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?

There is no reasoning with some people in situations where someone has more money than them is there?

Annual wrap around was £4k at my local primary and the local private school fees were £8k when I did my calculations and chose where to spend my money. YMMV

@CobbleWobble It's not that you're not earning enough, it's that you must have overstretched yourselves in terms of mortgage, private school, car finance, holidays, or whatever. Leaving no contingency for changes in inflation or taxes.

People don't stress-test their budgets anymore, we've had almost flat inflation for so long people have forgotten that prices can quickly spiral and wages never catch up. After seeing what my Dad went through during the 15% inflation of the 80s, I've always left plenty of contingency in my budget. As a result I haven't felt the "squeeze" at all, and I'm sitting on a very healthy savings pot that I amassed when times were "good".

For example, for the average person your mortgage or rent should be around 30 to 40% max of your net income. If you have multiple kids in private school, maintenance payments, or stabled horses, etc. it should probably be lower. The mistake people make is that every time they see their salaries go up, they get a bigger house or buy more expensive cars, they never "bank" that extra money, they just increase their outgoings to match the incomings. It's wealth accumulation 101, "rich" people don't splash cash they don't have, they protect their wealth.

I cannot imagine what I would do with that annual income. I can afford to live. I imagine that you have enjoyed a comfortable life living according to your wealthy income. Due to price rises you are finding you cannot afford to continue in the same way - this is just reality. We have adjusted my netflix down to a cheaper option. We still have Disney. We shop at Aldi / Lidl for basics with Sainsburys for other items (MS for the odd thing) but we are not OTT. We buy clothing in the sales and some items in charity shops. I look around to shop for best value for any other purchases needed.
A big cost saver is cooking home made food - bulk cooking and freezing. This is easier than it first of all seems. On holidays we find ways to reduce costs also. All these small things combine to make life affordable. I am very confident that on your salary you can find ways of reducing costs. Look at the larger costs in priority order down to smaller costs (which can add up). Solar panels with batter have paid for themselves in 3 years so you could look at this too. I have bought second hand school sports kit from facebook market place along with other things such as tents for the kids. I also dont have an expensive car - so my running costs are reasonable. Hope this helps. I am very confident there are many more ways you can reduce your living costs it just takes thought and a little creativity and trying different things. Some things can take longer to achieve - eg home cooking can be a process of switching over gradually. But for example things like pizzas are now ridiculous prices. Its not hard and much cheaper to make a batch of dough / batch of sauce and freeze it up - recopies are free to access online.

Some working families don’t have the time for these things…

She remortgaged because her fixed rate deal came to an end - OP explained this upthread. WHen she remortgaged the best deal she could get was triple what she had previously - OP also explains this up thread. She has not taken the cash and frittered it away.

Well buying a house that you can only afford if interest rates stay abnormally low isn’t exactly sound financial planning / it might not be frittering but it’s certainly irresponsible

Given the OPs mortgage is still under £3k pcm she probably looked at a mortgage of under £1k initially and built in quite a decent amount of resilience in her budget. It doesn't sound to me as if it is a big extravagant house - probably a 3 bed terrace in a not great part of London. In the not great bit of London where I live a 3 bed costs about £1million. If earners like OP can't afford a modest terrace who the hell do we expect to actually live in London?

Also when OP bought the house VAT hadn't been imposed on private school fees and the CoL hadn't really begun so a sizeable mortgage rate increase probably felt achievable.

I am a working family and find the time for these things - appreciate its challenging to have the time and energy. However on a salary of £170k I imagine it is possible. Having even a much smaller salary it is also possible. These things do not take as long as you think. It takes much the same time to cook a meal double or triple the size as to do one meal - then you have extras to freeze for when you dont have time. It maybe takes me twice as long to cook a fresh meal as to put in pizza and chips for 20 mins - but having the frozen remaining meals to use that I can heat within 3 mins saves the time I would have spent otherwise. Batch cooking means you save future time. I have assumed its the food you are referring to as the other things you have to do whether you are working multiple jobs or not.

When you get a mortgage they run a stress-test to check if the interest rates go up to 8% you can still make the payments. I don't know why this stuff always seems to take people by surprise, you should be buying a house that's within your budget if interest rates change. The low interest rates we had were never going to last, it's an economic certainty they were going to rise.

They've been 15% or more in living memory, it can happen again.

Well, you won’t need a Spotify subscription as you’re tone deaf 😄

I stopped reading at £170K household income. What a slightly sad humble brag. If it helps with your financial planning, we're doing just fine on our £70K household income, but we've bought a small house in a cheap area. Maybe try that.

Life did used to be a lot cheaper in every way. I think getting on the housing ladder at that time has helped a lot of people cope with the increased costs today.

Guess depends on the fees. Some local to us are £3800/9 a term

ours is £20 per day for before /after so £100 a week

We have a household income of 85k, we don't live in a big city and up North and we are doing OK so far but I am making more conscious choices when shopping etc.

What I have noticed is:

• Meat prices, particularly beef and chicken have went sky high, so I am buying more pork mince rather than beef
• I am having smaller portions to make food last longer in the house (particularly cereals, bread, fruit, veg etc)
• Sneaky hikes in subscriptions (netflix, spotify etc) so we got a deal on Sky with our netflix free and I am staying on my very old phone plan as I get spotify free too!
• Clothing is no longer cheap in supermarkets, primark etc so I am doing a lot more Shein buys
• Days out/trips are a lot less than we had before due to price of tickets, restaurants etc. I wouldnt have thought twice about tickets to a show, cinema etc a few years back

However, we still save almost £2k between us per month

I should note that we dont have mortgage and live in family members house for £370 per month (private rental agreement)

You are very fortunate @ellie09... but presume you have to return the gift in other ways.

How many mothers consult their children when working out the budget? It is quite surprising just how even the youngest children understand what you can and cannot buy with money. All it takes is discussion. You have to tell them what money comes in and that makes them aware of confidentiality too.

If you go through expenditure, you can discuss the comics and mags they want. Don't forget to read them yourself. It helps to know what is going through their minds, and what they read tells you a great deal. Do it while they are in bed.

Very lucky and fortunate. We use this opportunity to save like mad for wedding and our own future home (which we should be able to get in the next 18 months or so). I am sure once we have a mortgage things will be much tighter.

We pay so little because we effectively pay for repairs in the house too, e.g. we are installing a new boiler today to the tune of £3k as the old one has bust, and currently getting some new windows quoted too.

Shein is really bad for the environment.

I am aware. I cant justify the cost of buying things in regular high street shops nowadays. We also buy from Vinted when we can.

I can’t justify buying from Shein tbh. I would never.
Buying pre-loved is better.

You save 2k a month and yet buy from shein? Very misplaced priorities, very little value for the lives of others whose wages are being depressed by people who could but won’t pay a fair price that reflects their work time

Absolutely agree with this. Can’t justify buying from ethical brands on 2k a month but can justify spending on shein. Definitely misplaced priorities. I think Shein should be shut down if I’m honest. Soo so bad for the environment.

We save over 2k per month and I don’t buy from shel or ethical brands, nor do I use vented. I just buy from high street stores, I don’t buy excessively tbh.

Hold up you have £900 pcm for day to day expenses?
your Mortgage is massive!!
and I’ve never spent £600 pcm on grocery shopping!
I can see how you don’t think you have any money, but you actually do, if you learn to shop at places like Lidl, don’t buy everything brand new (my children mostly get second hand stuff for school) and shop around for utilities. Think about restructuring your mortgage too - that’s bonkers high, when I looked into ours, we could roll our CC (2K) into it and still be paying less pcm than we were. There are options, it just takes some leg work!

They encouraged people to opt out? What terrible employers!

Mine encourages us to opt in by doubling our contributions to a max %. I put 5% in mine and they add 10%.