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 ?

We looked at the possibility when we were just below the £40K threshold (the two years before Covid), but where we are there are only selected estates where high earners can get assistance from the council for housing. We’re entitled to nothing else. You get turned out on your ear if you exceed your earnings cap. Telling a family they mustn’t learn or improve their lives is a helluva crippling thing to do to people. But I imagine it keeps people in their place and prevents them getting ideas above their station, for fear of losing their homes. Seems like benefits being used as a weapon to me.

Because you're calculating tax for single income. It's more tax efficient if you break down this money between two people with two tax free amounts and NI thresholds.

That’s outrageous. No wonder the country is fucked. As far as I can see that is parasitic behaviour. We’re on £44K and can save £500 a month and you know people sponging off the taxpayers who earn £50K a year and get subsidised housing. The papers keep these people quiet don’t they? Why aren’t they on Benefits Britain instead of the poor souls who they do put on there who are genuinely in need.

‘Learn to budget’ - Tesco - £10 for some chicken breasts and a box of weetabix. Some right condescending wotsits on here…

Good on you for your sacrifices and kudos that it worked out for you. Glad you went in with your eyes open.

It is shit isn't it op, I don't know what the answer is but I fully believe that working should give you enough to pay for the essentials with a bit more for fun stuff.For so many that isn't the case anymore. Nothing to do with age or anything else its just not right.

Two working wages should be enough to live on BUT energy and food costs and Tories destroying public services have put us all in the shit.

There’s only so much a person can work or earn. The people saying work more, earn more, have no fucking idea what it’s like.

Where’s the morale?

£10 for the most expensive part of three dead birds, and leave the crappy meat for the less well off to buy. Where’s the problem? The problem is expectation. Expecting cheap subsidised food forever. One day we’ll have real food prices and join the rest of the world in valuing food accurately in our society.

Spot on.
But it all comes down to whether or not people care about it.
We record every single thing that comes in or goes out on a spreadsheet.
To the day we can look back many years and see exactly when we bought something and how much it cost, and we know how much and what days every expense and bill is going to be for the next few years.
Bank accounts and cash and our deposit fund.
I can delete DHs salary and see at a glance, thanks to excel, how long before we go into the red. I can add £200 onto our gas and electric and see what our balance is each month.
People earning well may well feel they are not earning well, but that’s a lifestyle choice they are making and they also prefer the stress that comes with it over the work it takes to be honest about their money I think.

One wage is enough to live on if you cut your cloth accordingly.
And a knee jerk reaction to finger point and play the ‘but politician’ card is just an ignorance of how the world works, admittedly fed to us by our media of choice and taught to us by teachers at school who are not the brightest of people when it comes to anything outside of their echo chambers.
People were predicting these fuel hikes and food inflation three years ago on MN and were being lambasted by the head in the sand crowd as fear monger img doom sayers. For those who haven’t learned by now, and still need bogeyman scapegoats to point to as a crutch to explain why life is hard, they are in for a world of pain as the system begins to unfold.

You're young and there will be times in your life when money is tight and things look bleak but there will be times when you feel like you have much more affluence and feeedom.

Yes, this is very helpful to OP's problem😂

@ElliF i do envy your life. It really does sound immensely fulfilling and the happiness radiates from you…

Meanwhile you can envy my social housing rent - £82/week for a 3-bed semi with massive garden for chooks & veggies with sea views to die for.

‘Course if I earn over £40k, I’ll just have to find something else to spend it on.

hth.

Energy prices will gradually come down. If they remain this high the UK economy will suffer very badly so whichever government is in power will be deeper to bring costs down. As more renewables and nuclear power stations come on line costs will begin to come down. The global wholesale price of gas is coming down already.

The current government seems to be much more corrupt than previous governments. Corruption is always bad for the economy. A Labour government is likely to be much less corrupt.

Whether a Labour government will tackle the housing issue is harder to say.

How does that actually work?
As in, other than finding more and more money, what does any government do to bring down energy prices?
As I currently understand it, all the energy we produce in the UK has to be marked to market and sold into the system at the global market rate. All our energy producers must by at the global market rate. They do not have the ability or the right to buy directly from a homegrown source. And it’s a bidding process, so it goes to the highest bidder first in the market.

So, unless the manufacturers of oil and gas globally decide to lower energy costs, we are still bidding against everyone else in the market for oil and gas produced at home.

I’m all for money printing. It makes everything cheaper. We can save more, and when the interest rates rise and people have to sell their houses into a tanking housing market, it’s a boon for buyers.

Maybe a Ring doorbell cam and good security?

One wage is NOT enough to run a household. Hence UC. Your post is complete codswallop, to put it politely.

Life has got more expensive and this can definitely effect quality of life as people have to be far more conscious of what they spend and can't just go out for meals and activities like they used to. I think it's the loss of what used to be the norm that seems to make it harder. If you never had it, you can't miss it.

I do get what you're saying, but I agree with others who have suggested doing a budget to see where you can cut costs. If you have two wages at around £25k, minimal/no childcare costs, and no debts then there is almost certainly something you can cut. You most certainly should have enough for the odd pizza. Moneysavingexpert is a great forum for helping with budgets. If you post your income and outgoings people will suggests ways to reduce the outgoings.

What would the opposite party do?

How about: fund the NHS correctly, renationalise utilities and the railways, stop demonising people on lower income/benefits and disabled, not try to push laws that restrict our freedom to strike and protest and generally actually lead the country rather than busy themselves with lining their pockets, making their rich mates richer and letting the rest of us struggle. Not to mention look seriously at the Brexit mess and consider another referendum to reverse it.

This.
I'm much older with DGC and can remember some bad times, but there is a sense of powerlessness now which did not exist before. I had naively assumed things would improve for working people in my lifetime- how wrong I was! I am no fan of their party but have never witnessed such contempt and corruption under previous Tory governments

I suppose if you live in London.
But I’m sure if you look at what people spend their money on, you’ll find a lot of wants that are not necessities, and that’s the problem really isn’t it. Netflix and mobile phones and internet access and eCigarettes and televisions and a week in a caravan park, and a curry or a Chinese. None of those are essentials.
people don’t understand the difference between the word ‘need’ and the word ‘want’ and that’s the whole problem.

I suppose you're sending your posts by telepathy then rather than an electronic device and an internet connection them, given what wasteful and unnecessary fripperies those would be.

@ElliF The energy we make from nuclear power and renewables will be for the Uk market only I think. Electricity from wind farms goes straight into the national grid (pylons) - one of its problems is that it's difficult to store and move to where it's needed but at the very least it should help to slightly lower demand.

Also, as technology becomes more efficient and domestic usage decreases as domestic users strive to be more energy conscious or use less because it's unaffordable demand will go down.

When I were a lass (I'm in my fifties) fewer mums worked, especially full time. (There was no formal child care for a start.) than Food, clothes, holidays, cars and domestic appliances cost relatively more than today, but energy and housing cost a lot less. There was less pressure on parents to ferry their children to multiple activities and help with homework etc. Many people like OP would have had fewer things you rightly class as non essential but they would have had more free time and often more support from other family members who also weren't all working full time. It was easier for young people to get apprenticeships and full time, fixed hours work. A doctor would come to your home to see a sick child if need be.

The feeling was that life would be easier for the next generation with a higher standard of living.

No. I use the Internet.
But the I already posted our family income and a complete breakdown of our budget, and we’re not entitled to any benefits, or cheap rent, council housing etc. And we are a one income household.
We don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat out, don’t go on holiday, don’t own a TV, don’t buy takeaways, etc.
When we reach a point where we are living at a loss, we will look at mobile phones, internet access, food bills etc. and cut our cloth according to our income, obviously. That’s what grown ups do.

And I have conceded that if you live in London, on a cleaners wage, then living on one income even with benefits is not doable. However, the story would be different in cheaper parts of the country as others have already pointed out.

I guess it all comes down to doing the maths.
It isn’t rocket science.

Everything is expensive, but housing is the biggest issue, which is why I will only vote for a party who has a clear plan to tackle this at the next GE.

I suggest people who feel the same do this too.

It is easier to save up a house deposit pre-kids when you are renting a smaller and cheaper place vs once you have kids and need to rent a larger place.