Modern life is rubbish?

[MeanMrMustardSeed]

I’m not been immune to this myself, so not pointing fingers. I just keep seeing the same things on here again and again, and I’m coming to the conclusion that Blur were on to something.

We saw the dream of 2 incomes, and bigger houses and newer cars, eating out and foreign holidays. Then because we were all doing it, houses got more expensive. Then we needed two cars as we had two jobs and lots of activities for the kids, but we couldn’t save up for them, or afford them, so we took out leases on them. In the good old days of low interest rates we bought bigger houses, and took out loans for extensions and spent the rest on a family holiday.

Now we have expensive lifestyles but less disposable income. We’re tied into paying off loans that seemed manageable 5 years ago, paying £100s for cars that just don’t seem to do it for us anymore as almost every other person has one anyway. But mostly we’re knackered from trying to manage it all.

Lots of us seem to dream of getting rid of 50% of our things, eating the same simple meals every week, saving slowly for house improvements and living with ‘okay’, and getting off the treadmill, or at least slowing it down. If modern life made us all happy, I could maybe accept it’s all fine, but that’s not the vibe I’m getting.

So is modern life rubbish, or have I messed up somewhere?

My first thought also.

It's the way the system is set up. You literally have to have the majority of people needing to work and being underpaid for it or the whole thing collapses. Unfortunately.

I’ve sometimes thought oh my house is not as Modern as other peaples or they do more with their life’s than me and my family but then I’ve learnt it realy is ok to be different we are not all the same . We have a brand new car but it’s a mobility car due to my son having severe autism . I would give it back in a heartbeat to have my son not have autism . I’ve never been a wanter tho thsnkgoodness as long as my home is clean tidy and functioning then I’m happy

Look at the adverts on your phone. Every site saying buy me, buy me, buy me...

Cars leasing new I've never understood. Ditto lots of credit cards, only the Bank gaining.

Holidays fine if you've got the cash, enjoy them.

House try to pay it down when you can.

We have paid off our mortgage but financially we are living every month to the bone . Our children are doing well financially but there are very little extras than we can offer.
Obviously childcare is offered but definitely not full time .

Everyone has a choice. My choice is to save for the things I want, buy the things I can afford, go on holidays to the places I can afford irrespective of SM and advertising.

Why on earth get in a debt boomerang. Live within your means whatever those means are.

Absolutely. Nobody forces you to do otherwise.

Not necessarily. As stated earlier I still have the same property I bought over 25 years ago. Never did stretch myself going for a bigger one. Or a 2 nd property

The herd are charging towards more materialism. You don’t have to op. The fact you posted tells me that you are very much wanting to make changes. So downsize. Stop buying so much. Reevaluate. Go back to your roots. Choose a life that makes you happy. That relieves the pressure and stress. Where do you want to be in 5 months, 5 years? 15 years?

There are plenty of people living differently.

Same here! I have never cared about what others have…ever! I live a very contented life!

Move out of Southern England. Plenty of nice places with space up north.

Sorry that you are in this situation OP. What stands out for me is that your cars ‘don’t seem to do it’ for you anymore because others have them too.

What matters is that your cars work and get you from A to B surely. I genuinely don’t notice what cars others drive, or give a shit if someone points it out to me. And it seems I’m better off that way, if being into cars makes you spend more and more just to try to have a nicer one than others.

Before my divorce I had a big house, I now have a tiny house with no extensions or plans for extensions. And I actually don’t miss the bigger house, it was colder and took longer to clean. It was also chosen by my ex, whereas this one I got to choose on my own. The only thing I miss is having more than one toilet! If all you dream of is having more than others, that will never get you anywhere.

It is too easy to get seduced on to that treadmill through advertising and peer pressure, but never too late to get off it.
It is about working out how much of your lifestyle is really you, and shaping it accordingly.

We were in the loop of working hard and rewarding ourselves with costly dopamine hits until we realised it wasn't real contentment.

If lovely cars really are your thing, and you can indulge that without going into deep debt, then go for it, but maybe you don't have to have the new kitchen every few years, the exotic holidays or the rest of it on top.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

I believe low interest rates have enabled people to live beyond their means. The idea of saving up for something before buying it slowly disappeared, replaced by purchasing on credit. This created an illusion that everyone was living the dream life, when in reality, most were relying on debt.

This mindset shaped entire generations to believe that anything they wanted was within reach.

When I bought my first property, I had to make sacrifices, like giving up my car and forgoing holidays abroad. Today, it seems like people want it all—and often have it all. While I’m sure many can afford the extra luxuries, a large number are financing them through credit.

Growing up in the 70s, I saw my parents struggle financially. They had to save for anything they needed because credit was expensive and not as easily accessible. I also lived through a housing market crash and was made redundant twice in my 20s. All these experiences made me more conscious of how fragile the economy is, and I learned never to take anything for granted and to be prepared for the unexpected.

When COVID hit and I saw the government pumping money into the economy, I knew there would be consequences down the line—and here we are. Of course, Brexit and the war in Ukraine haven’t helped matters either.

I always find these threads unsettling because it’s never long before someone pipes up about how “sad” it is that families need two incomes and from there it’s a short hop to “life is easier if mums give up work”, which is usually the money shot in this line of argument.

Its seductive but simplistic.

Of course a lot of us feel stretched and burned out at the moment. It’s also true obviously that full time work with kids is exhausting.

But people overlook the huge benefits of having women in the workforce. Women joining the workforce in large numbers has led to an unprecedented boost in female independence which is ultimately a massively positive change for women and children. Two generations ago women were largely locked into marriage due to the difficulties of being self sufficient.

Life has been exhausting throughout millenia. Many people have struggled to keep the fruits of their labour. Keeping up with the Jones’s isn’t a new thing: the Victorians were stressing about it.

I completely understand and acknowledge how the “sandwich generation” feels worn down particularly at the moment, and I understand people wanting to live a simpler lifestyle and scale back their consumption but I am wary that this rhetoric often tends to lead to a conclusion that life would be better if most mothers stopped working.

I think it’s short sighted and glosses over the huge economic freedom that women have acquired in recent decades.

It's clever isn't it?
Keeping people in debt, keeping people on just about enough income to service that debt and as a result having a tap on people's future earnings.

It does stop people thinking if they are pre occupied buy paying off their debts... governments and industry have us right where they want us to be!
Less stuff is definitely more, there is plenty to do that's free and doesn't require a large income/ debt. But it's getting less and less accessible.

Yes I think people have let themselves be too caught up in the social media influencing. It fascinates me that people I work with are having nails and beauty treatments every other week, spending £400 a month on car leases (not even owning them?!) and having takeaways or expensive date nights every week. Same with kids clubs etc.

Our kids just do swimming and football which costs me about £50 a month combined. Both our cars are used and purchased outright. We buy "posh" meal deals instead of takeaways, and only really do days out if there are offers. We're not hard up by any means, I just like value for money.

Half term is a good example. We're swimming which is free, doing a trampoline park place which has an offer on, getting a train into the city for a wander (kids travel free) and will do one of the kids cinema mornings for about £4 a ticket. A colleague of mine has got something planned almost everyday, including two days out which cost about £20-25 a ticket, so almost £200 for the four of them. It's wild!

It isn’t necessarily women scaling back, maybe they both go part time? Having more than one child is the tipping point for most families. It’s impossible to be everything to everyone. So hard choices are needed before having dc. I am educating my dc to be extremely careful in the future. It looks like children are becoming a luxury most just can’t afford.

Intelligent women can raise children at home and use the time to qualify and further their careers in the evenings. It is not
‘dead’ time. It just needs thought and planning. I completely retrained.

This is a very interesting point. I’m generally a positive, optimistic sort of person, but I am increasingly wondering if I’m naive and basically big business and financial institutions have us where they want us! (On a population level.)

I agree. As I said earlier, a couple both working 3 days would be ideal!

It is rather a case of shooting yourself in the foot. Because households now often have two incomes it allowed housing prices to rise. If it wasn't for the extra income that comes with two salaries housing prices wouldn't have been able to rise as much as they have.

You can't put the genie back in the bottle now though and it goes without saying that there are advantages for women to work and have control over their financial future.

Women are still trapped in marriages, now they can’t afford to leave even with both partners working full time. No one is winning in this society, the expectations placed on women have become ridiculous. In reality, the only aspects of feminism that have ‘won’ are the ones that directly benefit shareholders and business owners.

But it almost always is women who scale back.

And not always by choice.

All too often employers see a woman having a baby and assume she is now less interested in career progression. Fewer opportunities will come her way.

When a man has a baby it is assumed that he is more interested in his career and is more likely to have career opportunities come his way.

The actual evidence in front of the employer's eyes doesn't matter, this attitude is still in the back of their mind.

I have experienced this and seen it happen to others too many times.

Far fewer women are trapped - which is why so many more get divorced

I don't think there has been a much better time to be alive in many ways but I also suspect that in many ways people 100 or 2000 years ago were generally as happy

And I do think as a nation we are having an up happy spell - I think seeing things get worse rather than better plays into this

And I do think rampant commercialisation , envy of stuff and others lives plays into that quite strongly also

We do on average far less now to help others than we ever used to - everything should be someone else's job- it should be paid for - keep yourself to yourself - and that doesn't help either