To think that after COL change expectations have to change

[EuclidianGeometryFan]

If you are a couple in "professional" or middle-to-highish income jobs, say between £70k to £100k joint family income, is it now unreasonable to expect to raise two children in a middle-class lifestyle in the south?

Example of a couple with a 3 bed house, run one car, two children in primary, so still need after-school and holiday childcare, have a dog.
Would you expect to afford a few coffees each week, a couple of meals out or takeaways each month, a couple of TV subscriptions, a nice holiday abroad, or perhaps a better car instead of the holiday - and not to have to count the pennies when shopping or turn the heating off to save money?

Or is this too much to expect?

Would it be more reasonable nowadays to not afford the coffees and meals, not afford the dog, only cheap camping holidays in UK, old car, no TV subscriptions?
Even when the children are in secondary and no longer need childcare, you then have to worry about helping them afford uni or house deposit or driving lessons.

(On the plus side, at least you own your own house into retirement.)

I think our idea of what a "professional middle-class" lifestyle should be like has to permanently change. With the cost of childcare and housing, we just can't live at the standard we used to.

I am a single parent, only one child at home still. I earn 67k and live in the south currently. My income doesn’t go far at all. Currently renting, £1400 for a 2 bed flat. I am waiting for DD to go off to uni next
sep then i’m moving back to the north and buying a house. I could buy a flat, and considered it, but then decided to head back north as ill never be able to afford more than a flat here. It’s frustrating when you’re a single income household.

I'm the nineties me and my then dh earned about 10k each.We bought a two bed house for 30k no deposit required. A similar job now would be 22k but that house is worth 150k so the house is 5x more expensive but wage has just over doubled. And you would need a 15k deposit. And this is to live in a deprived area inthe north

col is going to get worse thanks to trump

Agree to that - trade war, actual war, the fact we can barely afford the public spending we are doing, sluggish growth. Tax raises of some kind widely believed to be coming in Nov budget.

In all fairness the op says "the south" and the south is not just London and the surrounding areas.
There are tons of three bed properties for that price along the south east coast. Don't say the south if you just mean London 🤷🏻‍♀️

One of the interesting things for me is the 3 bed semi being synonymous with an aspirational middle class lifestyle for people with above average incomes.

When I was much younger it was all about the 4 bed detached. So people jetting off to the city or earning much more than average, were buying a 4 bed detached houses. Not as a starter home, obviously, but by thier early 30s.

Those same sorts of jobs are now buying 3 bed semis but they used to be for more ordinary jobs on more average wages.

I am now in my 60s and not swanning around on big pensions i have to manage on my state pension so rarely eat out and live simply to afford some good things in life. You have to manage yr money and enjoy simple things that maybe free ..eg walk by river

See when I was little it was owning anything was the aspiration and kids sharing rooms was the norm

The 4 bed detached was definitely for the rich not the middle classes

So expectations have changed
I also think expectations are shaped by your own childhood

A 3 bed semi is a step up from my childhood - for others it's a step down

No one likes going backwards

I'm in that income bracket and have the first lifestyle you describe "3 bed house, run one car, two children in primary, so still need after-school and holiday childcare, have a dog [cat in my case]. I do afford "a few coffees each week, a couple of meals out or takeaways each month, a couple of TV subscriptions, a nice holiday abroad"

However I live in SW, my house is a very small 3 bed worth under £300k so small mortgage. Kids only need wraparound clubs. My retired parents live in a much bigger house, a 4 bed with utility room and conservatory. I also grew up in a 4 bed which they had bought on two teachers salaries

But the ‘middle class’ lifestyle they seem to think existed back then…didn’t.

i didn’t set foot on an airplane until the mid 90s. We didn’t have take out all the time. Meals out were only for special occasions. Cinema was a couple of times in school holidays.

We had one car, possibly a shared family computer, and were told no often when we asked for extras because there wasn’t the money. Vacations in France were by ferry and you camped. It took my uncle 9 years to save enough for a big Florida holiday.

So people are not having to adjust to some ‘lesser’ middle class lifestyle. They are adjusting to an actual middle class lifestyle.

A lot of people seem to be confusing upper middle with middle. Middle is the norm. You can fake upper middle using credit for a while - but you’re in a hiding to nothing and the wheels will come off soon enough.

How sad that those are your optics. People from any background should not be passive about this. We should not have to lower our expectations and be expected to work the same. Also, our pensioners are not responsible for the COL. May be the government is responsible and how they waste money collected on way of taxes. Decide to erode the middle classes and make it impossible to live decently for the majority.

@OxfordInkling You’re just describing the past.

You only had one computer… because everyone did.

You went on holiday by car and ferry… because air travel wasn’t accessible for most. Travel in 2025 is vastly more expensive than in 2015.

I don’t actually think most families are eating out or going to the cinema all the time.

Younger people today cannot afford a similar level of housing as their parents, they both need to full time to fund that housing, the cost of having children has skyrocketed and so they are having smaller families etc.

People’s basic expenses around housing, childcare, energy, food etc are taking up a larger and larger share of income - and those who grew up in the 80s/90s won’t be able to achieve a similar standard of living as their parents on the same income.

All the data shows this - yes it might be more feasible to fly to France for your camping holiday in 2025, but the house you grew up in would cost 15x your income.

You see thread after thread on here of relatively well earning people who haven’t got anything left at the end of the month once relatively basic expenses have been covered. Everyone’s not driving a Range Rover on credit.

I don't think it's a case of confusing upper middle with middle.

It's that the op talked about a professional couple with above average household income (by a fair amount) which I felt would have put them in the upper middle in the not to distant past. I read this to mean more you got a job on a graduate recruitment scheme in the city roles, but others are reading a teacher married to a policeman.

I associate lower middle class with more clerical type work and middle, middle more teachers, nurse, policeman type things.
So, growing up, i have have expected professionals in london type graduate roles, with above average incomes to afford a coffee and a big house.

Yes, this is true. Your expectations are shaped a lot by your own childhood. I grew up in a 2 bed terrace that was never painted or wallpapered as my parents couldn’t afford to decorate. We were quite poor so I never thought I’d own anything. I now own a one bed flat but it doesn’t feel like a step down because I never expected to be able to buy - I choose to live in London and if I moved out of the SE I could afford a house, but I don’t want to. 3 and 4 bed semis and detached houses have never been on my radar, they were always for rich people. I never realised the extent of the obsession with them as a status symbol til I started using MN! I’m just grateful for what I’ve got. Plus, small flat means small mortgage and I can afford to travel a lot which is my real priority.

I earn well above average and have so little leftover for luxuries. I feel about as well-off as I did 12 years ago when I was earning £20k.

Finances is the only thing I hate about being single, though not enough to ever want to cohabit again. Having another income would make so much difference.

@MidnightPatrol they often can afford plenty on that salary. Yes, housing has got more expensive, but a couple earning the amounts most of the thread are taking about can afford a house, a car, etc. they can’t afford the four bed detached in London, but the normal semi in an affordable area is possible. They can’t buy the car new at this stage in their life - but they can get a perfectly good one second hand. They might have to consider a career break while their kids are young, if childcare costs are too high. Or if they’ve made good choices on the house and car, maybe they can afford the childcare instead. It’s all about choices and living with their consequences.

Im tired of watching people on decent salaries with good lives moan and assert that they are entitled to it all, now, immediately.

So true most of the people on these types of threads did not grow up middle they were upper middle. Now I mean seriously talking about multiple foreign holidays in the 80s and a big four bedroom house? That was never "middle".

These people just need to accept they had exceptionally well off childhoods, compared to about 90% of people, and move on

@OxfordInkling you are managing to acknowledge that they can afford less in terms of housing… but not acknowledging how that might make someone feel like they had a different standard of living to what they expected.

That doesn’t make sense.

It’s not ‘demanding it all, immediately’ (first age of buying a house and having a child go up every year) - it’s that one equivalent incomes, you can’t afford the same lifestyle today. And yes - housing is a really key part of that.

If you can’t afford to live in the same area you grew up in, if you can’t afford the house you grew up in - yes you’re going to feel that you can’t attain the same lifestyle.

Problem is housing cost and stagnant salaries.. I’m not sure it’s a case of ‘adjusting expectation’ but making better political choices and being more politically aware as a general nation? I think the UK has voted for people who allow business to keep salaries low and keep lore profit. We’ve chosen less welfare - and by that I mean welfare for everyone - not just ‘benefits’ for the unemployed. We’ve chosen to have a really unequal society for years and this is where it’s led.. I’d like to see the future of the UK being way more to the left; fairer, more distribution of resources and wealth, maybe a citizens assembly or similar. For now I suppose yes people will have to start by spending within their means whatever that looks like for them..

I'm also tired. I'm tired of working really hard at my professional job that I needed two degrees and a professional qualification to get, to pay for extortionate nursery fees, and for my husband to also be working hard at his job, so that we can just about afford a smaller house than I grew up in, whilst my mum was a stay at home mum.

I'm so very very tired but my expectations must be adjusted accordingly.

I think that is unfair and a very broad stereotype.

I'm about to retire.

I've worked for 36 years without a break ( except maternity). Long hours, stressful role. I have the same contract I started out with. I returned to work after each maternity leave, to keep my contract. I was left with £30 per week after paying childcare and travel at that time.

Prior to marriage I saved and saved so that I had money to put into a house. Few holidays, few nights out, careful spending. No new car only what I had saved to buy. No loans.

During my marriage, bought a wreck of a house and around a full time job, baby/toddlers we renovated it fully over a three year period, living standards were awful. 15% mortgage rate too.

DH left for someone else. Divorced and started again. Smaller house. Couldn't move away or make any exciting decisions, like take a career break, as I had three small children to responsible for.

Second hand clothes & Christmas presents for the kids, cheap cars. Low cost holidays, if at all. Saved for everything we needed.

In later life I've met someone else. He too is divorced, sharing the assets of the marriage with his wife. Not enough for either to buy another property.

It isn't always the ‘lucky’ life you portray. Hard work, managing finances, making cuts to buying.

Not all of our generation have parents doing this, I certainly don't. I resent a massive generalisation as if absolutely all of our parent's generation bar one or two unlucky souls are loaded. They are not, a significant number live with just the state pension.

We fall into this category but luckily bought 15 years ago. Live in a large 3 bed semi in SE with mortgage of under £1k. Could afford a yearly summer holiday abroad if weren't servicing debt due to a failed business. Drive a really knackered old car, have only one child which helps! Pension pots are a worry.

Meanwhile my parents mortgage was never more than £100 a month, they holiday abroad 4+ times a year, have 2 nice new cars & final salary pensions. They had basic jobs. It can be a bit galling but it's purely a generational thing really (although they definitely didn't spend big when we were kids & always prioritised their retirement over spending on myself and my siblings, which is not how I choose to parent.)

I worry for our child's future, & our own, but what can we do. At least we will be able to downsize.

Perhaps if you worried less about pensioners who saved for their retirement and more about those in your own generation living it up on the back of unearned wealth I would have more time for your problems.

Because not all pensioners are rich and. It all young people are poor or struggling

But it flows down. If those who had exceptionally well off childhoods, can't replicate them despite doing similar or better jobs with two earners. Then every level is adjusting thier expectations too. This isn't a great thing. Just the whole country adjusting to a worse standard of living basically due to housing costs.

My childhood was a council house. It was actually a really nice 3 bed semi detached. There are estates full of this type of house In my county. Built post war. People doing the jobs my parents did are not living in these houses now. They sell for 550 up.. We'd never would have thought these would become aspirational houses for way above average earners, who on purchase struggled with coffee. Its really odd, looking at it and thinking, I can't afford that in any shape or form.