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.

If the average 18 year olds round here saved half their salaries towards a house deposit it would take them 3 times as long as it took you. Even then, once they'd bought it, they would have additional outgoings you never had, like council tax (which is a higher % of income these days than previously) and VAT on utilities (which you didn't have to pay).

Yes, they could have a gap year but they now also have to pay astronomical student loans, compared to the late 80s early 90s when these didn't exist for maintenance grants, and let's not forget that students could claim housing benefit in the summer back then too.

In the late 80s I got paid £2.13 an hour to pull pints. My rent for a room in a shared house was £17pw (inc water and rates). In other words, I only had to work 10 hours a week to cover all bills and food. Would love to see someone do that now on £127 in the SE.

So what you do is look at property in cheaper areas. It's not difficult.

@Katypp Lots of people had gap years in the 80s and went on to buy a house. Lots went to uni with grants and no or small student loans and later bought a house. I know because by the sounds of it we’re the around the same age. We struggled and got on the housing ladder, fortunately for us because perhaps a generation later it became really really difficult to do. Yes we didn’t get it all on a silver spoon but it was no where near as hard as it is for young people now.

Every generation has a better standard of life than their parents in terms of luxuries though.

My parents had more luxuries than their parents, I had more than mine, and my kids have certainly had more luxuries than I did throughout their childhoods - although I doubt they will have the same amount of luxuries as young adults, that I had, without significant help from us.

However, in terms of the big, life changing opportunities, young people today absolutely do not have a better standard of living than their parents and grandparents. Again, not as individuals but as a society.

Things that the current generation don't have that previous generations did:

Affordable, publicly owned utilities
Abundant social housing
House prices that were within 3.5 times a single income
A cost of living which made it possible to raise a family on one income

Enough school places for children to attend their local schools
Decent youth services (in the 80's and 90's at least)
Fee free university and grants
Better job availability with apprenticeships for people who couldn't / didn't want to follow the academic route.
A robust manufacturing industry which meant that apprenticeships usually led to secure jobs.
That manufacturing industry also meant that people generally had jobs for life and weren't having to have 2, 3 or 4 careers in their lifetime

Retirement at 60 and 65

Cheap and available public transport
Easily available driving tests, cheaper fuel, cheaper insurance for new drivers

All of the above meant that people did not have to move miles away from their family and friends to find work or affordable housing. They kept access to their network and multiple generations living and working in the same areas meant that there was more a sense of community which ensured the most vulnerable were looked after.

Young kids could happily go off exploring all day with their mates because that sense of community kept them safe.

There there was:

Free dentistry
Free prescriptions
Easily available GP appointments and GPs that would do house calls
Hospital appointments that you did not have to wait two years for

A genuinely free press which was prepared to hold the government to account and no poisonous social media to create false division and encourage tribalism.

***

The latest smart phone, gaming consoles, an annual holiday to Spain or Greece, TV streaming and a Starbucks three times a week doesn't make up for the loss of all of that ^^ and no scrimping, saving, giving up avocado toast or living a sack cloth and ashes life will bring any of it back

Did the "in my day we were grateful for our scraps cos resilient" shift just clock in 😆?

The conversation was doing quite well I thought, at highlighting the growing inequality in both material existence and opportunity. Now we're circling back to gruel and rickets in "wealthy developed nations" as though it's somehow to be just accepted. How can we progress so far in some areas, yet advocate regression in others? Bizarre.

Ah, but then I wouldn’t have been able to get to work because my industry is centralised in London and the trains in would have taken £6,000 a year from my salary due to being further away.

And where exactly do you think exists where you can get a flat for £90,000? Assuming I’d need a 10% deposit?

Have you got ANY idea what the housing and job markets look like? Cheaper areas for a lot of people is a complete relocation. Which moves them away from their job.

With what my DH and I bring in, we could buy a mini mansion on the North East of England. But our jobs don't exist there with the same salaries. Where we do live and work, there isn't a "cheaper area".

Please get a grip on reality.

Maybe the highlands of Scotland. And commute to London daily from there…easy (sarcasm btw!! 😂)

This is the crux of it, housing has gone up with inflation (or just under in your example) and wages haven’t. Since 2020, inflation is around 28% combined. Even if you’ve been lucky enough to get 28% pay rise over the last 6 years, the tax bands have remain fixed. This is a huge problem for anybody under 40 who perhaps is asset poor, but anybody under 30 without family money is completely priced out now even if they are high earners (over &100k).

Plenty of families are moaning about the cost of living when actually they’re moaning about not being able to spend money on things they don’t need.

Disagree on cheap flights. In the 90s, cheap flights were a big thing. Flights for a penny deals (of course it didn't really cost you one pence, it worked out around £40). Not just cheap flights, we went to Greece a few times, and it was cheap to get there and even cheaper once you were there. Cheap to eat out, have a drink, etc. went back to Greece two years ago and not only was it more expensive to fly, prices once you got there weren't much less than here, tbh. That was pre-Euro, mind.

You mean like...food?

Gawd what a bloody miserable martyr you are….. yes I’m not starving/completely on the breadline but me and my husband work bloody hard - why shouldn’t I moan that I can’t afford to have my nails done? Why shouldn’t I want to go on holiday? Why shouldn’t I want to go out for a pub meal. It’s not a race to the bottom
Everyone works hard. Previous generations worked harder. Longer hours, no or little sickness pay, fewer holidays.

Working hard is normal, not a fact of life that automatically requires a reward.

Of course everyone aspires for luxuries, but you normally have to make sacrifices to invest so you can enjoy more luxuries at a later age.

Nowadays it is a matter of instant reward for normal hardship and the poor me attitude when there isn't anything left at the end of the month!

It is harder due to wage stagnation and housing costs. But honestly I am wasting my time, it’s like arguing with flat earthers
Because many don't agree that life is so much harder nowadays. It is in some ways but also much easier in others and all in all, it balances out.

Nope I mean things like eating out, coffee, take aways, trips to theme parks, expensive phones for very young children, nails, hauls etc.

I can’t believe the things I see families wasting money on. Of course food is expensive if you fritter money on crap. And actually many of us have had to feed families on tiny budgets. You learn to buy and cook better whilst wasting less

My experience is that people are going cold and hungry based on the many people I see at work in my department and others (council).

Please go read the numbers in the post you'd quoted where you're saying they are moaning that they can't afford things they don't need.

Someone getting £98 a week and having to pay rent from that as well as other bills and food is not "wasting" money on eating out then complaining.

If I’d saved half of my salary every month from my first full time job after university I’d have had £9,000. The average flat price in my area in 2018 was £400,000. Houses were £550,000. Tell me… what percentage deposit would I have had with 9,000? 2.25%
Why didn't you consider moving to a cheaper area for a few years of ownership was so important? The average cost of a flat in England in 2018 was just over £220k.

And got engaged at 18! Most people don’t meet someone they want to start a family with until they’re much older. And most people couldn’t afford to buy a home on one salary without inherited wealth, even decades ago.

Plus, some women are widowed, have to become carers to their disabled/sick partner, are abandoned by their partners or have to leave an abusive, cheating, disrespectful partner and house/raise children on one income.

OP also doesn’t seem to understand the gross inequality in society. The people struggling in the cost of living crisis are struggling to afford basics: rent, energy, council tax, food, public transport. Not holidays, beauty treatments, coffees, dog grooming and soft play. The boom in these are caused by people with money.

Is anybody going to address the issue of what happens as we go in ever decreasing circles with people not getting / earning enough for basics, and the inevitable collapse of businesses etc, plus the replacement of many traditionally secure and better paid jobs by automation and AI? No amount of avoiding Starbucks is going to improve people's prospects at the rate we're going, and Starbucks is already shutting outlets..... how do people envisage the future?

Lots of people had gap years in the 80s and went on to buy a house. Lots went to uni with grants and no or small student loans and later bought a house
I don't think it was anywhere as common to go and travel the world during gap years then but ultimately, they did so at a time when a university degree was worth a lot more and the job market was better.

Why do it now knowing how much harder it is to get that first job?

Then who does the low-paid or public sector jobs in the expensive areas?

Should expensive areas go without hospital cleaners, porters or teaching assistants?

And when everyone moves to the cheap areas, they become more expensive, which is exactly what’s been happening.

I see them!!!! I don’t know how they afford these things- and holidays! We never had those things the last 20 years raising young children and we didn’t moan about it.

Being broke whilst raising kids is part of life and always has been. Suddenly we’re all entitled to luxuries . It’s bonkers.

God forbid things get better, hey?