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.

Hmm, your money is going somewhere.

It’s free in London for children under a certain age (I think 10) for trains and busses. I thought it would be the same everywhere?

My Nan says that in her day most people didn’t go on holidays, they saved up to buy a sofa or TV for a house, even if it meant you used hand-me down garden furniture for months and an old radio.

Not even on a seaside holiday?

A chippie tea was a treat once or twice a year.

How did 35000 fish & chip shops in the 20s & 30s survive if people went twice a year?!

and the big one you are completely overlooking is that people in previous generations chose the biggest expense ever, more dc. People aren’t making that choice today
....who didn't get spoilt as kids are nowadays. Previous generation kids entertained themselves by being creative. They didn't go on foreign holidays every summers or more. They didn't have the amount of clothes and shoes kids have nowadays. They didn't do 3 or more activities a week. They didn't get Christmas, Easter, Halloween outfits etc...

Teenagers didn't get their parents to buy them a car at 17 or spent £100s on proms.

We spend so much more on our children than the last and second generations ago.

As I said @Passaggressfedup you need to read more…

or expand on your sources because your claims are not representative.

Only about 10% of 17 yr olds have a license and the number who have cars will be lower 🙄

Well our benefits bill is soaring. They were interviewing someone on the news this morning who was complaining about the cost of living and she had 5 children. Yes, they could all have been unplanned, yes, she perhaps chose unwisely with the Fathers.

The young people with the flashy cars probably have their cars on PCP and live at home. 1 in 9 young people not in education or working yet in my local high street there are signs in the window looking for staff.

Wow. Prepare to get flamed, OP. And, in my opinion, rightly so!

Back in the day, if you wanted "Public Assistance", they sent someone around to see if you had anything to sell, first. All the neighbours would see the furniture being taken out of a house.

I grew up in a house that only ever had one warm room in the winter. That was heated by a coal fire so probably not the answer for today. Today’s central heating makes it more difficult to only heat one room but not impossible.

Absolutely not.

Higher salaries in London and much more free stuff. Lots of places in NW UK (where I am) are starting to actually look war-torn, and a big part of the problem is politicians and bien pensants never venturing north of the Watford Gap.

No doubt there are some people out there, who would welcome going back to those practices, before any public assistance is granted.

Well our benefits bill is soaring

Largely down to an ageing population

Classic MN detail that we are now arguing about zoos 🤣

I will just put my two pence in though and lots of zoos across the UK are closing/struggling and several have been found to no longer meet certain animal welfare standards in the last few years.

Relevant to the thread, this is mostly due to the increasing operational costs, especially energy and food - which are obviously things that cannot be compromised in a zoo when animals need certain conditions. On top of this, many zoos report a decrease in footfall - people are cutting costs and things like days out are the first to go.

@Passaggressfedup Inknow you are speaking from the experience of the zoo near you. Perhaps it’s a particularly well established on or people on your area just love a zoo? 🤣

Well a dog can't get a job to feed its family or go on benefits. Or go to a local food bank.

But that is the result of capitalism / consumerism.

Child centric marketing is huge business.

If you want to delve into how we got here, it's worth looking at Edward Bernays, the grandfather of marketing / propaganda.

Our psychology is ruthlessly weaponised against us to proliferate the capitalist model.

No Triple Lock, if you didn't save for your old age, you ended up in the Workhouse.

@ladyrinths, I read plenty thank you and observe much.

Like the OP, those who I hear moaning about how hard life is and how they can't save are also the same who spend on the most frivolous things. They definitely don't come across as very credible.

They’d go camping to Wales usually. She means abroad holidays.
No idea about the chippies but she said most of the working class families she knew couldn’t afford it regularly. It certainly wasn’t a weekly thing for the families she knew and for her family it was a treat usually for someone’s birthday.
They were proper working class.

A lot of flash cars are monthly payment, if Iran is not sorted soon the real COL crisis will hit, ECB expected to raise rates at the next meeting I hear. The "food banks" narrative was getting tedious, they seem to have switched to just general COL now.

I'm not the one who brought up zoos. Zoos are irrelevant overall because they are not so fashionable any longer. Kids now expect a lot more than just a place to look at animals. They want places with play areas and unhealthy food to eat.

Who would deny that there are more expensive entertainment options for kids nowadays than there were 40 years ago, even 20 years ago?

They’d go camping to Wales usually. She means abroad holidays.

Well she didn’t say that did she? And cheap airlines didn’t exist in those days did they? It was often cheaper for me to go abroad than stay in the UK with the likes of Ryanair

Surely it’s not about the standard of living we are supposed to “accept” rather than the standard of living we are supposed to build for ourselves? Obviously people fall on hard times but the uk is turning into a welfare state.

Who would deny that there are more expensive entertainment options for kids nowadays than there were 40 years ago, even 20 years ago?

😆😆 The thread is literally about how things are more expensive now

Cars are a good examples too. It is common now for families to have two cars and gradually more as teenagers get their own too, even in areas with very good public transport. Also more young adults with their first or second jobs getting new cars on lease, something that would be almost unheard of in previous generations.

Yes. The mortgage. Savings. And supporting 5 people on one salary.