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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To refuse to pay current prices?

397 replies

Blusteryskies · 16/10/2025 17:37

I'm probably unreasonable for asking such a question, but has anyone else reached the point where they just won't buy things anymore even though they can afford to? I no longer see the point of buying things. Clothes, meals out, house items etc. Everything seems so overpriced and quality no longer correlates with price. I've decided I literally don't need to buy anything. I have enough clothes to last me years, furniture, homewares etc. Unless something dies, I won't be replacing it. Why do we need new clothes because someone has decided style has shifted massively in the past few years? Interiors likewise. I'm stating the bleeding obvious, but it all just feels like a con to fleece us out of our money and now brands are ever increasing their prices and their profit margins. I'm just fed up of it, and no longer feel like it's worth participating in mass consumerism. It's a never ending cycle of pointless, unfullfilling consumption.

OP posts:
CarlaH · 17/10/2025 15:09

Badbadbunny · 17/10/2025 12:36

Fully agree. We are completely disillusioned with virtually everything. Not necessarily prices but crap customer service generally more than anything - but being grossly overcharged just makes the poor quality and poor service even worse.

We have 2/3 UK holidays per year and have taken to cooking our own meals for most of the time because eating out isn't enjoyable anymore and stupidly expensive for poor quality. Grumpy/surly staff, poor service, crap food quality, just not worth it. We even struggle to buy decent food - so many times pieces of meat which look OK turn out to be gristly or fatty or shrink to a fraction of their size in the counter - that's not just supermarkets, it's butcher shops too. "Fresh" fruit and veg that's gone off the day after purchase. It's awful.

Same with clothes shopping. High Street stores have bugger all in stock, so direct you to order online. Then when it comes, the quality is poor, thin material, poorly stitched, inconsistent sizing, crazy patterns i.e. short sleeves on thermal winter pyjamas, body length too long/too short, necks too tight or too gaping, etc. I finally found a pair of jeans that fitted (normal size 12!) from M&S so ordered the exact same one in a different colour (same range) in the same size, but when it arrived, leg length was 3 cm longer, thigh width was 3 cm narrower - M&S can't even manage to quality control the same size in the same range!

Customer service has gone down the toilet in the past decade or two. Firms/organisations are taking on useless staff, not training them, not supervising/managing them.

DH is still wearing work clothes that he bought in the mid 1990s before we got married as he can't find anything anywhere near the same quality in the High Street stores today. These aren't high class suits/trousers/shirts - they're all bought from the likes of Debenhams, M&S, C&S, Littlewoods, etc. - still going strong despite almost weekly wear for nearly 30 years.

I'm still wearing blouses/skirts/dresses from the same era for the same reasons.

Companies are missing a trick. We could literally spend hundreds/thousands of pounds but we don't because we don't like the quality/range of products currently available.

Same with our house, We've a list of jobs we want doing, i.e. new roof, replacement bathroom, but we go cold at the thought of having to deal with tradesmen after a series of poor experiences, so again, probably about £25k of work we've got the money for, but just can't face spending because we don't want to risk crap tradesmen so will wait until it becomes a necessity. Same with a replacement lounge gas fire that's now end of life - if we knew we could get a decent tradesmen to fit it without making an unholy mess and damaging the decoration, we'd do it tomorrow - that's another couple of thousand of spending that's not happening any time soon.

Edited

We are in the same situation regarding works to our house. So much that we would like to do but we just cannot stand the hassle of finding reliable trades and then feeling that we have paid over the odds. They must be the only people for whom Brexit has worked out.

Some of the things really do need to be done, they aren't just cosmetic, but somehow we just can't face it.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 17/10/2025 16:52

Tryingtokeepgoing · 16/10/2025 20:44

And yet last Saturday morning I tried to book a table for dinner in my local town that evening. Not that fussy - any time between 7:30 and 9:00. None of the chains (The Ivy, Côte, Brasserie Blanc, Giggling Squid, Picolinos, Zizi, Pizza Express) had a table, and the non chain ones equally unavailable - Indian, Japanese, Thai and ‘modern British’. Was that because they were full, or because of staff availability I don’t know. Got a a table in a pub in a village just outside, at 8:15. Busy but not full. 2 courses plus a couple of glasses of wine, a bottle of water and some soft drinks £120. Good quality and excellent service. Cheaper than a chain, but not by much I’d guess. So there’s clearly still money being spent, cost of living crisis or not!

Sorry, i'm a bit behind.

The names of the restaurants you gave suggests that your town is a fairly wealthy one. None of those restaurants exist in the town I grew up in. The locals don't have the sort of money to make them profitable.

There are plenty of people in this country who ARE paid good salaries, and who are DINKYs or empty nesters and who have a lot of disposable income, happy to eat out at those chains regularly and not just as a special occasion. Those people probably don't choose to live in a deprived industrial town.

PeonyPatch · 17/10/2025 16:54

Netcurtainnelly · 17/10/2025 14:29

The same should be extended to buying people a load of Christmas presents, they don't need.
People have brainwashed into spending money they don't need to be spending on gifts.

Very true.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 17/10/2025 17:02

AlexisP90 · 16/10/2025 20:58

Houses are upsetting. Long gone are the days the local postman and his wife working in Sainsbury's with a kid can get on the ladder.

What happend to good working people having a nice place to live that they can call their own.

I'll tell you the type of families living in the houses that were traditionally built for working classes on lower salaries - it's GPs, senior teachers etc. Living in houses built for your postie and his wife who works part time on the checkouts or not at all.

I don't know how it's got to this state of affairs. Solve the house price issue and the UK would become a much happier place and people will start spending again on meals and days out.

CurlyhairedAssassin · 17/10/2025 17:12

Spookyspaghetti · 16/10/2025 21:18

Theatre has always been to expensive for most average people though. Most of the stuff I’ve seen was through school trips back in the day.

I dunno.....when a ticket to see a show which lasts no more than 2 hours costs you 2 days' pay, someone somewhere is taking the piss......

BuildbyNumbere · 17/10/2025 17:16

JudgeBread · 16/10/2025 18:18

Lmao only on Mumsnet would you get someone pompously bragging about how they're now living life how poor people live every day of their lives. As if it's a revolutionary idea to only replace things when they've worn out or stopped working.

Edited

Lmao, only in mumsnet would you find someone so up themselves that they deem to know, and refer to other people as “poor people”

CelestialCandyfloss · 17/10/2025 17:32

Hard agree. A minimalist mindset is the way forward. I've got so many clothes I am on a constant mission to downsize my wardrobe cos its overflowing and stressful. A lot of it is secondhand, I've been a vintage and charity shop queen since i was 18 lol. I will caveat this by saying I love going out to eat, on holiday and buying books, so I spend on that.
Now if I can only get my teenager daughter on board cos she constantly wants to buy crap from Shein

CelestialCandyfloss · 17/10/2025 17:43

CurlyhairedAssassin · 17/10/2025 17:02

I'll tell you the type of families living in the houses that were traditionally built for working classes on lower salaries - it's GPs, senior teachers etc. Living in houses built for your postie and his wife who works part time on the checkouts or not at all.

I don't know how it's got to this state of affairs. Solve the house price issue and the UK would become a much happier place and people will start spending again on meals and days out.

It's got this way because of many things, the rampant capitalism ushered in by Thatcher and the right to buy, huge underinvestment of successive governments in house building and 14 years of the Tories and their austerity and fecking Brexit.

MyHeartyCoralSnail · 17/10/2025 18:05

CelestialCandyfloss · 17/10/2025 17:43

It's got this way because of many things, the rampant capitalism ushered in by Thatcher and the right to buy, huge underinvestment of successive governments in house building and 14 years of the Tories and their austerity and fecking Brexit.

This housing crisis existed long before Brexit you also can’t ignore foreign acquisitions and globalisation. A lot of our housing both at the top end and bottom end has been acquired by foreign investors and this is only increasing. People living longer. The older generation more likely to own than rent unlike most at the lower end in previous generations. Large areas of cities where a lot of the traditional cheaper housing exists taken over by immigrants and then their children and grandchildren slowly but surely taking up housing stock.

Crushed23 · 17/10/2025 18:07

CelestialCandyfloss · 17/10/2025 17:43

It's got this way because of many things, the rampant capitalism ushered in by Thatcher and the right to buy, huge underinvestment of successive governments in house building and 14 years of the Tories and their austerity and fecking Brexit.

Looking ahead though, do we think the housing problem will get better? I don’t live in the UK so don’t know the ins and outs, but on MN I see everything get blamed on the last government. My understanding is that government was replaced 1.5 years ago. Have housing issues improved at all / are they on track to improve? Are people feeling optimistic on this front?

LemonJellyLegs · 17/10/2025 18:09

Vaxtable · 16/10/2025 18:23

I sort of agree. I have just had my house decorated as it needs it, but as to clothes I don’t buy many now as, as you say, quality vs price puts me off, same with chocolate, used to eat loads, stopped due to increase in price and Shri kflation of the actual chocolate bar !

I know! How do they justify £1.20 for a choccie bar these days!!?

AlexisP90 · 17/10/2025 18:09

CurlyhairedAssassin · 17/10/2025 17:02

I'll tell you the type of families living in the houses that were traditionally built for working classes on lower salaries - it's GPs, senior teachers etc. Living in houses built for your postie and his wife who works part time on the checkouts or not at all.

I don't know how it's got to this state of affairs. Solve the house price issue and the UK would become a much happier place and people will start spending again on meals and days out.

I just find it all so sad. Normal hard working people just do not stand a chance.

All most people want is to have rights to a home they can call theirs and make their own.

This country is so fucked.

shuggles · 17/10/2025 18:45

Chiseltip · 17/10/2025 08:19

The economy doesn't Work how you think it does.

Yes it does.

Spoiler: No home owner benefits from high house prices. It looks like you are building wealth but here's the thing: if you were to sell your house, you would be paying more for a different house anyway. So you don't gain anything.

So who benefits from high house prices? The banks. Higher house prices = higher interest payments = more money for mortgage lenders.

99.9% of the population lose because of high house prices, and the winners are the people hunched over in the shadows, rubbing their hands together at all of the money they have earned.

abbynabby23 · 17/10/2025 20:59

Blusteryskies · 16/10/2025 17:37

I'm probably unreasonable for asking such a question, but has anyone else reached the point where they just won't buy things anymore even though they can afford to? I no longer see the point of buying things. Clothes, meals out, house items etc. Everything seems so overpriced and quality no longer correlates with price. I've decided I literally don't need to buy anything. I have enough clothes to last me years, furniture, homewares etc. Unless something dies, I won't be replacing it. Why do we need new clothes because someone has decided style has shifted massively in the past few years? Interiors likewise. I'm stating the bleeding obvious, but it all just feels like a con to fleece us out of our money and now brands are ever increasing their prices and their profit margins. I'm just fed up of it, and no longer feel like it's worth participating in mass consumerism. It's a never ending cycle of pointless, unfullfilling consumption.

I am with you! I used to always buy lunch out but not anymore! No way I am gonna pay £7 for a Pret sandwich! Good old packed lunch these days

cheeseomelette · 17/10/2025 22:22

I started thinking like this a few months ago, stopped buying stuff I just don’t need, also sold a few bits on Vinted, kept a log of it all (am saving for something) and it’s mounted up to £2000..

in previous years I’ve had a couple of luxury advent calendars but I’m not doing that this year either! Expensive clutter

OonaStubbs · 17/10/2025 22:26

Even Freddos are 39p nowadays. It's out of control and I don't know what the government are playing at.

iamnotalemon · 17/10/2025 22:42

Lilyhatesjaz · 16/10/2025 23:00

I haven't read the full thread yet but on a thread about being frugal someone mentioned Patrick Grant's book, so I bought the kindle version straight away.

Even the cost of the kindle book - £6.49 is steep in my eyes 🤣

Another good book is The Year of Less by Cait Flanders (and only £1.99!)

Sonnet · 17/10/2025 22:49

Meadowfinch · 16/10/2025 18:25

I've stopped eating out, not only because of the prices but because the quality of the food on offer has plummeted.

I can cook better food at a fraction of the price at home, and do it quickly.

Clothes, I'm buying very carefully. No impulse buys, mixing high quality sweaters with Tesco t-shirts. Reheeling & repairing five year old shoes so I can afford a decent pair of ankle boots this year.

this👍

Titsywoo · 17/10/2025 22:55

I've never been one for consumerism. DH and I struggled financially for many years but now we earn very well but I still rarely buy new clothes, mostly buy second hand furniture (apart from sofas and beds/mattresses) and am frugal in general. Spending has never made me happy. We never get takeaways now as the quality is generally poor. We still eat out but generally at the few good and reasonably priced independant places near us. We both drive 2nd hand cars and they are absolutely fine. We do spend on travel but nothing crazy. I'd say we are very happy with our lives. No need for spending hundred a month on meaningless crap. I do resent the amount we pay on our mortgage now but we live in the SE so it is what it is!

Frugalgal · 17/10/2025 23:14

OonaStubbs · 17/10/2025 22:26

Even Freddos are 39p nowadays. It's out of control and I don't know what the government are playing at.

You think the government sets consumer prices? 🤔

3luckystars · 17/10/2025 23:16

I’m going to keep rereading your post until it sinks into my thick head.

I agree with you.

Thanks!

WhitegreeNcandle · 18/10/2025 07:50

iamnotalemon · 17/10/2025 22:42

Even the cost of the kindle book - £6.49 is steep in my eyes 🤣

Another good book is The Year of Less by Cait Flanders (and only £1.99!)

It was me that mentioned Less and it’s available on BorrowBox and at the library!

whatcanthematterbe81 · 18/10/2025 08:44

I can’t stop spending money tbh. Can’t take it with ya

Yokopops · 18/10/2025 09:07

Crushed23 · 17/10/2025 18:07

Looking ahead though, do we think the housing problem will get better? I don’t live in the UK so don’t know the ins and outs, but on MN I see everything get blamed on the last government. My understanding is that government was replaced 1.5 years ago. Have housing issues improved at all / are they on track to improve? Are people feeling optimistic on this front?

Of course people will blame the last few governments, they were in power from 2010-2024 versus 2024 to present.

I’m not necessarily saying Labour will turn things around by the end of their term and no doubt we will have plenty to criticise them on as well in a few years, but currently it’s very reasonable to put most of the blame with previous governments. And to be fair I’m sure that includes governments pre-2010 too. As I don't think anyone (including Tony Blair etc) has done much to sort this out.

Thatchers right to buy policy was implemented so chaotically with no consideration for replacing each council house sold for a new one, and that has led to a lot of issues which became increasingly apparent in the last couple of decades.

AFAIK Noone is tackling the dirty money floating around London in the form of buying up lots of housing either which inflates prices too. Not this government and certainly not the previous governments.

I hear Labour are doing a lot of house building but I don’t know if overall things are looking better on the house front. I wouldn’t quite say optimistic but I’ll wait and see…

HelenSkeleton · 18/10/2025 09:20

WhitegreeNcandle · 16/10/2025 18:28

I’ve just started reading Patric Grants book Less. It’s amazing that up until very recent history most people only had one set of clothes.

I was thinking about when I started university and how much simpler everything was around my wardrobe.

The most recent stupid price rise that had me putting things back on the shelf are clotted cream rice pudding, and chocolate. £1.10 for a Mars bar.