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.

One thing I experienced when I ran my niche independent shop for 7 years was a bizarre and growing attitude that I was essentially running a charity to benefit myself. In my head I was filling a researched and identified gap in the market, tailored to what my potential customers said they wanted. I tried every combination of opening hours possible to please customers, I tailored my stock according to trends. I had a wide and realustic price range. I offered services, participated in community events, did quite alot of informal social work and signposting, basically followed all the formulas and still ended up throwing in the towel 5000 in debt.

My customers bemoaned me closing, yet footfall diminished as online platforms like the one that rhymes with Emu saw people taking pictures of items on my shelves and searching for them cheaper online in front of my face. People with little grasp of the basic maths of running a business suggested I buy from such platforms and just mark everything up accordingly. Never mind my target market would be fully aware of that strategy, criticise me for it, and were happy to wait three weeks for delivery if it meant they got it cheaper. But apparently the problem was me wanting to support myself off the back of other people.

So much of the way the world works has changed so quickly, including beliefs and expectations.

When I bump into old customers I am asked if I'll start up again. Hell no. I have no capital, no security no confidence and I am only one person now (widowed - which was really the tin lid on it all). I'm out, and with distance, I'm not sorry. A bit sad, as self sufficiency was my ultimate goal.

I've just seen a FB post of someone visiting our town, which has become what I can only describe as a Dystopian hellscape - the main shopping drag is mostly boarded up and there is a handful of market stalls in front of former department stores. People seem to want to visit something that looks like a bustling town in real life in the manner of a theme park, but don't appreciate the reality of running a small business at all.

Honestly, the older I get, the less sense things make. I think we are at a dangerous tipping point, an existential crisis as it were, and I do blame the unchecked nature of e-commerce and the virtual world

But that IS exactly what we’re doing.. driving them away. They’re gone. You can expect from them whatever you like ie paying their full whack of tax.. won’t bring them back. “Letting them leave the country?” wake up call.. if you have money you can live anywhere. So we can sit and fester and grumble, or we can do a deal with them.

When you say “take and take for their own gain” they’ve given a hell of a lot more than most people!! Also, how do you know what they’ve given to charity and who are you to judge anyway?

Your views are symptomatic of the culture of envy in this country. They’re going to do what works best for them as most people ultimately do.

What you mean investing in the NHS after (yet again) a period of it and all other public services being run down by the previous Tory administrations, because they spent all the money they got from privatising everything including North Sea oil on tax cuts for the rich? Don't try to rewrite history. I was there. I remember the UK in the 1980s, shabby like it is under every Tory government.

If Tory governance is shabby, I would love to know what you class this current shower as. There's only so long you can blame previous governments.

What sort of deals do you propose? What will appease these mega wealthy individuals and corporations if their whole raison d'etre is amassing more and more money, regardless of how or at what detriment to the overall well-being of societies?

Doing deals like TTIP in the US where corporations can sue the state if it restricts profit making abilities? Deals where it's ok to wang millions into the pockets and coffers of political entities with fascistic underpinnings? Deals where the government has to pay wage top ups to "protect shareholders" at the expense of the people working to create their wealth? Deals where environmental issues are either ignored or leveraged for profit, because who cares, they have a bunker in NZ for when the SHTF. Or are aiming to build their own civilisations on other sodding planets?

And as for "charitable donations" - those are tax breaks love, not pure altruism.

@MistressoftheDarkSide

Honestly, the older I get, the less sense things make. I think we are at a dangerous tipping point, an existential crisis as it were, and I do blame the unchecked nature of e-commerce and the virtual world.

You are correct. It's called "late-stage capitalism."

LOL. The bond market is coming for house prices, I think a lot of the young vaguely understand this better than boomers because there is YouTube about it, and a lot of "influencers" sometimes babble about the "S&P 500".

2 years in you definitely can.

I see Brexit is the gift that keeps on giving. Lovely time tourists are having at Dover today.

Strange how France has negotiated with their Supermarkets and got promises to keep price increases on essential goods low or zero.

Yet the moment our Govt even suggests this, its cries of "Soviet style controls...."

Can't do anything that might reduce their profits or dividends by a tiny percentage.

Exactly, there is masses of money in the world, in the stock and bond markets, in your next business idea, stop blaming Elon and just crack on, a big part of the problem is that a lot of the herd thought the money was in their house, nope, not any more.

How weird, anything thats perceived as good under Labour, is always attributed to policies the Tories started..... and anything bad that happened under the previous Tory Government is ALWAYS blamed on Blair or Brown.....

Um, "the herd" as you so charmingly call domestic property owners were sold the idea of ownership as investment, and it was presented as a relatively secure option. And now it's becoming clear it was a lie of massive proportions.

There is "masses of money" that means little in relatable terms for most people and is ring fenced by conditionality to preserve the wealth of the already wealthy.

Do tell us more about this uncontrolled spending. Bonus points for not mentioning "the note".

I won’t be spending my afternoon working out hypothetical deals for individuals with their own set of circumstances. A deal is a deal if it works both ways. Surely a slice of something better than a slice of nothing?

You even resent charity donations because they’re also tax breaks?!! That isn’t the mind of a business person. You seem to hold these people to a moral standard required by no one else. Whether you agree with that statement or not, your argument doesn’t work because as I’ve pointed out already, they’re gone because they CAN and the country is worse off for it.

Perhaps they don’t feel like funding the growing welfare bill here and would give their money (tax breaks or not) to charities of their own choices. Can’t say I blame them personally.

I agree with both your statements but stock, bond, FX etc. markets are open to anyone, more thought required than just assuming that mugs would keep borrowing more and more endlessly to keep house prices going up though. The bankers did the hard sell via endless promotion and TV shows and memes about "not enough houses" Yadda Yadda and people bought into it, literally.

Well, if we're going to bring moral standards of the wealthy elite into it, how do you feel about the fact that they have been largely enabled to exploit people - mainly women and girls - for their own debased amusement with nothing but performance outrage from their equally wealthy and probably involved peers?

And I see you have Libertarian leanings. Says it all really.

No, but you need calcium, and the right kind/amount to help absorb the vitamin D. So diet contributes.

Yes, funny that. The previous administration spent 14 years blaming the last government, but the present government has been blamed pretty much from day one.

And the worst of the present government's policies are ones that ape Reform and Conservative ideologies. All this over the farmers and inheritance tax coming from people who said not a word when the last incumbents cut subsidies to agriculture to the bone.

I used to work for a department of DEFRA and well done I remember an article stuck on the wall in the kitchen about farmers voting Tory but doing better under Labour. Not that I am a fan of the IHT changes for farmers, but it's not the cause of all farming problems in this country.

But the same people who want to pay pence for produce don't understand that this is the reality of unsubsidised food production after 40 years of stealth removal of farming subsidies, including that which we received from the EU.

I see all the staunch Labour voters are coming out the woodwork. Par for the course. Delusion and denial.

As opposed to staunch Tory voters..... hilarious.

You people really do see yourselves as the natural Government of the UK.... and countenance no opposition.....

.... despite the fact that throughout the post war period, you've systematically destroyed the UK & voted against anything that benefits the ordinary family or individual.

Exactly who are you referring to as having exploited women and girls? Or are you just generalising in an attempt to tar all high achievers with the same brush as Jeffrey Epstein?

Absolutely I am a libertarian! I believe people should be free to make their own choices and I believe in free markets. The childish part of me might be more socialist but I know in practice it just doesn’t work.

I'm not actually a Labour supporter. I find the delusion and denial comes from people who criticise the policies of one government (regardless of which party it is) having previously championed policies which resulted in similar outcomes for the demographic that, all of a sudden, they care so much about.

With my dad (Caucasian) in the 1950s it was due to poor diet.

You've spent so long in the Tories shadows, both you and your party don't know how to move forwards. Labour are in power. The buck now stops with them. All this whataboutery isn't paying people's bills.

The benefits and pensions "bill" is stable.

God almighty. Can people not read?