To wonder how people are coping?

[CobbleWobble]

We are very lucky, I know this.

We are "Mumsnet rich" both have professional jobs with good salaries (£170k household income) and yet this last 12 months:

• removed children from private school
• changed how we do the weekly shop to reduce costs
• cut subscriptions (like Disney+ etc)
• reduced what I bought in the back to school shop
• decided against a holiday in October half term
• concerned about our usual Christmas food order

What is going on? I just don't understand why or how prices are rising as they are or how people on less than us are coping!

I'm extremely grateful we have the things to cut that we have but we've also had to remortgage this year which has doubled our mortgage payments and then our utilities have increased and the food shop has just got insane.

We have other things we can cut - a holiday in the UK, Netflix, the monthly takeaway but its just miserable to think we may need to do that just not to be living.

Happy to post spending particulars if people are finding it hard to see where I'm coming from.

So AIBU to think that as a country we cannot go on with prices rising like this? How are others coping?

I think you need to extend the period of your mortgage OR move to downgrade your home a bit. Choose one subscription service only, cleaner 2 hours a week or 3 hours a fortnight or not at all. You can shave down most of your outgoings a bit. DO NOT STOP PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS! think about putting monthly pet insurance money in pet savings account instead of insurance uf your pets are young and healthy. Pet insurance is notorious for not paying out.

My husband earns £60k, I earn zilch. Lady of leisure. Paid off our mortgage last year at 40. We've taken our kids (18 next month and 14) to over 50 countries (some several times. They've been to Uzbekistan twice!) and 20 US states. Spent the 6 week holidays in the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea and had a few days in Gdansk just after. We spent a week in Krakow in the April school holiday, and have had day trips to Hamburg and Amsterdam. Just in the process of getting a mortgage to buy a second house.

The issue isn’t brexit or Russia etc - the issue is extremely low, chronic poor productivity in the UK coupled with the worlds highest energy costs - gas, electric and car fuel. With these ingredients, nothing will function correctly, and when it does it will costs a fortune because anything and everything requires energy to make it, move it, store it. Until energy costs and productivity are resolved we will have very low growth which means the govt ability to fund anything is extremely limited as its spending in real terms is reducing every year while costs like welfare and NHS continue to grow.

@Sally20099 but how on earth do you fix the productivity problem?

Yeah, sorry but this.
I don't understand why you've had to remove the kids from their schools. I'd have done anything to avoid that kind of upheaval for them before I did that.
I don't know where you live, but even if your payments HAVE doubled, you'd have to live in an actual mansion for it to eat away that salary.
This is so so so so tone deaf to those of us earning £15k a year and that's IT.

What world do you live in. Many families live on far less and still can afford Disney plus. Get a grip and think about people who are less fortunate than you.

I wonder how people manage too. The problem is that once you give pay rises to public employees, we all pay for it, and food prices rise to cover rises in pay and national insurance, and still the government is spending more than it gets in taxation. November will see people unable to buy essentials. If they taught nutrition and cooking in schools, people would know about the cheaper cuts. There should be more information on TV programmes, about cheap foods and how to cook them, but how does that help a working mother who has to resort to fast food because the kids are too hungry after work to get out the stew pans.

The prices of food are very high indeed. I think more and more families will go back to the stew pot. All over the world it is common to have a 'potage' on the back burner day after day, with everything chucked in it, refreshed each day with the addition of tins of soup. I can see a shortage of slow cookers. You can fill those up with fresh vegetables and why you come home it is all ready cooked, but you cannot live on the same things day after day, can you?

During covid I shopped online for my carer and his wife because they are black and at more risk, and she worked in a London hospital each day.

I explained that Jesus did not feed the thousands because they were poor, but because they were too late to access shops for food. My carer accepted that, because he too is a Christian.

The shopping was for three. I bought the same items for them as for myself.

I now shop just for me, and am paying more now, for one, as I paid for all the shopping for three in the lockdowns.

That experience has shown just how high food prices have risen. I have a cart online now. The reasonably priced items were ''sold out''. I also click on a special offer and get something else at the usual price, so I have been very choosy about replacements.

I mean... I have an income of 23K and I'm coping. I save less, but I do still save. Every situation is different OP, but sounds like you're living beyond your means.

This.

Today I had to go to a food bank to keep my family fed until payday next week.
But let’s all spare a thought for OP having to cancel Disney+.

I will stay away from this thread now as I can feel myself getting irate very quickly.

OP says she knows she’s lucky, but she really really doesn’t.

Only £160k? You poor love. I'm on minimum wage and have a lovely life - no debt, nothing.

I can only assume you bought a big house beyond your means? Just because you can get a big mortgage, doesn’t mean you have to! My husband earns about the same (I don’t work any more) but luckily we decided to stop going up the property ladder so our mortgage will be paid off in two years. We weren’t bothered about having a bigger house, it’s just a pretty average comfortable home in an expensive area. We aren’t overstretched. One at private school for another year, one at uni and one at state school. We’ve had a long haul holiday, a week in France and a few long weekends away so far this year. Feel very privileged (and am v v grateful). So something isn’t quite right with your outgoings if you’ve ditched private school and still don’t have plenty of disposable income. Can you downsize to have a smaller mortgage?

People don't need to have stew pans and stew pots to cook cheaply. I've had a slow cooker for over a decade. And even when I didn't I bought yellow stickers. Used community tables. No one has to resort to fast food - it's a choice.

And even when I didn't I bought yellow stickers.

I bought some yellow sticker items today, a saving of about 80p...

Income irrelevant and if outgoings are huge though. If you are on £170k with no mortgage/school fees etc,yes you are comfortable, but if you live withlots on tick then you aren’t well off.

@CobbleWobble surely you could have text your DH and asked his mortgage contributions which he’s seemingly kept quiet in the last 27 hours?!

one text - what amount goes to your mortgage - one response.

But instead everyone can go back and forth on here about £5 on Disney plus?!

I don’t get how you wouldn’t actively seek the information that you have said you wanted to disclose (ie monthly costs) when people were trying to help and find out why a turkey was causing stress?

If it’s a more complex answer than £X per month (eg to have tax savings, childcare funding under 100k etc) then please realise this is no better than being a ‘benefit cheat’ and you are playing a system to support yourself, taking from a limited pot that those with far lower incomes really need.

pS I am a high rate tax payer so no, not jealous. I am however grateful that our income is so much better than the majority of this country and feel incredibly lucky. if you genuinely feel hardship, why wouldn’t your husbands pension contributions been a joint discussion and decision? Blows my mind.

(Perhaps the cleaner isn’t needed if you’re working 32 hours either btw)

Not sure if that's sarcasm - but a few years ago I managed to get a weeks shopping for around four quid - that's what you have to do when you live well below the line

Is it cocaine? Gambling addiction? Keeping up with the Windsors?

You do know that the average UK salary is circa £38K

I assume you mean pension?

And I did ask, he doesn't know off the top of his head, needs to look at his pay slip which he'll do today at work.

We don't free hours anymore, lost that several years ago so it's definitely not related to that. I do genuinely think he's paying in the max because at the time he took the job we could afford it and he didn't have a pension at the time. Any tax breaks (if there are any) are incidental.

And whilst we could do without the cleaner, a) if we don't need to give it up I won't as it's been massively beneficial for mine and DHs relationship and B) is better taking away income from a self employed single parent who has already had a number of clients stop.

What is Mumsnet Rich?

Not sure if that's sarcasm - but a few years ago

A lot of things were very different a few yrs ago...

You wonder how people earning less than you cope?? I earn around £19k working full time in a primary school,child maintenance and child benefit etc bring me up to around £26k and I feel I am reasonably comfortable!! Luckily I don’t have a mortgage but my one income has to pay for everything else ie car,water,energy,TV licence,council tax,insurances as well as food and eating out etc
Do you really need Disney and a holiday?? I’m amazed that people pay £50-60 a month just for some TV programmes

Hilarious. I am a boomer on a tiny work pension and the state pension. Made some errors along the way. What comes in, goes right back out again. Both of us have restarted work at pushing 70.

170K? Mindblowing.

Yeah you're right - but I still regularly get cheap food yellow stickered. I don't think you need to be sarcastic to someone living well below the line. I also made clear that I use community tables and pantries as well.

It'll be your mortgage op. Fancy car?
We only earn a joint income of £60k and don't have the issues you have. I can't fathom how you struggle to live on such a large income?

Dunno why but I think this post is a wind up- or OP/DH is on recreational drugs - which could actually be the problem 🤔