To not understand the cost of living crisis?

[tiggerbouncy]

Fully prepared to be told I’m being tone deaf here.

Before I start I want to caveat this and say I live in the North and I am comparing to other Northerners, as I know the South is a bit of a different ball game.

I earn less than the national average salary. I have recently had my biggest ever pay rise which has put me on 25k for 35 hrs a week. My partner is on similar but has a lower hourly wage (works more hours though). In total our household income is approx 45-50k ish?

We own our home (via mortgage) and we paid for the deposit with no family help.

We go on at least one or two foreign holidays a year and frequently enjoy meals out and day trips to different places.

We have two cats (one of whom has needed very expensive vet treatment) and soil them rotten.

A lot of my peers constantly moan that the cost of living being so high is trapping them either at home with parents, renting, not being able to go on holidays etc etc. Basically, I’ve had a few comments recently about our lifestyle being really hard to achieve and how it’s unfair we enjoy so much.

I just think that we have put our money into things we enjoy (ie holidays) and obviously don’t have children. But I genuinely don’t find like difficult? If our washing machine breaks we buy a new one, if the car needs work we pay etc. We both saved from having full time jobs out of sixth form in order to fund out deposit (again, big bonus of being northern I know!) but our mortgage payments are easily manageable etc.

I’m not suggesting that the world has our circumstances, but a lot of my peers either earn more than me or the same and moan they can’t do anything!

AIBU to think it’s about how you prioritise life and that “cost of living” isn’t an excuse for just being poor with money?

Again, I’m not saying that a single mum in London with 5 kids has the same options or anything like that, I’m meaning in our specific situation. Lots of people moan we earn nothing but to me it feels like quite a lot!

I also see loads of people on here moaning their 100k salary doesn’t go far anymore and they’re missing out on things. If I made 100k I’d be planning to retire in about 5 years!!

This is well goady!

Good for you...
Being so much bettwr than most people struggling as cost of living is a real issue.

nice one OP!

I do hope someone takes the bait as you have clearly put some time into you post!

It's people like you that are the problem.

😂

Your answer is that you don’t have kids. Bit strange you haven’t worked that out but it’s perfectly valid not to have kids!

When does your mortgage rate expire OP?
That’s when we noticed a HUGE difference in our outgoings.

For starters you don’t have children. They are very very expensive.

The only problem with your post is it sounds like you are just about on minimum wage after a pay rise and your partner is under it. So that would suggest The North is littered with employers paying illegally low wages, no wonder everyone is struggling 😉

Where do you holiday and eat out?

i know they’re expensive and this saves us a lot, but I’m mostly referring to peers who also don’t have children but say they can’t save for a deposit etc. with where we live this isn’t that hard with some dedication (roughly 10-15k needed for 10% deposit on a nice starter home)

Lol

You don’t have children so no nursery fees - that and high mortgage / rent payments seems to be what is affecting most people saying that their £100k salaries don’t go far enough.

Also as two fairly low earners your combined take home will be higher than a single earner on £50k - I’ve just run some figures and you’d be taking home about £300/month more. That pays for quite a few washing machines.

It expired last year actually so it has gone up a bit but still very manageable

You don’t have children and you live in the north.
Add in £1000 a month for childcare and double your mortgage payments - does it still feel comfortable?

Ofc yabu 🙄

Quite simply, the problem is when you have children. I often marvel at how wealthy I would feel if I were child-free! Just to give an example, having a baby and 3 year old in nursery for 2.5 days a week (the 3 year old's hours being nearly completely free) cost us £800 a month. That's a lot of money and just one aspect of raising kids. They don't get any cheaper when they start school - breakfast/after school club aren't that much cheaper and then you have to start paying for things like swimming lessons. When they go to uni, you're expected to contribute thousands a year regardless of whether you have one child or three in the system at the same time.

As a family, we're doing okay but I can absolutely see why others aren't. We are in the south of the north.

Maybe this is just goading

Or turn out to be one of those people who doesn't really pay attention to outgoings

@tiggerbouncy the best way to tell is your supermarket bill. If you have a reasonably regular supermarket list, especially if you have like a standard delivery with the same items on the list - the price changes are extraordinary

no DC but every week that bill makes me go what the fuck is going on

Yep, click bait...

Maybe you are better at budgeting and get a kick out of being frugal. Some people genuinely like spending little and saving etc. I kind of envy that, though I am the opposite…

Of course “cost of living” isn’t 'an excuse for just being poor with money' - because that's not what the cost of living crisis is about. It's about how everyday essentials are outstripping household incomes and lowering disposable income. Have you heard of foodbanks? They don't exist because people are 'poor with money'. And who it is that suffers the most? Vulnerable households - those in the bottom half of income distribution who are cutting back on essentials and skipping meals. You must live in a bubble if you think your living circumstances somehow equate to the cost of living crisis somehow not being a real thing. Read a paper, watch the news, learn a bit about income distribution, inflation and geopolitical impacts on our economy. This reminds me of one of those posts where people in poverty are blamed for being part of the problem. Sometimes you read posts on here where it's clear that people are utterly clueless.

The cheapest 2 bed property within 5 miles of me right now is a leasehold flat for £185k.

the cheapest house is £240k - a tiny terrace that needs TLC.

some of us have to live and work in the south!

Ho hum - I'll rise to the bait.
We don't need owt int North do we?

I did say in my op that this was in general about the north and even more specifically about my peers who are in similar situations but no one seems to be seeing that part

I think people possibly don't realise now is the best it's going to be. Once house prices rise in the North it will be out of reach.

I was banging on to a friend in Yorkshire to buy on shared ownership 5 years ago and she is already kicking herself. I'd be banging on to your friend to get on and do it rather than navel gazing on mumsnet about it.