Mumsnet race to the bottom

[limeandwater]

I have noticed on MN there has been a real race to the bottom mentality. To be clear I am not talking about budget advice threads that can be incredibly helpful.

I am talking about the posters that think working people should be so accepting of a miserable life.

Again I am not talking about 5 star holidays in The Maldives, 26 plate Range Rovers, or shopping at Harrods Food Hall.

Somebody posts about the price of coffee then the response is to make your own and bring it with you. Somebody posts about the price of a cafe lunch on a family day out and the response is bring your own sandwiches. Somebody posted about the cost of running a car and the answer is cycle. Like that's realistic in a rainy December.

When did people get so accepting that life had to be miserable?

Instead of assuming others are "sneering and moralising", why not see this as people suggesting cheap things they enjoy, or their trade offs to free money elsewhere, or sharing how things you have said you are worried about turned out not to be a problem. You will feel less angry and you might get some good ideas!

Not at all, you are missing my point. It's because we have had such a high standard of living for so long that we've become accustomed to expecting certain things as standard. As we've moved into the internet, mobile phone and streaming age, the stuff we need is more and more technological and therefore expensive. The grooming standards we aspire to now are complicated and high maintenance compared to 30 years ago, and than means yet more expense.

And now our standard of living is taking a nosedive we are struggling to let go of things we don't see as treats or luxuries, they are just part of the fabric of our modern day lives in a highly developed country, albeit one that is getting poorer and shitter by the day.

The real issue isn't whether person A is or is not morally entitied to a Costa coffee everyday regardless of whether they can afford it, it is that if everyone cuts back on Costa coffee, the people who work at Costa lose ther jobs... repeat that for nail bars, new cars and whatever else is seen as "frivolous spending" and that cascades through the economy and starts to hit everyone as the people employed in "frivolous" jobs now can't even pay for the boring essentials and the boring essential businesses start to hurt as well.

That is the real reason it matters if things people could afford a few years ago are now too expensive even if the things themselves are non essential.

I’m not angry at all. Saying to someone “I’ve got a coffee flask, it works really well, doesn’t leak and means I can bring coffee from home, that might work for you”, is qualitatively different to saying “I just bring coffee from home, it’s much nicer than the shitty sugary shite that passes for coffee in Costa”, or “we call it Costalot and Starbucks, wouldn’t give them my money - total rip off”.

Or

”I’d rather have my own lunch than the greasy, fatty crap from a cafe - your heart with thank you” instead of “yes it’s rubbish when you’re feeling skint, I made some soup at the weekend for lunches this week, cos I too need to avoid buying takeaway lunch”.

If you can read for comprehension, you can read for tone and some posters just love to post from their moral high horse, when it’s really not needed.

The business owners they featured on Panarama were bleak. Independent places don’t stand a chance against the big multi nationals with the current rises in NI and so on. One lady said she’ll have to find an extra 7,500 a year in extra taxes and has laid off three staff already. None of it sounded good and some help from the government is only for certain sectors.
I haven’t got the answers, but it does feel like we are heading for a recession and it’s the young that will bear the brunt of it as those types of jobs that they cut their teeth on won’t exist.

Taking the emotion out of it - but fully acknowledging it is shit at an individual level - this is because we've overextended ourselves and our lifestyles as a species.

Now we're not living in caves and hunting for food, but the cycles of good times and booms vs lean times and contractions happens absolutely everywhere in nature and we're not immune to that because we've got opposable thumbs and live indoors and call it "the economy". We just experience contractions differently - in this case, it's people losing jobs rather than dying on the plains of the Serengeti.

As you said we now have an expectation of a high standard of living. Takeouts, coffees and all other extras and also a house.

Before we expected a house but none of the other extras.

A latte and an avocado might not buy a house but until expectations change we will continue on a destructive path to nowhere.

But can you not see the point the poster is making?
I am probably guilty of being a 'fun sponge' on threads like this, but those of us who don't regard takeaway coffee/regular eating out/new cars/holidays as a basic standard of living find those who do then claim hardship frustrating.
Us oldies are expected to accept that things are much, much harder for younger families than they have ever been while turning a blind eye to what we would regard as reckless spending that we have never done.
One 'fact' often aired on threads like this is the cost of living has risen so much that few families can afford to have a parent SAH, unlike 'most' families in years gone by. What they fail to take into account is that the SAHP of the 1970s/80s or even 90s would not regard any of the things I mentioned upthread as necessities. If mum had expected a car and pocket money of at least £500 a month (see a thread a few weeks ago), she would not have been a SAHM either.

The majority of the time!

Average house price is £350000. A latte is a fiver. There is no frugal prudent financial model where giving up your weekly latte means you can then afford the average house. Even the poor woman being judged for her two costas a day upthread would need to save that money for 15 years to get the deposit together for an average house.

You cannot look back at the past and be all smug when it was a completely different time. I got a 100% mortgage and most of my furniture was second hand in my first house but that doesn’t mean my kids not having an iPhone would make up the difference in cost between a 2006 house and a 2026 house.

There is more money swilling around than ever but it’s being siphoned off - it’s not the Serengeti, it’s broken capitalism and it could be fixed, the decline isn’t inevitable.

It’s simple really. If you can afford something, and will enjoy it, then buy it/do it. 👍

If you can’t, then find something cheaper. 🤷‍♀️

The 'assumption' is because people are sneering and moralising.

HTH.

Of course but you move further away from your goal the more self indulgent you become. Sure if you want to own nothing live in poverty but vehemently complain, crack on.

If not, address your over indulgence and ask yourself whether creating these habits actually brings fulfilment.

I just don't see that. I see person A complain their expensive choice is expensive, then person B suggest that there are cheaper choices available. Then the person A get all upperty that the cheaper choice is some how beneath them.

Yes, this.

Fair point.

We're at a difficult time when the economy is crashing and is going to get worse, but society has evolved to have far higher expectations that it ever has - in no small part because successive governments have pushed credit and consumerism as ways of boosting the economy, but that bubble is now bursting.

It’s best on here at Christmas. You have to put your tree up Christmas Eve afternoon, pop a single satsuma in a stocking and buy your children one book and a pair of socks each. And your fridge should look the same as the rest of the year and your food budget should be no different either.

I just see a lot of projection, and egos being bruised by having their choices questioned or their assumptions challenged.

HTH.

SOME posters are doing this. Others are loving sitting on their high horses dragging people for drinking Costas and getting their nails done. Classic MN though.

No matter how many Costas you don't drink, you're not going to be able to save up for a deposit on a house - or indeed anything - if you have to pay market rent and bills on an average salary, so you may as well just drink the bloody Costas.

Us oldies are expected to accept that things are much, much harder for younger families than they have ever been while turning a blind eye to what we would regard as reckless spending that we have never done.

This perpetual narrative that older people didn’t spend money on frivolous things is bullshit.

What people buy has changed but the thing still exists? Who filled the 50% more pubs we had in the past? Who went on the traditional British seaside holiday & the 70s package holiday abroad boom? Why was fish & chips excluded from rationing? People have always spent money on things other than the basics.

You cannot look back at the past and be all smug when it was a completely different time. I got a 100% mortgage and most of my furniture was second hand in my first house but that doesn’t mean my kids not having an iPhone would make up the difference in cost between a 2006 house and a 2026 house.

Exactly, not to mention far more social housing available.

My parents are classic for this. They are both massive fritterers and John Lewis has been the recipient of most of their money - and the pub in my dad's case. I do find it mildly irritating that their generation thinks they're superior at money management just because they're much less exposed to current mortgage prices, a dismal job market, and are cushioned by generous pensions and savings.

You could at least direct your money to something more self fulfilling and less wasteful than a takeout coffee. There really is no helping some people. This might explain why they end up in such a financial mess.

This is exactly the sort of judgy post I am talking about.

What the fuck do you even mean by more 'self-fulfilling' than a coffee? It's a drink, not a volunteering session at the local hospice.

So the person who described a cafe lunch as greasy and fatty was being supportive, or the person who described instant coffee as swill was just expressing their view. Every time there’s a thread involving choices other people make there’s a plethora of posters passing judgment to the point where you’d think giving your child a chocolate bar was more harmful than crack.

But no, it’s all projection - no judgment at all.