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.

Let me guess- an OP on a decent wage who can't possibly understand that yes many people don't have the money to waste on things and are struggling.

I’d love to see the definition of “essentials.”

I have Sky but I don't go out every week. I probably go out every 10 weeks on average. The monthly cost of Sky is cheaper than cinema, meal out and drinks every week.

Then I don't like going to the cinema as get idiots who don't turn off their phone, if going to a kids' film, get a kid that gets up to use the loo three times in a 100 minute film and the smell of the cinema popcorn makes me gag.

These threads, and this is no offence to you OP, highlight the absolutely fucking massive divide that's widening right now between people who claim to be 'struggling' a bit and actual poverty - and those who really are oblivious to the latter but think they have it sussed out.

People who are scraping by due to the cost of living crisis and stagnant wages aren't buying coffees. They're not buying takeaways. They look through their weekly expenditure and aren't surprised by anything they've bought, they account for everything, they can't eliminate any frivolous purchases to save money because they aren't purchasing anything frivolous.

That's not to say that those who are feeling the pinch but can afford to cut back a few things aren't experiencing the negative effects of a shit economy, but there needs to be a clear distinction made between those people and those experiencing actual poverty. Too often, people on the bare bones of their arses are told to 'make better choices' by smug arseholes who solved their budgeting issues by eating less Pret in the mornings.

I’d love to see the definition of “essentials.”

The largest proportion will be housing costs.

I was talking about my experience and people I knew.
Absolutely pub was once a week
There were people who practically lived there but they were usually looked down on and probably had a drink problem

I didn't know a single person who went out in the week
Fish and chips was a treat
Cinema a school holiday treat
Again
My experience

I think expectations are higher as there's so much more available. I had an 80s childhood and it was fairly simple. However, I was a teen in the 90s and the standard of living had improved by then - range of food, leisure, travel. People went out a lot more, went abroad, ate foreign food regularly, had multiple TVs and cars.

I feel like the cost of products has fallen, while services like eating out or entertainment are relatively expensive. Books and crafts supplies are so cheap now which is great for my children - I had a meagre range as a child as things like pens and sketch pads were pricey. Plus it is easy to buy and sell secondhand items these days, if you can make the effort. My daughter was sorting through her books to sell and would probably need to sell 10 to buy herself a bubble tea! Different things are expensive these days, it feels.

... and food and clothing.

I would also add some tech to the list like a phone/ computer and Internet. Without these, you would be a hermit and God forbid, you need help or simply information ... you would literally be cut off (from an Dr appointment over school info to workplace groups).

I was talking about my experience and people I knew.

Which is of little value. Again pubs, cinemas etc would not have existed if hardly anyone went.

In the 70s there was about 75k pubs, there's approx 30k less today.

The 40s was a peak period for cinemas with approx 4.5k in existence. There are less than 1k today.

@DancefloorAcrobatics why would food & clothing not be essentials? Are you disagreeing that housing costs is the largest proportion though?

In comparison to the constant stream of daily spending now , it is relevant
I haven't denied we had cinemas, fish and chips or pubs but we didn't do it multiple times daily as things are now.

Out of context the stats mean little. What an older couple might think of as non-essentials a young person may see as an essential i.e. books, magazine subscriptions etc for older people will feel essential but not cups of coffee and lots of take-aways. Also, it is difficult to compare like with like: twenty years ago the sort of inessentials that are now 'must-haves' did not exist.
Someone - I forget who - said there is no time in the past that is so distant from us as the recent past. We can't really judge what was right or wrong,or even what was essential in 2000 that is a luxury now, or vice versa. Further back it is even more difficult and many of those older people will have lived through those times and their idea of inessentials will be governed by that.

An example is my shopping these days: I buy lots of fruit (in and out of season - but the only plums worth buying are English ones, sadly) including grapes and cherries, yoghurt, several sorts of cheese, the occasional ready-meal for the freezer, all sorts of meats, both fresh and cured. Every item on that list was a luxury when I was a child, items bought sparingly e.g. a quarter (of a pound) of (usually Cheddar) cheese, cherries for a very, very special occasion (I can't remember my mother ever buying cherries - sometimes a relative gave us some as a treat), yoghurt was something I bought out of my pocket money as a teenager along with crisps, such items were not bought as part of the regular shop (no snacks were - we got crisps as a treat on the way home from school sometimes).
How will you compare today's shopping basket with the one from my childhood when the goods are so different and items which are now commonplace (ok, not cherries!) were luxuries?

I think the issue with this method is it only works for recent changes.

I could afford x 10 years ago but now I can't. That isn't unimportant.

But people have been complaining that it's hard fot young people to get on th ehousing ladder for 10 years. ANd I think it's worth considering how much we are spending on things that people didn't typically spend on, not even 10 years ago, but maybe 30 or 50.

A society only has so much energy for productivity. It seems like we are constantly adding new things to spend on. Some are frivolous, like gel nails (just why?) Others are things we are told we need to have, for example where I live everyone now who learns to drive has to take an expensive driving course. In my old college they are now spending several FT salaries on various DEI related positions in a student body of 1500 people.

Compare when my mother was growing up - their mc family had a FT and PT job, and a home, yes. They also did not eat out, they had one or no cars, kids did minimal activities, they had a tv but no cable, my grandmother had her hair done by the woman down the street, clothing was better quality but less, and so on.

As a society we do seem to have a lot of extra costs one way or another and it's worth thinking about whether we are prioritising the right things.

I haven't denied we had cinemas, fish and chips or pubs but we didn't do it multiple times daily as things are now.

But who does it daily? Think logically about it, those businesses would be booming if everyone was buying coffee & going to the cinema daily. They aren't.

The main problem our economy is struggling with is low growth. Growth that never recovered from the 08 crash. High housing costs, low wages hinder growth. These two things are disproportionately impacting younger people. Cutting out a coffee is not going to lead to a book in productivity.

boom even!

I was talking about the coffees,vapes, and disposable stuff people do
Obvs we didn't have these in the past, it's,all deliveroo and streaming instead .

Quantative easing in the 2008 crash, by the Tories kicking the can down the road.
All these type of businesses boomed due to cheap credit and became the norm for many.
Except that credit is now unmanageable debt
Add to houses prices, H2buy loans, increased NI and the resulting job losses and here we are.

Well a lot of that spending is about to go out of the window with a baby on the way. It's going to be replaced with other recurrent outgoings for your little one that will dwarf it all. You'll find you won't have all those treats, nights out etc and yet you'll still be skint. We don't get out much with 2 little kids and a weekly takeaway and bottle of wine at home is our only treat that is just for us. Everything else (and I mean everything) goes on the kids

I remember hearing people say how much they had saved during lockdown and wondered why we hadnt saved anything. Then realised that's just how we lived anyway 😂 apart from children not going to school nothing changed for us.

It sounds like you have it all figured out OP. We all did before we had kids too.

There's a whole lot of new expenses coming your way. And while you may have visions of home cooking and blissful days content at home, the reality may be getting takeaway as baby never sleeps and heading out for coffee for adult interaction to feel human again.

As someone who has been in the past exceedingly skint, but could now well afford them, I hardly ever have a takeaway coffee and takeaway meals are very rare here. We’ll have the occasional ready meal though.
I don’t have my nails done, I do them myself.

TBH I look on all these as daft wastes of money.

Dh and I do go fairly often to the theatre, concerts, etc., though, and enjoy nice holidays. We usually eat out only when we have guests, or are meeting friends/family. So certainly not a regular thing.

Clothing is a lot cheaper now than it used to be. Hence it's seen as disposable. In the late 80s, early 90s buying a skirt or a top from somewhere like Top Shop would cost me an entire days wages. Primark etc didn't exist. I and most of my friends had very few clothes and it wasn't uncommon for siblings or close friends to share 'going out' clothes so they could wear different outfits more often.

This is also correct. I remember a dress in the mid/late 90s would be £50-60 which was indeed a whole shift at Asda! Nail varnish too actually was very pricy - I used to go in with friends on bottles of blue or silver nail varnish from a shop that also sold crystals and incense. Boots only sold boring pinks and reds.

Clothing seems expensive to me!