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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be sick of sneezing and spending £20?

166 replies

ghicks · 19/10/2024 19:54

Anyone else? I feel like everything costs more and more and I’d just like to moan about it. Every day it seems to be something else!

OP posts:
MeMyCatsAndI · 19/10/2024 22:55

If anyone's interested (I doubt it by hey) it's cheaper to get your meat online from places like muscle foods. We spend £75 on meat and it lasts us 34 days ish for a family of 4.
It's brought down my food shop by loads and the meat is really good too!

tillylula · 19/10/2024 23:14

My husband expects me to stick to a budget with 2 kids in nappies, we are a family of 5... and the price of everything going up so much. It just doesn't work

EdgarAllenRaven · 19/10/2024 23:19

WHEN will this ever end?!

80smonster · 19/10/2024 23:22

Large paper bag of M&S shopping cost me £48, no alcohol only food. Bloody joke.

RobinEllacotStrike · 19/10/2024 23:32

My kids got 2 burgers and shared a shake at Gatwick today - £30!

Normallynumb · 19/10/2024 23:45

I find it quite scary
I'm on disability benefits and I'm frugal by nature but a basic shop of essentials has doubled now and I only eat once a day as it is!

BanksysSprayCan · 19/10/2024 23:48

My tips..

Cancel the Amazon account - saved me a fortune. All of those small purchases really add up.

Go to the shops as little as possible. Order everything you can online to avoid the temptation to get extras.

Fruit and veg box weekly.
Milk, dairy, bread and eggs delivered twice a week.
Meat box once a month.
Toilet rolls every so often.
I have a cash and carry card to buy dry goods and other bits in bulk.

The beauty of this method is that it supports farmers directly and cuts out the price gouging supermarkets.

notprincehamlet · 20/10/2024 00:10

We used to have big enough balls to crack out a General Strike and now we just.... sit here and take it????
The country has been run like a giant Ponzi scheme for decades and those chickens are coming home to roost. So many people have done everything right - studied hard, worked hard, paid tax and NI - and are priced out of the absolute basics like heat and housing security, while being overtaken in life by those who've been gifted money/inherited well. Governments know that people won't kick up much of a fuss if they feel they might jeopardise what they have but we've reached the point where so many people have absolutely nothing to lose.

NotSoHotMess24 · 20/10/2024 00:27

Think I misunderstood this thread! I took the title to mean "being ill and also everything being super expensive". I can see now that I massively missed the point 😂

NotSoHotMess24 · 20/10/2024 00:28

ghicks · 19/10/2024 20:51

Hope they are feeling much better. It’s crap having to pay for stuff like that that’s totally unavoidable

Ah thank-you. They are - for now!!

NotSoHotMess24 · 20/10/2024 00:31

Also to add, the cheapest tea lights were £3.75 in big Asda today!! I remember you used to be able to get a massive bag of them from Wilko for £1 not so many years ago. Couldn't afford the indulgence as only had £20 for groceries, so will have to rummage around the cupboards and hope there are some dusty candles in the back somewhere, from happier days...

Betterthanitseems · 20/10/2024 00:34

My partner and I both have public sector jobs. Since 2020 we would be lucky to see a gross increase between us of £1000,yet we are working harder and prices are s9 high we have less disposable income. A lot less. When will it all end!

DickEmery · 20/10/2024 00:47

The supermarkets are taking the piss. For years they've been going on about covid and Ukraine even though Ukraine has fuck all to do with us, while their profit margins are going up. Apart from Morrisons, but only because they were dumb enough to sell themselves to venture capitalists, the stupid fucks. Food is expensive because they want to charge us more money for it and they act like we don't know this.

Then there's the energy companies, going on about how the price they charge us is based on what they pay for energy. But they sell energy to their fucking selves! Through a different arm of the same conglomeration than the arm that supplies customers. Again, taking the piss by acting like they can't do anything about it, it's just what the price is, their hands are tied blah blah. It's a bloody racket.

Meanwhile the majority of people in the country are over 40, nobody's having enough kiddies and there aren't sufficient immigrants to plug the gaps so we're banging what little money we are able to scrape together into pensions and a frankly fucking terrible healthcare service that is almost entirely taken up with elderly care.

likeitallagain · 20/10/2024 00:55

My life has a constant audio of that contactless payment noise whenever I step away from my front door Grin

Not me - but someone in a parenting group on FB said she picked up a vegetable at a green grocers that was £8! £8! It was either a butternut squash or aubergine

Bloodylovecheese · 20/10/2024 01:04

This...

To be sick of sneezing and spending £20?
TheBelleOfBelfastCity · 20/10/2024 01:11

I work more hours nowadays than I’ve ever done - yet I also have less money than I ever have. Make it make sense!! The UK is becoming a miserable place to live.

5 years ago I worked part time with enough money left over for luxuries like a few meals out each month, holidays abroad etc. I’m now full time, earning double what I did - fast forward to the year 2024 I can comfortably afford none of these things.

Ramblomatic · 20/10/2024 01:47

£20? I can't remember the last time I left the house without spending £100 😬

Hedonism · 20/10/2024 09:19

Even if I manage to not spend loads of money when I leave the front door, I usually realise I need to fill up on petrol on the way home. Boom, there goes another £75.

Safer to stay home 🤦🏼‍♀️

RhaenysRocks · 20/10/2024 09:48

BanksysSprayCan · 19/10/2024 23:48

My tips..

Cancel the Amazon account - saved me a fortune. All of those small purchases really add up.

Go to the shops as little as possible. Order everything you can online to avoid the temptation to get extras.

Fruit and veg box weekly.
Milk, dairy, bread and eggs delivered twice a week.
Meat box once a month.
Toilet rolls every so often.
I have a cash and carry card to buy dry goods and other bits in bulk.

The beauty of this method is that it supports farmers directly and cuts out the price gouging supermarkets.

You're paying for a lot of delivery charges there and assuming everyone has space to store bulk purchases.

ButterAsADip · 20/10/2024 10:40

BanksysSprayCan · 19/10/2024 23:48

My tips..

Cancel the Amazon account - saved me a fortune. All of those small purchases really add up.

Go to the shops as little as possible. Order everything you can online to avoid the temptation to get extras.

Fruit and veg box weekly.
Milk, dairy, bread and eggs delivered twice a week.
Meat box once a month.
Toilet rolls every so often.
I have a cash and carry card to buy dry goods and other bits in bulk.

The beauty of this method is that it supports farmers directly and cuts out the price gouging supermarkets.

Fruit and veg box weekly - way too much food for just me and DH, the kids won’t eat a lot of it, or if they do it’s because I have spent hours cooking it into an unrecognisable state. No one has time for that

Milk, dairy, bread and eggs delivered twice a week. 😂😂😂 tried it, way too expensive for the amounts of milk and bread we get through!

Meat box once a month. - and store a months worth of meat where?

Fine ideas but ideas that most people with any sense already know exist.

Ribenaberry12 · 20/10/2024 10:46

Omg, yes. So much yes. I’m sick of working my arse off and never being able to afford anything nice.

librathroughandthrough · 20/10/2024 10:50

ButterAsADip · 19/10/2024 22:31

Same! Today we’ve spent at least £200 and that’s just on groceries, few PJs for the kids, bday present for kids’ school pal, couple of groceries for dinner.

How much would you expect this to cost though? The process of getting all of those items to the store is endless; PJs - growing cotton, harvesting, processing, dyeing, cutting pattern, sewing . Same for groceries; prepping the field, planting the crop, harvesting, inspecting and categorising, transporting, packaging, selling

NotSoHotMess24 · 20/10/2024 11:35

librathroughandthrough · 20/10/2024 10:50

How much would you expect this to cost though? The process of getting all of those items to the store is endless; PJs - growing cotton, harvesting, processing, dyeing, cutting pattern, sewing . Same for groceries; prepping the field, planting the crop, harvesting, inspecting and categorising, transporting, packaging, selling

Less than £200!!

Honourspren · 20/10/2024 11:39

We are going back to the days in which living is hard. It's both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it does boil down to less rubbish being bought, less landfill, more careful considerations, and maybe even a reduction in obesity in the long run. The curse, of course, is seeing the decline of our current quality of life, but that was never going to keep on increasing indefinitely.

I think it does hit harder because we are more aware now - of the lifestyle the previous generation has had (my parents are late boomers and their quality of life is very high, while as a late millenial I have struggled since the 2008 recession), as well as our exposure to social media showing us how the upper crust live on a daily basis.

Lots of things mentioned here are not essential. Going out for a quick coffee, a new pair of pyjamas for every child, holidays abroad. What we are missing are some essential skills, like far more careful planning (for example when going out), the ability to repair and mend rather than to throw out, the ability to cook hearty meals from whatever leftovers are still in the fridge and cupboard.

We are bearing the consequences of a huge population, more technology and climate change. None of the ridiculous price increases would be as steep if the three were removed as a factor. A company cannot fleece you of money if you have options, but our past and current lifestyles do come at that cost.

ByCoolWriter · 20/10/2024 11:40

Everything is dear now but to be honest a lot of these examples are just things that people don't seem to recognise they shouldn't be spending if money is tight.
No money.... shouldn't be buying coffee from coffee shops.
No money... shouldn't be eating out even if it's just a cafe snack.
No money... you don't need candles they're not essential.

Folk need to write down where they are frittering stuff away.

I agree going into shops and easily dropping 20quid on food etc and it is tough but a lot of these examples are needless spending.