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 ?

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

🤣🤣 This is exactly the point. Due to natural inflation etc the impact of this on current finances is so miniscule that it's totally irrelevant. Long-term Government borrowing for investment into things that create a higher return than the interest rate actually makes the treasury richer, aside from improving quality of life, and encouraging further investment into the country.

For almost a decade our Government could borrow on very long-term bonds for 0%, or even for much of it negative interest rates. They would actually have made a profit just from borrowing money, and doing nothing with it. If it is beyond the wit of our politicians in that situation to find any project to improve our infrastructure, skills or business environment with an ROI of anything above 0% then I despair. And this was money that you rightly point out that they could have borrowed at said rates for decades. So you invest in a project that will pay back plus profit in 5 or 10 years. Reap the benefit. Increased employment, increased productivity, increased salaries, increased tax revenue, reduced state support required. And can then invest the same money and do the same again! And again. And again.

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.

This is also wrong. What you are talking about is QE. We also sell bonds to international markets for financing.

Manage what? I am not sure which post you're responding to.

@TheLostGiraffe you just asked if I would manage if my husband did a vanishing act - to afford my mortgage, childcare etc. My answer is yes I would as I earn enough because I focused on career and climbing property ladder in my 20s rather than having children. I'm reiterating the point that if you don't come from family money/inheritances then you choose a harder life by having children young.

Yes, we all have a right to enough money to live. That’s why we have a welfare system. I can’t afford a new car. But I don’t believe I have aright to a new car and I don’t complain. I can’t afford to go on holiday, but I don’t believe I’m entitled to. I’ve got a 6yo tablet and a 6yo mobile phone and I can’t afford to buy new ones, but I don’t believe I am entitled to.

I have a right to live and pay my bills, which are all going up, but I don’t believe I am entitled to have Netflix or Sky. I’d love to have horse riding lessons for myself as DD, but I don’t believe we’re entitled to those things.

We are not entitled to all the things we want in life. It something children who are brought up well should understand about the world. The world owes us nothing. You work, you live on less than you earn, you save the rest. It is an ancient wisdom that has been known for thousands of years.

But not everyone will get high paying jobs by 37 or whatever. Because somebody has to do the minimum wage jobs, don't they?

As it happens I had ds at 21 and had bought a house at 19, however I am not immune to inflation as a consequence and am facing my mortgage practically doubling. I do earn more now but not a high earner by any stretch, infact most mners would assume I had a shite job based on my salary. But somebody has to do those jobs. Those people shouldn't just... Not have kids.

Two minimum wages should afford a half decent standard of living. It's not a fucking race to the bottom. Oh well I survived on stale bread and never left my village. Yes, and was that a good life? No. No it wasn't. Don't make that "normal" it's not 1800s anymore.

As we both know, the welfare system is a big bag of shit. It doesn't really work. If it did, this thread probably wouldn't exist.

Nobody has mentioned a right to a new car, so why you're harping on about that I don't know. I haven't mentioned any of the other shite either. I was referring to your comment about the life a cleaner deserves. Clearly you don't think they deserve much, rich coming from someone who doesn't work at all.

I do work, I live and I save. You don't work, and yet you're lecturing others on how to do it. Read the room.

Individuals can't be expected to take this into account themselves, but it's a good job for our obstetric services that women as a whole don't wait until they're of an age to have built up a large financial cushion. On a population level, we get more complex and expensive to provide maternity care for, as we age.

Well good for you. I'm a lone parent. I have two children with SEN. Luckily for me I did the same as you: I got lots of qualifications and I worked 80-100 hours in my 20s and built a very good career before getting married and having children, and my husband decided to leave me and the two babies. So yes, I can support them myself and I do, even with our huge mortgage and their specialist childcare that is £££.

Do you think that makes us more virtuous and nobody else deserves a decent standard of living? Like @ElliF with her spreadsheets and miserliness?

Good financial planning perhaps. Of course this is sensible, but in many circumstances life gets in the way of that.

The point of the thread as far as I understood it is why is it so difficult for people on average salaries to have a decent life anymore, even when there are two of them working not juggling everything alone like me? Why do people feel that they have to wait until mid-30s to be able to have a family? Why can many couples working full time still not have any prospect of ever buying a house? Why do people in the UK have such a lower standard of living now for whatever level of qualifications/ skills they have, when compared to their counterparts in other countries that used to be our comparators? Why is the UK doing so much worse, and what can we do about that?

It's all very well telling people just to budget better, but why should they expect a lower standard of living than people doing the same job in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands? Or be faced with the tiresome Brexit-voter idiocy of "well leave then" 🙄🙄 if they point this out? Should we not instead expect our Government to have managed the economy so that our living standards kept pace with these countries, and be demanding that they implement the required policies now to fix the mess they have created?

But not everyone will get high paying jobs by 37 or whatever. Because somebody has to do the minimum wage jobs, don't they?

Exactly. And should have a decent standard of living. And it's clear this can't be achieved by taxing higher earning PAYE earners any more because they've already been milked to death to fund everyone else for a decade. So what do we do? Instead of fighting over the crumbs we need to actually build a productive economy that can afford to pay people properly and provide proper services. Particularly as there will be an ever-growing proportion of elederly people and a lowe proportion of worker people: each working person will have to produce more in profit and tax revenue otherwise salaries will not cover living costs and tax will not cover services. Everybody has known this for 40 years.

We know that the things preventing this are the screwed up disincentives in the tax and childcare system, the lack of business investment, and (obviously compounding the latter point!!) us now being outside the single market and customs union.

So the question is what we do now. If anybody wants things to improve, are they going to ask their MPs to address these issues?

London is one of wealthiest parts of the UK. It is predominantly Labour. Tory voters are a mix of rural wealthy and poor and people who live in towns.

The conservatives could not get a majority based on rich people alone. They only make up about 5-10% of the population.

I have contacted my MP about the cost of living, when the nursery my child attended closed down when they announced the new minimum wage rate. She assured me labour were doing all they could but realistically, what does that equate to?

It's ultimately a question of whether we're prepared to provide sufficient state subsidy to increase the workforce participation of working parents or not. The rest is tinkering round the sides.

But not everyone will get high paying jobs by 37 or whatever. Because somebody has to do the minimum wage jobs, don't they

@Birdsbirdsbirds

This exactly !!! While I hope I will improve my earnings as I get older - not everyone can / will .

So what will become of those who don't "move up" from minimum wage ? Does society just think well fuck them it's tough shit?

👏🏻👏🏻

**As it happens I had ds at 21 and had bought a house at 19, however I am not immune to inflation as a consequence and am facing my mortgage practically doubling. I do earn more now but not a high earner by any stretch, infact most mners would assume I had a shite job based on my salary. But somebody has to do those jobs. Those people shouldn't just... Not have kids.

Two minimum wages should afford a half decent standard of living. It's not a fucking race to the bottom. Oh well I survived on stale bread and never left my village. Yes, and was that a good life? No. No it wasn't. Don't make that "normal" it's not 1800s anymore**

Also really agree with this @Birdsbirdsbirds

(Hope the boldening thing has worked!)

I have contacted my MP about the cost of living, when the nursery my child attended closed down when they announced the new minimum wage rate. She assured me labour were doing all they could but realistically, what does that equate to?

They are making a lot of noise saying that they plan to make childcare more affordable, while also without reducing adult: child ratios as Liz Truss proposed as it was very clear the public do not support that. I believe the shadow minister went to Estonia (which has a well-run Government in general and a very good childcare system) to get "ideas". But there they do have very much lower ratios, to make it viable. Although the staff are degree-level educated. But it is a very different culture. They need to be looking at what has been proven to work in the childcare systems in many different countries, we do not need to reinvent the wheel here. Denmark, Sweden, Germany... even many eastern European countries have a more viable system that works and is affordable. Hugely state subsidised in all cases of comparable countries, even if you want to look at Canada or Australia. Not from the goodness of their hearts, but because it makes economic sense, to make the maximum constribution per month a couple of hundred pounds per child. You then save tens of thousands of pounds per child in the longer term by increased tax revenues from parents (mainly mothers) not having their careers trashed as not financially viable, the cost of which goes on until old age and insufficient pensions! Decreases equality, better outcomes for children...

But they have announced no policies on how they will fix this. They are just as useless IMO. Or what they will do for children with SEN. Or about schools. Or about the issues with the tax system penalising single parents. Completely useless.

I was poor in my 20s and with two young kids I would have been poorer. You may not change career, but as you become more senior your pay will rise. Seek out any extra training they can offer e.g colouring. Think about if you could offer to get involved with any running of the salon.
Good luck. I'm an older mum (kids same age) and has its benefits in terms of my pay, but disadvantages in terms of other things.

Again from even an objective uncaring and purely economic point of view, from a state perspective it is WAY cheaper to provide the childcare heavily subsidised/ free and not lose so many mothers from the workforce then have to support them not just during childbearing years but also in retirement, and have many never reach their earning potential as a result so lower tax revenue. That's why other countries do it: it's been proved to be good economic sense. But this requires a long-term view, which our Governments never take hence our situation.

I agree, exactly the point I've been arguing. Instead of fighting over who is more deserving people should be asking why the UK is doing so much worse than its competitors on living standards and salaries for the same jobs and asking politicians to implement the policies that will change that.

It is still debt creation, and you’re advocating using it as the solution to solving a debt problem. It’s no different to just getting a different credit card with a different bank.

If that works, then the solution to everyone’s financial problems is simple. Just put it on the credit card and when you can’t do that anymore, get a new credit card or go and take out payday loans.

The only reason people don’t do that is because they are not dumb, and we have credit reference agencies to try to stop the stupid.

Using debt to get out of debt when you are £2.5Trillion in debt is asinine. We’ve nearly doubled the national debt since 2008, and most of it in the past three years. And your solution is what? Fuck it, just double it again!

The best the UK can hope for (as a nation) is to inflate our way out of the problem, and to do so in a controlled manner. That means higher interest rates and higher food prices. A lot of people are going to suffer, and a lot of people are going to lose their homes.

At this late stage in our little Keynesian fiat money experiment, the best any any of us can do is stop wasting money on wants, buy the best needs we can afford, and save whatever we have left somewhere that won’t be eaten up by inflation.

We invented this system remember. Keynes was British born and bred. We have a lot to answer for.

Economies do not work like personal finances. Again, you show you have a complete lack of understanding of economics. A government refusing to invest in its economy simply increases private sector debt. A Government making strategic investments in appropriate and viable projects means that the Government also makes its money back plus a profit, while also encouraging business investment which creates higher value jobs and raises salaries and living standards. This is fact and has been demonstrated over and over again in countries around the world.

The alternative - because the UK cannot meet the costs if its already very poor services from its tax revenue - is to continue that spiral as our population ages and requires even more cost with fewer and fewer people to pay for it. Who do you think will continue to invest their money into that? That balance of payments deficit is already 8% GDP. If productivity is not raised, living standards will continue to decline. The only way productivity will be increased is by the Government (whatever one we have!) investing in the infrastructure to make large scale business investment viable again, removing the artificial trade barriers with our trading partners that they have erected, and removing the barriers to people participating in the labour market by removing the disincentives through these ridiculous thresholds in the tax system for imposing taxes/ removal of childcare support, at every level of earnings, plus also equalising tax so that all households are taxed the same on the same household income.

I am certain that if these policies were implemented productivity (and salaries and living standards) would quickly increase. I've explained why. If you have a better idea, please do say so.

And no, it wouldn't require anywhere near the amount of money that the Government pissed away on Covid. Interesting though that before that they spend a decade saying that there was no money for them to make these necessary investments..

You are blaming Keynes? I am not a fan personally but if you know anything about his work surely you know that he would not have implemented an austerity program during a recession where there was pretty much zero inflation and you could borrow at negative interest rates?! What a bizarre comment.

And what you are advocating by "inflating the way out of the problem", let's be clear, is to make everyone progressively poorer year on year for the foreseeable future. More cuts to services, more expensive food and energy every year, higher taxes every year, shitter education and healthcare every year and probably state pensions disappearing entirely.

I think my solution of raising productivity is far better.

I mean I don't doubt that is the Government's plan - to try to inflate away the mess they have created to the detriment of everybody who lives in the UK - that of course will be their idea of the solution. But it's the worst possible answer for UK citizens so people should be telling them "no" and insisting they actually fix the mess they have created.