to our neighbours. While everyone has had the international issues to contend with, we have been hit harder because productivity in the UK is so low. If that isn't addressed then the cycle will continue, as I have explained. Particularly given our demographics.

Markets cannot solve this problem on their own. Investors don't owe the UK a free ride, they will not invest unless an attractive environment for investment is created and our Government has spent over a decade now doing the opposite. To the detriment of every citizen's take home oay and services and pension. Government has to create the conditions for growth and investment, with appropriate infrastructure, political stability, access to markets, skilled employees to do the work who actually can without the punitive thresholds in the tax system held down for a decade already with fiscal drag and lack of affordable childcare making it prohibitive for them.

We have always cleared our credit card at the end of every month..We bought our flat at 27 and 29 (in 2019) which cost £400k, and didn't have a wedding until we were married for 7 years (as we were saving, admittedly covid did it's best to delay it as well). DH only has 12k left on student loan balance. I am not saying I am struggling, I am saying that our wages are very low compared to our counterparts in other countries. Believe it or not, people on other countries live on much more. My BIL was saying that his father's health insurance is 2000 per month. That is probably your entire living expenses right? But it's not like his father is subsisting on gruel and not heating. No his father has a nice condo, can travel overseas regularly, has a nice life etc. As his overall income is much more.. so he still has much more than many people on this thread despite high medical expenses. I am not saying that I support expensive medical care but when the whole country has low wages, sudden shocks to the system i.e. health care system needing money, high energy prices will decimate whatever disposable income most people have. This has knock on effects too.

Now just think how your life would be without state pension and free healthcare. And this kind of low wages/pension. I think I would have adjustment problems if I had to pay £1k for health insurance per month for my family. But that is where we are headed if things don't improve.

Why is everyone's instinct to economize when there isn't enough money. Surely it should be to make more money or get a raise. You can economize all you like but if I gave you a £100k medical bill, all that economizing would fly out of the window..

Wait, didn’t Gordon Brown sell half of the UK’s gold reserved at the lowest possible price he could find? Didn’t he like tell everyone before hand that he was going to do it to make sure the market tanked so he could get the lowest possible return on the nations reserves?

Sorry what? Where did I say this?

Yes that was yet another utterly stupid decision by a politician. As I said I don't support any political party and never have, so I'm struggling to understand the relevance of your comment given I was talking about how we encourage the investment we need i to the UK to raise living standards, rather than the idiotic sale of gold reserves at rock bottom prices? I don't see how the two are related?

I try not to follow the news about Wales.
Its gonna become Britain’s California.
The intelligent and skilled will leave

Like how so many of the skilled and qualified young people are leaving Britain entirely?

news.sky.com/story/amp/uk-at-risk-of-brain-drain-as-scientists-leave-britain-to-avoid-losing-eu-research-funding-12716479

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/11/27/high-taxes-no-future-spark-fears-mass-exodus-young-britons/

currentsciencedaily.com/stories/631707774-edinburgh-university-head-warns-of-post-brexit-brain-drain

expertmanufacturer.com/brain-drain-a-major-problem-for-uk-engineering/

Etc

I think having children young is choosing this life these days. People can be annoyed at that statement but ultimately its just a fact, unless you have family money/inherited. I'm 31, I work 24 hours per week and earn well for this. I have been consistent at uni through my 20s alongside working. I have 2 postgraduates and now earn more on my 24hours that when I worked fulltime as I've advanced my career. My husband earns less than me on his fulltime wage but our household income is very good. We have a large equity in our large house as we renovated 2 houses alongside working and extra uni postgraduate degrees (we had no inheritance/family money). We sacrificed a lot in our 20s and wouldn't be where we are now had we had children, that is just a fact. These are all choices. You choose to have children young, your life is the consequence of that.

Why is everyone's instinct to economize when there isn't enough money. Surely it should be to make more money or get a raise. You can economize all you like but if I gave you a £100k medical bill, all that economizing would fly out of the window..

Exactly. The answer is to increase productivity so that salaries can rise to meet the cost of living. It is the only answer. I'm happy to listen to anybody else's proposals if they have a better alternative, but I've posted about it repeatedly, explained why it needs to happen, and how it can be achieved, and nobody has replied with another viable idea, probably because if you actually know anything about economics you know that it is the only viable idea.

So the question surely is how do we achieve that? For everyone's sakes, at every level of earning. Sniping at people for not budgeting well enough or because they earn more and you think they should pay even more tax or they earn less and you resent some extra support they get is entirely counterproductive and won't fix the issue. It's just scrapping around and fighting over the crumbs.

Instead I suggested some ways that the situation could be improved for everyone by better Government policy. Does anybody disagree with those suggestions? If so, why? What would be a better policy to fix it, in your opinion?

Why can't people have a rational and actually constructive debate about how to fix the problems, instead of villifying people who are struggling in a failed economic model and blaming them for it?

If people have better suggestions then suggest them. If they don't, then why aren't they contacting their MPs to tell them to do what I've suggested?

I'm oleased for you but lots of people make such sacrifices and decisions and are as qualified as you are and still end up struggling due to the structural problems in the economy as described in the thread. Not everyone's life circumstances are predictable. You could do everything "right" as you say and then tomorrow if you husband did a vanishing act would you find it easy to juggle your career and looking after your children and the additional childcare expenses and paying for your house all on your own?

This is the biggest load of shite I've ever read..as for what people "deserve" take a look at yourself. What a revolting statement.

I get it op.

You should be able to live on your wages. People should be able to live on minimum wage ffs, otherwise what is the point of it?

@TheLostGiraffe I would manage that yes as I earn enough now. Had it happened I'm my 20s then no as i didnt earn enough. This is specific why i choose not to have any children and especially wouldnt have them before building a career and equity in the property market. If people are desperate for children then fine but you have to also accept the negative financial implications.