Cost of living or prioritising the wrong things 🤔

[Sbrown32]

Firstly, this is not to offend anyone, I just find it a interesting debate that I recently came across and wanted to know others opinions on this.

Is it the cost of living or are we prioritising the wrong things?

When I came across this, the woman who was discussing this topic had some really good points (in my opinion), back in the day, we prioritised differently, we didn't have a takeaway each week (guilty of this myself tbh), food deliveries on our phone, we didn't grab a coffee on the way to work every morning, family trips out to the cinema or nights out used to be a treat not a given etc

I am pregnant with my first, and looking at ways we can cut down on spending whilst I am on MAT leave, when I really looked into my spending habits I have realised that I do a lot of these myself, I get a coffee each morning usually with a breakfast meal deal of some sort, we have a takeaway each week and we spend a lot on going out, date nights, cinema trips and going to nice places to eat etc.

I haven't decided myself if I fully agree with this or not yet so please be respectful.

Such a cop out from the older generation. My parents beautiful 4 bed home was 89k in 90s and now worth 1.5 million . They think if we give up a coffee and take-away a week we will be able to afford that. And also, fast food can be a lot cheaper than buying ingredients from scratch .

Vista curry in a tin or chicken in white wine sauce 🤢

Have only read the OP.
We had a family discussion about this a while ago and we looked up the data. Don't remember the exact figures but it went something like this:
In the 1950s 35% of household income was spent on food.
Nowadays it's 11%. (Varying between 14.4% for the 20% of poorest households and 8% for the richest).
Of course in the 50s most families only had one car, often one breadwinner, no mobile phone or Netflix.....There are far more things to spend our money on these days.
Although housing costs are huge now, the "average" house price in 1950 was £1860 and the average ANNUAL salary was £100.
I think it's all about expectations....and the consumer society. We are led to believe we are entitled to have overpriced coffee, foreign holidays, Plasma TVs, food prepared outside the home. Also destination weddings, hen/stag weeks abroad, children's birthday parties at venues, "proms" with expensive dresses and hired limos.....
Cutting one's coat according to one's cloth is no longer considered necessary....and if you have extra cloth then society pushes you to use it up on the one coat rather than save it for a second one!
I personally think that the rise of the second hand clothes market made "respectable" by Vinted, (there have always been charity shops, but nobody middle-class would have dreamt of admitting to using them) and a general push for a more sustainable lifestyle has the added benefit of reducing the desire for over priced consumer goods .... although I am worried about the Chinese made crap which is cheap to purchase and destined for landfill.

Spending power has something like halved in the past 20 years.
You could be on 100k and have a huge house, three holidays a year and eat out every sunday. Nowdays on 100k you are not on the breadline but you certainly wouldnt be doing all the above.
It's relative, and also so much harder if you actually do have low income because your spending power on a low income would have meant you could still afford to eat and heat your home, but people are skipping meals and not turning on the heating.

You’d like to think
I’m a social worker and I hate to break it to you that plenty of people who aren’t feeding /clothing their kids and heating/ carpeting their homes properly are still finding the money for weed, chip/wrap based takeaways/ energy drinks, cheap beer and vapes and despite masses of intervention and support from numerous services their kids are still rocking up at school late without breakfast
I know we are squeamish about saying this out loud
but it’s fact
sadly

No-one thinks that!
It can be a combination of things

Blinkers off, it's not a single issue at play here

It absolutely is extortionate houses prices
It is also due to extremely high levels of consumer debt
Klarna etc make people 50% more likely to buy.
It can add up to 100s a month
You may want to blame the olds but I doubt you will be saying no when you inherit that house 😉

You're right, I forgot about those but they weren't the norm.

That’s how DP and I got our first deposit 20k, we saved it in about 9 months-living in London, both on 20k odd. I was living in a shitty house share in Leytonstone, E.London (before E London was trendy!) and DP joined me , so rent was about (£400). DP did overtime so worked a 7 day week for months. We shared one Starbucks a month, yellow labelled shopped, never, ever bought a take away or convenience food-wverything was homemade and taken to work. No clothes, no holidays-I couldn’t have done it forever, but we had a goal and were motivated. Our 3 bed terrace was 130k, now worth about 500k, so actually still achieveable given wage increases, would take more time to save….but totally doable.

No
They were only for the desperate 😂

I think a bit of both, but general consumerism seems to be running rampant.

My niece who is 23 is currently "decluttering for Christmas ".
She is TWENTY THREE. How much non essential stuff does she own.
My neighbours paid someone to come and empty their garage and their loft.
People have paid so much for stuff that they are paying someone else to take away.
Seems to be a growing business that pays well.

Food waste is also huge. Some people are literally (in the true sense of the word) buying food to put in the bin!

We have neighbours who are PROUD of the fact that they fill 4 recycling boxes every 2 weeks. There's only 2 of them.

There is just so much stuff being bought, so much waste, but heigh-ho, it is all keeping the economy alive. Imagine how high the interest rates would be if we stopped buying crap, how many jobs would go if there weren't 8 coffee shops in every High st

See also every hen/stag/baby related events/ birthday or Halloween event costing a bomb I’m amazed at what my daughter spends in this respect and the next week pleading poverty and having ‘make do dinners’ or coming to ours for tea for a few nights - fair enough, don’t mind that bit

Halloween was case in point , a fortune spent on costumes , face paints , accessories and plastic buckets.
House front also decorated and tubs of sweets bought in for other trick or treaters.
A special Halloween tea before going out and house decs with her friends and their kids.

She’s a low income single parenti find it baffling

Depends how you define it though. In the 70s in the US, only 40% of families had two workers (ie working outside the family home). Now it’s around 70%.

An average home in the UK in 1975 was around 4x annual income. Today, 7.7x.

In 1975-80 the average age of a first time home buyer in the UK was around 24. Today it’s 32.

So we are buying houses later, for proportionally a huge amount more money, with many requiring two wages to do it. Everything you list is superficial convenience compared to struggling to pay a mortgage and essential monthly bills which is the reality for a good 20%-30% because housing, the main necessity of life after food and clothing, is so expensive.

This feels all a bit tone deaf. I don't know anyone who gets a takeaway coffee each morning or a takeaway every week. That sort of thing is just not affordable to most people. Trips to the cinema or days out a given? As if. Cinema is for birthdays or special occasions. Right now working families are struggling to afford the basics. Cutting back from a shoestring budget. Plus add the lower levels of education and attainment associated with poor backgrounds and you can see how knowing what to do to improve things doesn't come as easily. Oh and the constant stress of poverty and what that does to you. I mean until you experience the awful reality of poverty you can't understand it.

As many have said it's a bit of both. Perhaps some today spend more on coffee, but then the pubs are closing because fewer people are using them. My grandparents rented their TV, but would poo poo a contract phone for example. They might say they never had a takeaway, but were rather partial to a pasty for lunch or fish and chips supper. Lots of it is swings and roundabouts.
We're cutting back on our takeaways (not that they were ever all that regular) and days out, and I don't think that's a good thing for anyone.

I think it's largely a mix, but people genuinely struggling already don't buy any of that, and people who until now haven't felt any of the pinch are now cutting out the same things, unaware so many others have already cut them out. I'm not struggling but definitely can't afford the lifestyle I was used to. Our meals lot have gone from monthly to special occasions only, my hair is now cut once a year and no dye at all, whereas for the last 15 to 20 years I was having a cut and colour every 6 weeks. I had always bought clothes and household items second hand so that hasn't changed and already walk to and from work. I do worry about the future though, so many businesses are closing because of the amount of cutting down on spending that's now happening. The hairdresser I go to is struggling because most of their clients are doing what I'm now doing, coffee shops in town open and then close within the year, our high street is deserted except for barber shops and vape shops that also open and close regularly.

This 💯 often children come last behind all the crap they buy first

I think there is definately an arguement that it has become much easier to spend money. In addition to changes such as convenience foods such as the coffees and takeaways, and the more expensive socalising like the cinema and restaurants where I remember my parents having friends over for dinner or drinks a few times a week which is much cheaper than meeting people out of the house which is how I meet my friends now, there is also the introduction of online shopping. I would be suprised if any of us don't have a few things in our homes we've bought on impulse but didn't actually need or want when it arrived. It's very easy to see a 'good deal' and buy some bedding, clothes, homewares, some 2 for 1 crisps or whatever online and it just arrives at the door. I have many books I've not yet read, in the past I had DVDs I'd not yet watched, clothes I've never worn, stationary I've never used etc. To make a list, have that cooling off period before you go into town, find the thing you need, consider if it's a good price/worth carrying back on the bus etc, that gives a lot of pause points for us to opt out of the purchase decision that one click buy and deliver to your door just doesn't.

I was well pissed off the other day to be unable to pay to park my car at the station without using my phone, which was playing up that day, so I struggled and nearly missed my train. And my Mum would never have managed it. I know why they do it: so much cheaper for them....no machines to empty, they monitor the number plates at a distance and issue fines if for reasons beyond your control you fail to register properly even if you have actually paid the fee!
This country is becoming a really hostile environment for anyone who can't manage a mobile phone!

How much longer would it take though? Remember that salaries have not gone up as fast as house prices. That shitty room you rented would also be more expensive. Overtime might not be available anymore either. Scrimping like that is fine if it's only for 9 months, but if you'd need to do it for 5 years it becomes an awful lot harder.

Yes, I should correct myself. By older generation, I just mean my mum guilt tripping me for buying coffee 😂. The older generation have done a lot of good .

Vapes £7 × 2 per week. £14
Energy drinks x 5 £10
Meal deals x 5. Tesco. £21.25
Coffee x5. £18.75

=£63.95
X 52 = £ 3, 325

A couple could easily save £6,650 a year
X 3 = £19, 952

It is too easy to say that cooking is not a subject that should not be taught in schools. While in secondary school, we had one double period totalling an hour once a week. In that time, we learnt the simple stuff of 'how to make a sandwich' or cheese on toast and progressed to baking a cake, or making sausage rolls for the Annual Christmas Bazaar to making a casserole.
But we also learnt the science behind cooking - about why bread turns brown when toasted, what happens when ingredients are mixed or how they change when fried, boiled, baked or roasted.
Also about where food came from - many children don't associate their MacDonalds as meat and milk coming from a cow, potatoes dug up from the ground, how pickles are made - the list is endless.
We also learnt about weights, admittedly in pounds and ounces but it brought in what was learnt in your maths lessons and the calculations needed to cater for one person or four people. So yes, cooking can be taught at home but will it embrace the many other subjects that are taught and learnt everyday very often without even actually realising about it?

Agree with this. People seem to think that just working full time should entitle you to luxuries, why is that?
Working full time is necessary to support yourself, a warm comfortable home, secure income, food on the table. Whats 'basic' about that? People seem to have decided a simple life, with home cooked food, things like packed lunches, coffee in a flask, evenings spent at home watching a film on tv rather than going out, is some sort of miserable poverty existence when in reality throughout most of history this would have been something the vast majority were happy with?
My grandparents both worked. Because yes, it's a myth that there was some golden era when families were comfortable on one salary, plenty of women back in the 50's worked to contribute to the family income, they worked in shops, took in ironing, did childcare for others, taught etc. They worked hard and considered themselves to be dping well with a secure roof over their heads (a very modest terrace with kids sharing bedroom), simple meals.

Why are peoples expectations that anyone working must have luxuries? Work isn't an exception its the norm, everyone should expect to have to work in order to live.

Am I wrong in thinking they were regarded as a treat😂

We spent less because we had less money, and because we had less money a lot of these services were not available.
My parents budgeted and reconciled the bank account every week.

There was no food delivery when I was a kid, you had to collect take aways. The idea of "grabbing a coffee" on your way to work would have sounded WILD (noone I knew as a kid drank coffee anyway).

We were reasonably well off and we didn't eat out or go out weekly. Maybe monthly.

As a result, I also rarely do those things. I batch cook, so my "take aways" are in the freezer (not saying I never have one, but can't recall the last one). I never use any food delivery services, except two local places that do their own delivery.
I don't drink coffee but when I was commuting I made it a rule to allow myself one take away morning drink a week, usually hot chocolate in winter, and didn't even bother every week. I don't even know what a breakfast meal deal is.

I took my own lunches to work, now I'm part time, in one day a week, I still do!

Admittedly we go out quite a bit, but only once last week, but I'm semi retired so I'm off to the theatre Thursday day time.

I do think we've been spoilt over the last twenty years or so and we can, and should, pull it back a bit.