Am I just stuck in the past or are price increases recently out of control?

[newire]

I am late 40’s and so there is some change my idea of prices are stuck in the past but my DH had a day off yesterday and we went up to town to go to a film and then dinner at very basic but nice Greek place, we got up to town early so went to a café for a cup of tea and a bit of cake to share. By the time we got home we had spent £100. In 2019 we could have done the exact same evening out for half of that. Which does leave me feeling like the goal posts have been moved quite a bit.

Obviously, I know prices go up, that hospitality is under a lot of pressure but prior to this it took more like 20 years for prices to double and now they have doubled in the past 4 or 5 years and it shows little sign of slowing down. Same with anything you buy, a new paperback book can be £15! It feels like Tea is more expensive every week.

Like I say I know prices go up but am I crazy to feel that things have gone up excessively? Even though inflation is supposed to be falling the price of products and services never seems to fall. Or am I just getting old and stuck in the past?

Equally don’t have tea out. It’s absurd. Take a flask. Thing about people now is that they waste money on shit like that and wonder where their money has gone. Clearly I am not talking about a day trip or evening out. But £3.80 a day for tea for 253 working days is just shy of a £1,000

My sister lives there, meat is definitely more expensive but a lot of other things are cheaper. Vegetables and fruit definitely cheaper and better quality than here. I was there this summer and things like coffees and cake in a cafe were way more affordable.

I bought a pack of 4 small/mini tins of sweetcorn in Aldi today and they were £1.85. Nearly 50p a tin. They were 30p individually not that long ago.

Reasonable or not prices have gone beyond what many of us can afford to pay. I have cut out any eating out including coffees which was one of my treats! and have a takeaway about once every 4 months (if that) I have down graded my shopping from Sainsburys and Waitrose to mainly Lidl (although to be fair the food is good but less choice). I look at too good to go for the odd treat and yellow stickers.
i literally never buy clothes now.
to be honest its all a bit depressing.
years of Tory misrule followed by Tory Lite AKA Starmer have left us in a mess.

I mean, on the one hand the planet needs us all to consume less. On the other hand, it feels pretty harsh actually not making what my parents made and not affording a similar lifestyle to theirs at the same age. At the age I am now, my parents were going abroad for holidays, able to go to the pub quiz with friends every week, able to treat me as a young adult and my sibling as a teenager to meals out for birthdays and celebrations like seeing each other! There’s no chance of us being able to do that, even though my OH and I have a similar professional profile to theirs and even though we are able to spend less on our housing than they did.

I think there was a noticeable jump in prices for a meal/coffee and cake out when the national insurance increases happened. So thanks Labour, that extra cost was obviously going to be passed on to the customers.

Although I agree that prices have gone up, even 25 years ago my recollection is that a meal out for two was around £60 with drinks and service, so I'm struggling a bit with the £30 dinner in 2019. I'm in London though.

I did balk at paying £28 for a lukewarm gin and tonic and a thimbleful of red wine, both in plastic glasses, at the O2 last year. That did seem like daylight robbery.

May I offer chips and curry sauce for your consideration? We're now looking at around £6 for a single portion of chips and a small tub of curry sauce, so the once "cheap treat" is no longer cheap...

Anywhere that involves food and drinks at any kind of venue or festival is a rip off. The 02 abuses the privilege

Visited Nando's for takeaway lunch today. Two chicken wraps, a chicken pitta and two lots of fries, £43!!!! Outrageous.

It was the same order a Veggie gyro for me and a lamb gyro for DH and an order of Greek fries on the side to share and two cokes.

I must've bought the same beef! I said, tesco is £7.19 for the same size pack! I remember when £5 was the budget for a dinner... now its less than the meat in the meal costs!

Finding the same for visits to the hairdressers.. literally a quarter of salary for a simple cut and colour which has become completely unaffordable. (London prices)

I bought a small box of Maltesers from Sainsburys last week Nectar offer £1.85 Full price £3.75. If i didnt have a Nectar card i wouldnt have bought them. The large box of Maltersers that is usually available at Christmas time was £4 Now the small box is basically the same price

Im lucky here, My hairdesser charges £65 for a cut and colour, Im not in London though. Small town in North Essex and hairdresser WFH in a neighbouring village in a salon built on her property

NI has gone up multiple times on the past 15 years - the leap to 13.8 was also painful .
we were warned by many, including ex chancellors and the Governor of BofE that we would suffer huge economic damage if we left the European Union. This is resonating for us now. This has happened alongside Covid and a Tory Government that spent 5 months in 2022 fannying around looking for a leader and then gave us Truss.
we have had a succession of economic shocks.

We went to spoons today,and its fairly decent basic food,tbh slightly better quality than greene king and half the price. I know its not gourmet but its cheap,and cheerful,and they do a nice salad😊 also 99p for a refillable hot drink

Have you noticed how shit the quality of fruit and vegetables are in supermarkets lately?? Im sick of it all going off in 2 days,and potatoes rotton right the way through

You're definitely in the present. Coffee with oatolk on London is almost £4! I stopped drinking it when it got to £3 over a year ago so it's gone up by 25%. Even fish and chips we buy ourselves srhe kids meal or share. We share two pizza for three people. Everything we buy is a trade off. I buy dupes of popular brands - all made in the same place - China. My DD works in a cafe. She was paid £6 ISH when she was 17 on her 18th birthday her pay went up to over £10 p/h - in a tiny.cade that makes about £1200 on a Saturday with four members of staff! Hence price increases?

I went to Pizza Express on Sunday with my daughter. We had a set meal each - 3 courses for around £27 each. On top of that we had two medium white wines and two bottles of cider.

The bill was not far off £100.

Its Pizza Express!!!!!!

Weather has been difficult - wet winters, dry summers, droughts in Spain where we get a lot from. Maybe supermarkets are trying to buy more British to avoid imports from EU and some of the quality isn’t as good….
going off more quickly in heat if not refrigerated…

Ppl having to live in hot flats wont be helping

@newire regional variations 20 years ago probably as a result of cash in hand. Cash in hand in hospitality is near enough dead and anyone that tries gets caught by the taxman that means there’s nowhere you can save 20% by visiting cafes on the cheap!! That’s the reason for near price parity in many places too now!

I also think many of these places aren’t viable, but then what’s next for our economy on a near service dominate sector? Or maybe you don’t mind this outcome because eventually this sort of outcome won’t just affect the teenager that works at the cafe in the long run it will have far reaching consequences if people stop spending even more in the hospitality sector…

Mine was £254!!!

FUCKING HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!