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?

It’s genuinely mind blowing to me how people can earn this much and struggle with not enough money.
If my household suddenly had a 160k income coming in, we would have over £100,000 a year spare money to play with.
Would be like winning the lottery.

This is an eye opener Thanks

I guess it depends if you own your property or not

I wouldn’t say so. Just depends on area and the size of your mortgage.

On your income I can't imagine how you have had to cut down. Do you live in London?

Any kids?

Is your salary worth having if your husband earns the majority and you have those childcare and cleaning costs? Obviously, there are good personal and long term financial reasons for you to work but in the short term would a career break actually release money and/or give your family a better work-life balance?

Yes, a couple of them, thanks.

Why?

It's impossible to fathom how anyone earning that much money is struggling.
Mumsnet rich?!?! You're just winding struggling people up.

Ah, the usual net zero moaners.
Net zero is easily affordable and leaves us less reliant on wholesale prices.
The usual right wing garbage you are spouting is pathetic.

I get where you are coming from too as £170k sounds huge but you are taxed so ridiculously on it, my partner and I have a joint take home income of about £70k which results in a take home between us of about 5k a month because we aren't taxed as much at our salary rate.

We don't have kids but even our weekly food shopping for two adults and two cats has us cursing and wondering how families cope when even a pack of chicken breasts in Aldi was nearly £8! My cat insurance seems to double every year despite my cats still being fairly young and healthy. Had to spend £300 odd quid on maintenance on my car recently and hated that £65 of it was vat! You do feel ripped off all the time.

Two kilos of chicken breasts cost £12.85 at Tesco.

That seems like good value you to me?

I would use half and freeze the other half.

If the cost of chicken is reduced further it will mean even worse quality of life for chickens.

Chicken isn't great after being frozen. Every thing fresh produce wise has gone up, everything full stop is extortionate in a supermarket.

I agree. The price is good value, if you eat chicken. I note it’s a little cheaper at Sainsbury’s and it’s fresh not frozen.

Chicken breasts are fine after being frozen, if you let it defrost overnight in the fridge and don’t leave it for too months on end in the freezer.

Omg I am so fed up with people that paid next to bloody nothing for their homes making out it we young(er) people just didn’t have any luxuries then we would magically be able to afford a house!

You are so unbelievably out of touch and deluded!

I don’t have many luxuries, but even if I cancelled the few I had I would be nowhere even remotely close to affording a house.

Just admit you were lucky, and people of my generation and younger have been royally screwed over by yours.

You never will though.
You’ll always be adamant you had it just as tough (laughable) and we just need to make sure we don’t have anything other than bread and water and we can afford our own homes!

Right. Now I really am staying away from this infuriating thread.

Maybe it’s time I stepped away from boomer riddled mumsnet altogether.

I do feel really sorry for young people who have been left for dust by a housing market whose supply will never meet the demand and when government legislation will mean that rent will increase further.

And a jobs market that means that a degree has become the cost of entry for roles that do not need a university education.

It's a tough landscape to build stability and a future - a few holidays and luxuries don't seem adequate compensation.

Oh good grief

it is harder to buy a house

there are more people than for decades who look unlikely to be able to ever buy a house

but there are millions who mismanage money and could save to buy if they adjusted their lifestyle. £5 coffee every day, £5 lunch one day a week, £10 on a takeaway every week, £100 a month on beauty are all things that in past generations would have been considered amazing frivolous. And would go a long way to a decent house deposit over ten years. Just those things - never mind multiple holidays a year, eating out, cinema trips - things that were once a year are now monthly or even weekly.

i dislike the over simplifications. More people are stuffed now than in the past but more are stuffing themselves. That’s why someone on 170k feels the pinch. And that’s why many in the older generations roll their eyes - because they see lives of luxury being lived at a time of life when they were often extremely poor. It’s the requirement for instant gratification- if I can’t buy the house now then let’s spend my money rather than save

it’s not everyone by any means, many will always be stuffed, but it’s clear that others are prioritising spending now over security later and then having the nerve to complain about it

The energy companies are doing what they want because of privatisation by Thatcher. Because of this we have the highest energy prices in Europe. Those much cheaper countries are also converting to green and renewable energy. Stop listening to the right-wing nut jobs.

I'm older, and completely agree with you.

See I actually agree in part with many of the boomers.

I had this discussion with my friends (all of whom had parents that paid their deposits) and not one of them acknowledged that these small outgoings add up.

I couldn’t afford them in the first place because to get on the housing ladder meant more to me. So yep cutting all these small insignificant things helped me get on the ladder and has just done exactly the same for my brother. (Timeframe; bought in May 2025 before I get told this is also outdated.)

It’s priorities and seeing the long term goal.

I think that’s fair enough, really. We all choose what we spend our money on what we believe is worth it to us. Don’t get me wrong, if I won the lottery one of my first purchases would be a bigger house! But for my salary, I am perfectly ok with living in a smaller house with a smaller garden and driving a crappy car because it means I can afford to do the other things I want to do - whether it’s holidays or having lunch out whenever I want or buying good quality food. Obviously it would be great if we could all have whatever we wanted!

I'm a couple of generations away from boomer but you go ahead and flounce if you want.

I hate all these arguments about how people today are frivolous and that’s the problem.

It’s part of the problem, sure. But our economy relies on people spending money on things like hospitality - that’s the way it’s developed. We also have a finance/buy now pay later economy and culture. (Don’t get me started on the excessive spending on beauty and fast fashion and expensive tech - ugh!!)

My grandparents’ generation could buy a pretty decent house and support a family on one working class wage. You can’t do that now. Not like they did. And in addition there’s now more and more pressure to spend as part of your lifestyle.

It’s not that people generations ago were better. It’s that things were different; norms were different; houses weren’t as extortionate; capitalism hadn’t got quite the grip as it has now.

People always have choices and agency, but those choices can be quite different in different decades.