To ask when is the cost of living going to go down?

[scotpancakes]

When will working hard start to pay off? I scrape by every month. I can't afford to save, so I can't afford a house! I live in the South East and rent prices are crazy. Will this country ever become more affordable? For the past 16 years it's been doom and gloom and it just goes on and on!

It’s getting a bit like the ‘american dream’ isn’t it? We can’t even imagine that life could become more liveable for large swathes of people, and can only suggest ways for an individual person to tug harder on their bootstraps. If it was that easy to retrain for a high paying job while a single mother living in an overpriced area then everyone would do it. Probably true that systematic changes won’t happen though, when our two parties are so close in outlook and income inequality just continues to spiral post 2008.

The col is never going to go down. The only thing that varies is how fast it goes up.

But it’s a fair question- the uk is full of allegedly hard working people but our economy doesn’t reflect that. It’s just maybe British people as a whole have the wrong idea about what hard work looks like.

No shade at all- I think I am a perfectly average worker. There is nothing wrong with that.

I had to retrain and move my child’s school. It wasn’t easy but it was better then giving a landlord all my money every month. I had a friend in London who accepted a council house near Hull in order to escape high rents. If your job can be done from home then you could live anywhere in the country.

If prices go back to what they were, this is actually DEFLATION. This will not happen (unless things go seriously wrong…deflation is a bad thing in an economy). If things stay exactly as they are today, that is 0% inflation. The goal is to remain at or below 2% inflation. As PPs have said, we’re expecting prices to go up as business owners need to cover the cost of the new minimum wage rise and the increase in their NI contributions. My prediction is that inflation will be above 2% for the next several years. How much above 2% is anyone’s guess.

But hard work has never paid. That's why the expression "work smart not hard" exists. You need to find a better paying job/industry or else yes, accept your lot.

It's possible that a government will manage to get housebuilding numbers up and eventually that would result in house prices and rents being relatively lower. That's the one single thing that could do most to reduce the cost of living.

Labour have said that this is what they want to do, and they have a planning reform bill on the way. I couldn't tell you whether they will be successful or not, or how long until you'd notice the benefit of they are, but that's your best hope.

@AquaPeer what do you think constitutes hard work? My sister is a paediatric nurse and works insanely hard but pay does not reflect that! I have an uncle who works as a hedge fund manager and his hard work is nicely balanced with lots of holidays and downtime! As someone else said, I think I need to work smarter not harder!

@scotpancakes We left Richmond, Surrey ( hometown) because we could never rent and save to buy because of high rents.
We moved 100 miles away ( missed family abs friends) but we bought a house.
Renting is soul destroying.

What are the practical suggestions for retraining?! I earn a high salary as a professional. My professional qualification cost in excess of £10k 15 years ago. And of course, it’s taken me this long to get the experience to earn that much.

what do people actually mean when they say retrain for a higher salary? It’s not an idea I come across in the workplace at all.

@headstone what did you retrain as? I won't be moving to hull. My job pays enough for me to not be entitled to any benefits.

It’s going to expensive running a household on one salary. Gone are the days of a raising a family with one working parents being standard. It takes two salaries to buy a house in the south east.

Do you have a friend who would be willing to buy with you? Another single mother. Buy a 3 bed and the kids share. Or for now rent together and spend less on running a house. Or get a lodger in weekdays and share a bedroom with your child?

Of course you do. This is literally the reason I asked what you meant. It’s easy to throw your hands up in the air and say you work so hard so what else could you do, but it’s obvious that a) in a country like the uk with excellent employment laws etc working hard means something quite different to other countries and b) it has little relation to remuneration

I agree this is absolutely key. Very few people can support a household on one wage, particularly when you’re presumably paying childcare costs as there isn’t a partner at home to do that

I don’t think it will unfortunately not with the ageing population. We are all going to pay more for less.

The excessive costs of housing are a result of population increase, lack of house building, excessive profits by the big housebuilding & btl boom that allowed landlords to build portfolios (using previous cheap finance).

I know people who got into hmo's and they treat they tenants as cash cows. I would impose rent restrictions as it's the only way for landlords to stop using renters to pay their mortgages.

2nd home stamp duty is a good start as is stopping the large discounts on council homes. Vast home building in some areas will just reduce the quality of life for many people so population density has to be looked at as otherwise there will always be too many people chasing too few homes.

How old are you OP?

I didn’t retrain for a higher salary, just retrained in a job that could be done anywhere. If you are not forced to live in the South East many places have affordable housing and even council house availability.

This. The rate of increase may reduce but costs to a household only ever increase.

It's not going to go down

Labour are probably planning to build on the farmland sold by farmers to pay their Inheritance Tax

We don’t need more shoddily built new houses .

I’m so sorry op, it’s about to get so much worse. All the growth predictions have been reversed, inflation is forecast to rise again, heating costs as we know have gone up, and unemployment is about to start rising, meaning benefits are stretched further, the value of the pound is dropping meaning out pound buys us less, and the nmw and ni increases are going to be passed onto us consumers, so all prices will rise. Landlords are selling uo due to the promised renters rights bill and the taxes that are coming, meaning fewer properties to rent and a huge increase in the rental charges where they are available.

we are in austerity and then some, with a major col crisis coming our way, what was already bad, but reversing, is about to get so much worse according to all financial institutions

i don’t know wnat people will do. I really don’t. It’s a very sad situation. But hey, maybe , waiting lists will go down, if the nhs doesn’t just chew up the cash.

Sorry to sound glum, but really don't think it will.

We are in late stage capitalism and unfortunately that is happening at the same time as global pressures of war and climate change.

Globally there are more and more people and less resources to support them. Add to that the loss in habitual and farming land due to climate change and human decision, and life is set to get a lot harder.

The amount of land in this country that can be farmed is shrinking, and the reduction is gaining pace. The new wetter climate we are moving is not conducive to food production at our latitude. Add to that how many displaced people there will be, and a complete worldwide shift in areas suitable for food production and the situation is dire.

Housing, food and fuel are going to become more scarce, and we will have to get used to having less.

We never recovered from the 08 crash & treating housing as an asset has fucked a lot of things.

https://www.gov.uk/rent-room-in-your-home

It won’t. They could hopefully stop rising, the rise seems less relentless now than it has been

i I think the hope is that eventually salaries catch up. But I don’t count on that happening for a long time, if ever