Memories of cost of living in the late 90s, early 2000s

[goudacheese]

My kids were young then, born 1994,97 but I remember finding it quite tough financially. I have memories of our weekly food shop at asda being £150 per week and buying new clothing was a struggle so I always waited for the sales. Nursery costs swallowed up my salary at £600 per month and there was no funding. Nappies were at least £6 per pack.
I don't know if I was just young and just not very savvy at that time. Both husband and myself were lower on our career ladders but we had OK salaries. Maybe it was just that period of having young kids and I worked part time but my clearest memory was the high cost of the weekly food shop. I remember asda seemed the cheapest as lidl back then was rubbish compared to now. Just wondering if anyone else felt the same or things weren't as bad as I remembered.

I think it was a bit easier to live frugally then. Going out for coffee wasn’t really a thing. We went to restaurants, but it wasn’t as common as it is now. Pretty much everyone - child at school, adult at work - had a packed lunch and it was just completely normal.

Going out for a coffee wasn’t a thing but going to the pub was. Pubs have declined in number by about 30% since the 90s despite population growth. A lot of people went to the pub a lot…

The introduction of the Euro was also quite interesting. A lot of my friends in Ireland (not my home country, but I was engaged to someone from there at the time) blamed the switch for price gouging, but there is little evidence that any of this happened and certainly in places like France and Germany there were very strictly enforced rules about conversions.

What actually happened was three things.

First, in places with a culture of tax avoidance lots of people had mountains of legacy banknotes in drachma, lira, pesetas and escudos all stuffed in mattresses. Because they could hardly walk into a bank and change €50,000 of old currency in cash into euros without raising serious questions, they went on a buying spree: new kitchens, airconditioners, Mercedes-Benzes and the like paid for with suitcases of banknotes. This was inflationary.

Second, as part of the convergence criteria interest rates across the would-be eurozone had to be closely aligned in economies that frankly weren't ready for it. So interest rates in some (mainly southern) Eurozone countries were held artificially low for their economies, often in places with little experience of consumer credit, which was also inflationary.

Third, as some of the unintended consequences began to emerge the euro itself started to fall against a basket of currencies at a time when sterling was relatively strong. By late 2005, £1 bought €1.47 as against the €1.15 you'd get today. This meant that imports to the UK from the eurozone were particularly cheap, even as prices were rising in Europe. That pushed fresh food prices down in sterling terms at a time when the Common Agricultural Policy and a benign climate was also producing large surpluses anyway.

Heinz baked beans 450g £0.29

so allowing for inflation they should be 68p ish but they are double that with fewer beans!

I remember when I was at university in the year 2000 there were protests by lorry drivers about the rising cost of fuel and the refineries were blockaded meaning that garages began to run out. I've just checked and the average full price that year was about 80 pence a litre for petrol or diesel. I also remember a conversation in halls where someone was arguing that if petrol prices went above £1 a litre the economy would collapse. That happened about five years later, and I was going to say the economy did not collapse, but actually...

I was a child but I know my Mum was offered the house we rented for 30k in the early 00s, she couldn’t afford it so we had to move out. 30k for a 3 bed terrace! Insane. I also distinctly remember buy one get one free offers in supermarkets, those don’t seem to exist anymore.

I know my mum struggled greatly until Blair but she said once he got in, everything was fine. We didn’t have a minimum wage before him did we so she got paid fuck all as an hairdresser and relied on tips.

In 1996 I moved to London and was earning £33k a year and paying £750 a month for a wee one bed flat in Chiswick. I did not feel remotely well off! I remember buying a 32” TV which cost £2,500 - a eye watering amount of money. The last tv I bought was a 52” which cost about £500. So electrical goods are cheaper now I reckon and food is more expensive.

I remember my mum spending £90 on a weekly shop and it being masses of food, like barely fitting in the trolly, didn't all fit on the belt at asda so I had to wait for it to be scanned and packed by my mum before I could load the rest of it from the trolley. Maybe 1994?

I could spend the same and get barely a few bags these days

I do remember 70p vodka mix, those were the days, probably about 1999, and spending £80 on trainers. Must have been daft as I wouldn't spend that now, I but the same brands, just shop around smarter to get them cheaper.

I was at uni and distinctly recall budgeting £20 per week for my food shop of simple things like sandwiches, pasta, tinned goods, fresh fruit, veg and fish for one person. If I wanted any treats I would have to scrabble to fit them into the budget.

I agree that life stage would have played a big part in how you spent your money. I lived in London in 1999 and, as a single person, there's no way I spent even close to £150 per week on food. Cheap Tesco own brand yoghurt was about 7p per pot and bread was 10p a loaf. Fruit and veg was also relatively cheap and you could buy it loose, rather than pre-packaged, so I never needed to buy more than I needed. I never bought takeaways and rarely ate out, but always ate well at home, with food made from scratch. Rent was by far the biggest expense, at £650pm. The worst thing for me is that wages have completely stagnated (the rate I got paid as an inexperienced temp without a degree is the same rate jobs pay now, expecting much greater skills, qualifications and experience), whilst the cost of everything else has skyrocketed.

I was a child in the 90s so can’t really comment … though I do remember when I was older in the 00s it being a ‘thing’ that our Christmas food shop would be £100+ , so it surprises me that food was THAT much more expensive in the 90s.

In terms of budgeting, though, I read something the other day about how the 2008 crash has such an effect on ALL socioeconomic levels that bargain hunting became much more socially acceptable.
I grew up in a ‘traditional’ poor, single mother house and I always wore new clothes (albeit from cheap shops), whereas I’m sure to the outside I look middle class these days (house, income, education) but my kids and I wear LOADS of Vinted and charity shop clothes.
It’s also when Lidl and Aldi really took off, they were definitely looked down upon as ‘poor’ shops previously.

I was 5 so my only memories were that a Freddo was 5p and Mr V (corner shop owner) had a tray of penny sweets under the counter for 1p each.

£150 / week in Asda, then? Really?

The Apartment in 2PL is MASSIVE.. and has a spiral straicase. That would cost £2k a month in London now 😂 Hardly simpler just because the furniture doesn’t match. The bedsit £1.5k.

@ChapmanFarmalso my graduate job in London, 2018, paid £17k :)

I was in college/young worker at this point and my child is in the same space now. Financially life was a lot easier for me being honest. Living away from home was cheaper. Rent has increased hugely, if you can find somewhere. Bills were also much cheaper. Going out , drinks in a pub etc, was cheaper for me. Young people seem to socialise a lot at home due to the cost of alcohol in pubs.
Food I didn't think was that much different, but the price of food has rocketed in the last few years.
At that point of my life as a young worker I very nearly bought a little house, think it was on sale for €50k. It was a newish house too. This wasn't huge multiples of my salary at that time. I think it was easier to manage on a smaller salary.
Nappies were more expensive though.

I was at uni in the late 90s. Could go out with £10 and pay for club entry, get drunk, get some food afterwards and a taxi back to halls.

I also bought a pedigree cat in 2001 for £200 who recently died and I’ve since bought the same breed for £1500.

In 2010 our weekly food shop, from Sainsbury's not Aldi like now was £60/£70 for 2 adults and 2 young DC, our mortgage was £585 and our gas & electric was £80 per month having the heating on high whenever we liked - those were the days!

BOGOF is illegal now as it encouraged UPF /sugar consumption

Yes @TammySue that's right, I remember one year my Mum did the Christmas food shop and it was £100, we thought it was wild!!

Agreed, bloody austerity and same here. The grad scheme I was on now pays £26.5k.

my food shop was £20 a week, lots of Netto and Kwik Save and the local market where you got a bag of apples, or mushrooms, or whatever, for pennies.

I lived on £30pw taken out in cash. CDs were 6.99. Bus into town 25p with my student card. Clothes from chazzers or Mark One. Pints £1 and vodka and orange 69p in student union. It was a simpler life.

Anyone else remember the mid 90's kebab price war in Manchester?

It was a real life economics lesson. Lots of student customers, but an over supply of kebab shops. So prices fell to get customers. It seemed cheaper to eat out than cook! I can't remember the prices but I would guess £2 for a chicken (cubes on skewer) in naan bread.

Most student places were £1 a pint but £1.50 for Schmernoff lemon.

Happy times!

My student rental in Manchester was £38pw. You could pay £50 to live in a smart part of town, but who had that kind of money to throw away?

I remember cheapo white sliced bread being a loss leader and was 7p per loaf in Aldi. Mayfair cigarettes were £3.20 for 20. Gig tickets to stand at the MEN arena were £15 for pretty big bands - Blur, Radiohead etc. Going out for a coffee was not a thing. I think there was a Maxpax machine in my uni building that would do you a cup of crap instant for 80p.

I remember this. A doner kebab in Camel One on Wilmslow Road in Rusholme was well under £2, but it was still cheaper go to Kwiksave and buy a 17p loaf of sliced white and a 79p jar of peanut butter, which would be lunches for four days (my Halls was catered and in 1994-95 cost £55 per week half board Mon-Fri, breakfast only Sat/Sun).

When the 1995 Rugby World Cup was on you could get a pint of Worthington's for £1 at Hardy's Inn and a 340ml bottle of Castle was the same price. I much prefer Castle but drank Worthies for the extra volume...

I wonder if a decade plus of wage stagnation and pointless austerity might have contributed?

Just a bit & the super low interest rates meant many didn’t notice their salaries were eroding because their house was going up X every year.

Austerity meant no investment by government or business into infrastructure, skills, education, etc.

Its a mess.

I remember when I was at university in the year 2000 there were protests by lorry drivers about the rising cost of fuel and the refineries were blockaded meaning that garages began to run out.

For that Summer I worked as part of a catering team for the conference season at my university. The blockades meant that hardly anyone could attend for one round of them, and we had to serve up the rather posh food to the staff for as many days in a row as it lasted, which was at least a week!

On the other side of the coin, I also remember during the Covid lockdown seeing someone remove the hundreds columns on a petrol station board over the road, leaving the advertised price under £1 for the first time that I could recall. Wanted to take a photo, but didn't get round to it.