Dipping back in, it seems like many posters are making the same couple of points- that now we spend more money on things which didn’t exist or were luxuries back in the day, and that people won’t forgo treats and aren’t prepared to try a bit harder.
There are more things to spend money on, but to take a mobile phone as an example- have you tried doing anything lately without one? My nearest bank is in the city a 30-minute drive away. Many shops and services won’t take cash, or require an online payment to secure whatever you’re buying. Schools and colleges communicate by email, students need a phone to access some classwork and find the homework that’s been set. Even the DWP expects people to log into their UC journal online. So arguably, a smart phone (not just a brick mobile) is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.
Similarly, I really don’t think central heating is really a luxury. Especially if your home doesn’t have any other form of heating. Plug-ins can eat money if you’re on a meter. And we know that mould grows in damp, cold homes, and we know mould can kill. So for me, it’s a travesty that in our country today people can’t afford heating, and other people (who can) are arguing that’s ok because heating is a luxury.
Walking, cycling or getting a bus- for me personally but for lots of other people I know, there isn’t time to travel these ways to work or school, even if it was safe to do so. It’s three miles to the bus stop, and takes me 45 minutes to walk across quite muddy fields, or along fast, winding, unlit roads with hedges and no pavements. Doing that twice a day is impossible if I want to do anything else, I simply don’t have time. The danger means I wouldn’t want my child to do it at this time of year even if there was time. Our buses also add hours to the day- dc goes to school 10 miles away and can take 90 minutes to actually get home, what with buses not having drivers, traffic congestion, etc.
I work 6 miles from home and again, there isn’t time to walk it and cycling isn’t safe or practical with the traffic we have on the roads. By bus would be 30 minutes plus the 45 minutes to reach the bus stop.
Let’s say I try this. I leave work at the earliest at 4, so I get a bus at maybe 4:15 if I’m lucky. Arrive at my home at perhaps 5:30.
Once home, I need to start preparing the lentil stew, which will take at least an hour. No snacks, so we’re all hungry. My child got home with me, so is doing homework. Nobody’s walked the dogs. Actually, maybe the dogs are also a luxury? We sit down to eat at about 7, wash up in cold water and then go to bed to save on electricity and also to prepare to get up at 5 in order to walk to work the next day, leaving by 6am in order to get to the bus stop for the bus which will get us to work and school on time (we’ll actually arrive about half an hour early, but the next bus would get us there late, so early it has to be).
No hobbies, no time for shopping (on shopping days I’d be getting home at gone 7 and would still need to cook) or other administrative tasks, weekends spent doing housework and all the laundry, etc. I didn’t even factor in buses running at inconvenient times which mean you waste a lot of time waiting around, or not running at all.
It sounds miserable, and if that’s what I should be doing, as a teacher on a professional salary (or frankly on any full time wage) in the UK, one of the richest countries on earth, then that’s disgusting.
As it is, I am lucky and privileged, but I see my income going less and less far, and my lifestyle being curtailed even as I cut back on things we can do without. For those with less to trim in the first place, it’s scary times.