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.

You’re missing the point. Everyone has stepped down. People can’t afford a foreign holiday so instead spare money goes on smaller luxuries like nails, hair, soft play.

people who could never afford a foreign holiday are now struggling to even buy food.

I had a bursery as a nursing student in 2009.

Its treated as free money but in reality I was working an apprenticeship style course for the equavilant of £1 an hour and paying uni fees.

Exactly. I'm sick of people saying "well in my day....blah blah blah". That's not the point. As you say, if we're working full time, we should be able to have the odd treat, not just paying the bills...or else what the hell is the point?
This sums it perfectly. People don't want to hear about how older generations managed. They prefer to assume they had it handed easy to them and they enjoyed a wonderful life.

The reality was nothing like what they want to believe. The main difference is that we didn't live with the expectation of instant gratification. We didn't have the attitude of 'why bother if I can't reward myself right away'. Instead, we believed that the harder the work and the bigger the sacrifices there and then, the bigger the rewards would be in the future. And that made it worth it.

Now we can the rewards and we are fed up hearing the new generation constantly moaning how hard they have it and can't afford their bills because they want rewards we would only have dreamt of at their age.

If life have evolved so that these rewards are normal part of life, then so are the things they are moaning about.

People can’t afford a foreign holiday so instead spare money goes on smaller luxuries like nails, hair, soft play
Air traffic has trippled since the 1990s!

Yeah just need to add “wasting her husband’s hard earned money” to complete the misogynistic bingo card.

https://www.sky.com/watch/programme/9a92483b-e512-4a04-8096-0d093e9d227a

https://www.waterstones.com/book/treasure-islands/nicholas-shaxson/9780099541721

Not sure why I've been treated to the eye rolls.

How sad to hope to rely on a man. Women are capable of better.

DH is on £150k, I work PT, DS lives with us and earns a good amount. DD will be starting her grad scheme in September. Living all together as a family helps us pool resources and it's easy to do so. Yes costs of goods is going up, we eat out less as a family but my DC have a jolly and go out loads.

If you want to help the population maybe cut taxes for individuals, cut taxes for businesses and let's make Britain the place to invest.

Because you’re talking nonsense.

I don’t think it’s a case of particularly they want to rely on a man.
They just don’t want to have to raise children and have “careers” of any description. Like their mothers and their mothers before them.
Most people don’t want that, they just want to be with their babies.

How sad that you couldn’t wait to get away from yours
Experiences ive had with nurseries over the years up and down the country in fact all over the world, confirm people shouldn’t use them. They’re terrible.
We really have got it all wrong and we really are going backwards.

The birth rate is reflecting the fact that young people do not want this.

Yes, men should step up and do more caring, but they simply don’t.

So CPI inflation of 11% and food inflation of over 30% didn't happen under the Tories.... (Yes it did)
Energy cap never trebled in price under Sunak either.... (..yes it did)

The Cost of Living crisis didn't just start in July 24, you lot caused it, just as you caused the housing crisis by selling off council housing.

Your party is responsible for the huge costs we all have to endure, inflation since July 24 has been low compared to the your parties record.

Paid for how exactly? or are you a Liz Truss fan?

If your family income is £150k plus PT earnings, you ve not a clue how most people live.

This is a good point.

Most of us didn't have holidays, days out, def not phones and computers, Only a few select kids went to " clubs" ( usually music lessons) apart from Brownies, cubs and church youth club. And occasionally the Saturday morning pictures Coffee shops weren't a thing. You could go for a cup of coffee in a cafe but it was that, not a huge variety of overpriced vhoices

There wasn't many tv options till late 80s and certainly not the amount of pay channels.

Don't remember nail bars. People used to paint their own. And most people had far less clothes in their wardrobe

Food was more expensive and tended to be more seasonal.

Mortgage rates were higher

Renters often had less rights

So essential stuff was more expensive and a lot of the extras ( that people count a deserved) didn't exist

Yet apparently we " had it all"

Yet apparently we " had it all"
Not mentioning working conditions! Maternity leave and pay was abysmal compared to now. Discrimination at work was normal and there was no legal recourse. Long working hours and flexible working conditions didn't exist.

But because housing was proportionally more affordable, we had it sooooo much easier.

No mention also that you couldn't borrow 4 times your income, you were lucky to get a 2.5 times deal, and child maintenance or benefits were never included in the calculations.

Noone rented in 1990 because every workers could afford to own their property....

Experiences ive had with nurseries over the years up and down the country in fact all over the world, confirm people shouldn’t use them. They’re terrible
Not my experience at all. My relied on childcare, childminders and nurseries. I remember often spending the night at my childminder, sharing a bed with her own children because my single mum had to work late.

My childminder became like an aunt and her children my cousins. I was happy there. After school clubs were great too, activities, fun, friends, so much better than being home bored or in front of the TV, or doing chores like many of my school friends were expected to do.

My kids were at nursery and before/ after school clubs from the age of one and they loved it too. They did so much more than I could have given them at home. They learned so much too.

I think women who are very vocal about how terrible childcare is are those who absolutely don't want to work and use this as an excuse to pet themselves on the back for what great mothers they are rather than acknowledge it suits them best.

No, I'm giving the perspective of a feminist working mum who had children in the 2000s. It might not tally with your views and experiences but that doesn't make it nonsense.

I've seen things go wrong too many times to ever want to give up my financial independence, including pension, to rely on a man. I've been with my husband almost 30 years so my opinion isn't based on bitterness.

Incidentally, my husband and I both worked part time after our second and subsequent children were born so it wasn't a case of wanting to get away from our children. We wanted equal involvement in their upbringing and to work in order to earn money and make a contribution (public and third sector workers).
I think your view that women just want to look after babies and have no interest in careers is a little out of step with current thinking.

The birth rate is decreasing because of a variety of factors; I don't think women wanting to give up work and being unable to is one of them. Or that evidence bears out your theory.

To add. You saying I couldn't wait to get away from my children when they are babies would have devastated me at the time. I'm not at all bothered now, I'm older, tougher and more immune to gratuitous nastiness. But I'll still ask you to be more careful with your words because there are women reading this now who will be vulnerable, trying to juggle working and childcare, and your unkindness will affect them, maybe for a long time to come. It's totally unnecessary to upset vulnerable people just to make an unimportant point on an unimportant forum.

Out of interest, if you costed up the price of your childcare, go on Rightmove and cost up a similar house and mortgage, commute and compared to the prices now, how would it compare? Housing costs have gone up so much and commuting is more, would it still be doable? Housing costs are shocking now, childcare is expensive. Our house would definitely have been more affordable in the mid 90s

Out of interest, if you costed up the price of your childcare, go on Rightmove and cost up a similar house and mortgage, commute and compared to the prices now, how would it compare? Housing costs have gone up so much and commuting is more, would it still be doable? Housing costs are shocking now, childcare is expensive. Our house would definitely have been more affordable in the mid 90s
To be honest I don't remember how much I paid exactly in childcare at each stage. I just remember it was quite a chunk of the budget but yes, I know it's doable because I know people in similar situations who do it now.

Housing costs is a red hearing because we experienced more fluctuations. At times it felt quite affordable but when interest rates went up, it was very scary times.

The reality is that if I compare my situation to that of a similar family nowadays, I certainly couldn't afford half of the extras people enjoy nowadays. Things that were considered extra luxuries then.

One can accept that that level of luxuries is now part of every day life, but if that's the case, comparing with the 90s is irrelevant because we just didn't have the same level of disposable income to consider these.

I do think housing costs are relevant to affordability today, but I understand that interest rates did fluctuate then. Housing is very expensive and renting is extortionate. In the 90s, I had friends who were able to buy houses in their early 20s, just before the housing market went crazy. You couldn't do the same today, they had normal jobs and tiny deposits. DP and I couldn't even have the same lifestyle if we'd bought after the early 2010s, as it's gone up so much since then.

Today, the luxuries are cheaper but the essentials are more expensive. This is why many can't afford the things they actually need, not just the things that are nice to have. FWIW, I don't have many of the things stated on this thread either, but our economy is a service economy built on these things, and if no one can afford it, it's going to be a problem. If everything lived like I do, the economy would collapse.

If everyone lived like I do, not everything 😂

Housing is very expensive and renting is extortionate. In the 90s, I had friends who were able to buy houses in their early 20s, just before the housing market went crazy. You couldn't do the same today, they had normal jobs and tiny deposits
Again, this is a distorted generalisation.

I couldn't afford to buy in the 90s and rented until my early 30s when my OH and I met the affordability requirements. Even then we just about made it.

A number of my friends' kids are now buying their own properties in their 20s. My DS earns just under £30k and will go just over next year. There is nice one bed flat for £130k in the town 30mns drive away which he could buy (SE). It's not a desirable town for young people but it's a nice place. I expect he wouldn't be keen to live there though, but that's where the compromises come in. It's the town I and his dad bought our first property!

Spending cuts (the large welfare state for example), growth.

Oh ok. Which part of the welfare state would you cut? Bearing in mind that it encompasses public services of course, not just benefits and pensions so you have a lot to draw from!

Or they can manage to afford they things they need then whinge they can't afford the" wants" as well