To be absolutely sick of hearing about the cost of living crisis

[Katypp]

I surely can't be the only person sick to death of hearing about the cost of living crisis?
I am tired of reporters interviewing middle-class (usually) mothers inside paid activities such as soft play and hearing them moan about how they are struggling to make ends meet.
Have we completely lost the ability to cut our cloth according to our means or does 'struggling' now mean carrying on spending as usual then complaining when there's no money left?
There have never been as many massive new cars on the road, towns are full of hairdressers, nail bars, brow bars, tanning salons, soft play, play cafes, coffee shops, ice cream parlours, dog groomers, most of which didn't exist 25 years ago and are probably the recipients of the money of the families who say they can't keep up with spiralling costs.
Yes, some families will have been hard up before prices started to go up and will have nothing else to cut back on. They have my sympathy.
But i am utterly fed up of hearing how hard households ars being hit by the cost of living crisis when all that's needed is a few minor cutbacks which they don't want to make.

People are complaining because their money doesn’t go as far. I shouldn’t have to live without heating my house and only taking coffee in a flask to work instead of buying one and only buying food at Aldi with a household income of £85k.

Nobody is saying that everyone is suddenly in poverty. What they’re saying is that money isn’t buying what it should, that high earners aren’t feeling well off and that therefore lower earners are being pushed into relative poverty.

The main gripe I have with the phrase is that the word "crisis" implies it's a temporary blip, when in reality, this is just the new normal

There is a cost of living crisis, where people can’t feed themselves or their family.

there is also a quality of living crisis, which is what I think you might be referring to.

please understand the difference.

Well maybe they are doing well or maybe they indebted to a PCP or worse and merely keeping up with the Joneses.

I would agree with you that people's expectations of a basic standard of living is now much higher, and more expensive, than it ever was. I grew up in the 60s / 70s when a basic standard of living was really, really basic.

So to me the question is what is a reasonable expectation.

That’s the cost of living though, people can’t afford to live the lifestyles they were living.

Im not sure how anyone is blind to wage stagnation and housing costs ratios to salaries.

I also don’t understand why people pretend leisure spending is new.

This was a phrase picked up by the media, and like anything that becomes overused the meaning to it becomes diminished. And then starts to become irritating. And then people start thinking hang on, look at the airports full up etc.
The BBC in particular use it a lot.
There has been a spike in food prices. I am afraid some businesses will see a crisis ( Tariffs, War with Iran) as an excuse to put up prices. Even if they don’t have to.
But it is an overused phrase.

I went to book a beauty appointment that I only have once a year, and my niece who is always complaining of the COL crisis history came up as we have the same surname.
She spends hundreds a year on treatments including nails, hair extensions and Botox while claiming benefits and being a single parent to 2 children.
I now have no sympathy whatsoever for her.

I dunno where you live but where I live shops are shutting.

I shouldn’t have to live without heating my house and only taking coffee in a flask to work instead of buying one and only buying food at Aldi with a household income of £85k.

And that’s the issue.

80k 5 years ago is the equivalent to over 100k today.

I’m really pissed off with the latest government announcement on theme parks and cheap nugget meals. A tax cut for theme park businesses - there is no way that people who couldn’t afford to go to Alton Towers last week will now be planning a trip in august. It’s less than £2 off per person for what is a very expensive day out if it is all passed on to the customer. The cheap meals is worse. Every corrupt hospitality business in the country will be perching a stool in the corner and claiming a VAT reduction and HMRC is not well funded enough to investigate fraudulent claims. Honest hospitality businesses are being driven to bankruptcy by the tax burden when all the criminal “cash is king” dives are thriving and our own government is encouraging it. Anything that incentivises work and growth is squashed by policy. People are paying £100s in bus fares trying to get kids to school (dd was £60/week when she was in college) and then you can save money by going out when you don’t even need to in the holidays.

I agree. Folk moaning about the cost of a loaf of bread. While having their nails done every few weeks and take away coffees every day.

Think everyone is fed up "hearing" about it. We all know its there. The news just picks on one thing and nothing else matters. It was Iran for several weeks. Epstien disappeared. Sky news this morning was back to ex prince Andrew headlining.

As for cost of living, its a travesty soft play or food bank hmm the choice is obvious. All you read on here is oh £80,000 salary how will I live! Well get real, most folk are £30,000 or under and live fine. Do a lot of people on here just make it up.

I do agree in part, where I live the shops and restaurants are always busy. People are going on multiple holidays a year.

I think a lot of it has to do with expectations. Back in the late 90s some of the things we take for granted now just weren’t a thing eg cheap flights , 4x4s, takeaway coffees, soft play, days and days of paid entertainment for kids during holidays. We expect so much more ‘extras’ now. I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong but working class people a generation ago would not have been going to Turkey / Spain for 2 weeks every year and driving the newest / largest car they can get on PCP. And I count myself / my family as working class.

There was a mum on the radio yesterday complaining about the price of her food shop and how her teen sons couldn’t manage to make themselves a meal so she had to buy fast / convenience food for them during school holidays. I do understand that prices for a lot of things have gone up. But there’s loaves of bread, beans, pasta, tinned veg etc that are really cheap, under 70p each. It’s very hard to find that in other countries. If you have to cut back I guess it is possible though yes frustrating.

The bar is so insanely low. Let's be grateful we don't have rickets?!

This is what I was going to say ..... it's not a crisis, just the cost of living. Prices won't go down any time soon - or let's be honest, ever.

We have a what I used to consider a fairly OK income . Until I need to maintain the property . The cost of paint , wood , even trying to buy some plants has gone up hugely. Never mind big items like windows or doors . Previously I would have been able to save up for big repairs , now there is not much left to save .

And my DS has asked if we can have a BBQ and I am worried about the cost of the meat . Maybe we should bring back the meat raffles they used to have in pubs .

There has been a huge rise in rickets.

The graph charts the uptick until 2014. The table shows the marked rise in some areas since 2019. There are lots of reasons for it but it's not like it has disappeared.

What gets missed a lot in these discussions is that some visible spending actually is the result of people cutting their cloth. So for example people who used to/would like to go away for half term but now cant afford it are at home and spending a fraction of the money they'd have spent on a holiday on soft play instead.

Plus some of this is essentially substitution. Coffee shops are like pubs used to be. Was pints, now frappe syrup mocha whatsit.

And lastly, COL issues dont affect anyone equally. Not at all. Someone who's still got their 2021 mortgage fix or is old enough to have paid it all off is having a totally different experience to a private renter. One that would afford them a lot of brows and dog grooming if they like.

Absolutely correct.

If nobody went to the restaurants or nail bars or hairdressers or soft play then those businesses would fold, more unemployment and less money circulating in the economy.

We do fine really, but I’m allowed to be pissed off that my normal, not particularly extravagant weekly shop seems to go up by at least a tenner every few weeks, buying more or less the same items.

A box of eggs has increased in price by over 120% since 2020, beef mince gone up by nearly 30% over the same time period, strawberries between 30% and 40%. Overall cost of groceries risen by 40-50% - and wages haven’t https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cdp-2026-0004/

Add in all the other rising costs, I think it’s understandable that people are pissed off.

Yes we could all go back to doing nothing unnecessary or pleasant for ourselves and looking forward to our daily bowl of gruel - but we really shouldn’t have to. There’s two full time working professionals in this house - we should be able to afford to take our daughter to a theme park or soft play with relative ease, the fact that we could easily live without it or it didn’t exist years ago is neither here nor there.

I agree with some of it but 25 years ago a lot of families still only had one parent working. Since most have to have two working do you not think they should be able to have a coffee when they want and take their children to soft play?

But how do you decide who is genuinely struggling and who isnt? Others cant possibly say what people are going through

Why shouldnt we talk about it?

Things are more expensive and many of us have to give up things.

Silence and stiff upper lip? No thanks. I'm going to mourn my decent coffee while I drink my tesco own brand.

@Katypp Its no real surprise you think as you do, its always the case with the 'right... the deserving and undeserving poor is a theme throughout their political thinking.

Sure some people do make bad choices and waste money but things like Food has, in some cases, trebled in price, many other items have doubled since 2019.

Energy is around 50% higher & will go up even more shortly.

Same with rents, car costs, parking charges, bus and train fares etc etc property prices on avg have gone from 235k to 290k since 2019....

Have wages doubled since 2019?

Plus you've no idea the financial situations of people interviewed in a Play area or are you saying poorer children shouldn't be in these places?