AIBU to feel middle-class luxuries have become increasingly out of reach?

[cocobow]

I had to go to the local shopping centre the other day to pick up a click and collect for my husband, new work shirts so nothing fancy! I thought why not make an afternoon of it as I rarely go shopping and I could maybe get a coffee and cake and even treat myself to a little something as my birthday is coming up.

I loved some of the clothes in places like monsoon and seasalt but it was all way too expensive dresses were £80 to £100 or more same with skirts which seemed to start at £65 and I know that isn't even considered expensive today but for me it is! I went for a look in the sephora as I love skincare but again it was all really expensive. The queue for the till was full of school girls buying things I wouldn't be able to buy for myself!

To be fair they were probably there spending birthday money and probably aren't spending money like that all the time. I suppose it just feels like the goal posts on these admittedly luxury items have been moved since I was in my teens and early 20's when I imagined that by my 40's I'd be able to at least buy some of these things or buy nice clothes now and then. My husband and I both degree and post graduate educated and work in professional jobs but we have to prioritise bills, the kids and food over luxuries. To be fair we have no debt at all and we will save for an buy large purchases cash mostly but I admit to feeling a bit personally deprived at times! When my mum was my age she worked in a call centre part time in the evenings and would go round the shops most weekend and buy herself a new top or other item of clothes and exclusively used clarins skincare, I use the ordinary, cerave or boots and superdrug own brand mostly and my clothes come from charity shops. My parents were working class made good but their disposable income seemed to go a lot further than mine does. We don't even have a large mortgage.

DH and I recently looked at taking a short trip to London as a joint birthday present to each other but the cost was so expensive we seem to have quietly shelved the idea.

In the end I had a look in waterstones but even that was expensive, since when are paperbacks routinely £14.99! I never even had a coffee or bit of cake as the selection of cakes looked dry and unappetizing but would still have cost £10 in total.

Am I being unreasonable to think the cost of a middle class lifestyle with a few luxuries has had the goalposts moved by quite some amount?

@likeafishneedsabike There is a huge problem saying we can live without “stuff”. I think we should live without some stuff but only if you have bought wisely so things last.

However turning your back on buying anything just puts people out of work. I’ve just read The Times today: VW in Germany is planning to cut 100,000 jobs. Yes, I had to read it twice too. We just buy Chinese cars now and look what that means for German and other workers! Yes, bring it on say all the anti capitalist nerds. It’s a brilliant idea isn’t it until it’s your family without a job?

Plus what about the tax take? We need people employed and paying taxes. 6th form politics and illogical economics should stay in school. There will be no money to do anything if we don’t work!

I think you can borrow ebooks from the library now. I’ve been meaning to sign up.

your mum using clarins- she could have used vouchers, saved or gotten presents, or maybe she only bought each once a year so it added up to what we’d pay more regularly for cheaper brands? Monsoon was never really affordable

I’m bad for buying pointless things. Spending money and buying things is a genuine rush for me. Just the shite from B&M and home bargains even. Just something, anything. I hate it but I won’t deny this isn’t the truth for me.

Good hairdressers who make customers look better have always been well paid. Talent allied to technical skill.... Pictural evidence drives demand. Celebrity hairdressers. I spend almost £60 on my haircut, nothing on colours, and I drive 45 miles to her place of work.

This!

Agree

I grew up MC with a professional parent and siblings that were in private day school and boarding.
I have privately educated my children, all university educated, and we have a serious amount of money invested and own outright our home.
Despite this I am still looking at prices and making wise choices.
Inflation is insane, and about to get so much worse.
I am stock piling all the basics because of the shortages that i forsee in the next 9 months, due to war, manufacturing costs, and the farmers difficulty in sourcing fertiliser and more importantly, it not being worth their while.
These are very trying times.

My parents money went so much father than i could even imagine today, but they definitely didn't spend money on discretionary items like we do now.

Discretionary spending when you have a young family today can be enormous.

I hate clutter and prefer a more minimalist vibe. Need a decent sound system, TV, games console, etc, but all those serve a distinct purpose to me. I don't get my friends that have to get stuff like the latest Apple watch when they have their phones on them at all times.

I agree, kids are expensive. My daughter & her partner are professionals, they have a large mortgage & they have to be careful about their spending. If we go out I tend to pay for treats/food/entertainment.

it will get easier when you are no longer supporting the kids.

sometimes I think I didn’t have to think so hard about my spending when my daughter was a child, I seemed to have more money for “treats”. But is it that, or is it just that there is so much more to spend your money on now.

i want a beauty advent calendar, I bought the boots luxe one (£150), I am tempted by the Sephora & SpaceNK too (now I’ve seen them). When I was a young mum, advent calendars were £2 or £3 & chocolate!

All the fancy coffee shops we have now didn’t really exist then. There was more cafes, less fancy coffee shops.

I don't know when I last bought a new book, Second hand book websites like World of Books are amazing value. Almost everything I buy there in "very good" condition look like new.

I cut and colour my own hair (and my sons!), do my own gel nails, taught myself how to do my own botox and microneedling, tint my own brows, do my own lash lift, taught myself how to make celebration cakes, buy most of my clothes from Primark, Ebay, Vinted, grow my own fruit and veg, service my own car (well, I buy the stuff and then bully DH into doing it), made my own wedding flowers, a lot of my makeup and skincare is from Aldi (and it's amazing), use AI to diagnose & fix things in the house, most the kids books are from the library, the list goes on.... I simply cannot imagine spending the money that it costs for all these things not-DIY or brand new, it's absolutely INSANE how much stuff costs and i can't get my head around how most people can afford that amount of spend every month. My husband was telling me his friends wife spent £600 on their (primary) daughters back to school stuff? A family meal in a restaurant is £200 minimum. In Manchester, some drinks are now £16. New cars are like £40k now. Cut and colour £200. How is this kind of stuff sustainable?!

The cupcake fad of ten years ago signalled this ridiculous economy didn't it? I remember going to work and seeing a woman with a stall set up outside the work canteen selling little cakes with a massive pile of ludicrous icing on the top. She's standing there by a table full of these silly cakes she'd made. No-one was buying them.

Your purpose in life is to consume cake with a massive pile of sugar on top. This is the meaning of life now.

We are then taxed into oblivion to pay for your obesity, inability to work and for poor people from the rest of the world to run around after all the cake eaters.

If you say you are both on decent salaries with not even a high mortgage then where is all your money going?

Whats your household income and mortgage? Do you have any other large outgoings?

Interestingly my neighbours who have always had money talked to me the other day and said for the first time they’re having to think about their spending. Both are self employed. I’ve always been frugal but did note that they spent a lot of money enjoying themselves and living for the moment. Times are certainly not good.

In the end I had a look in waterstones but even that was expensive, since when are paperbacks routinely £14.99!

Haven’t RTFT so someone else may have already recommended, but for books go to The Works. The layout of the stores are a bit odd but they’re sooo much cheaper than Waterstones.

Happy to be aged out of the consumption phase of life. Decent music, interesting recipe ideas, comfortable clothing but with enough disposable income to buy something novel when it pops up.

My haircut is a tenner because I’ve long wavy/curly hair that doesn’t really take to excellent cuts like a bob or the Rachel cut back in the day. So I just get a trim and conditioning treatment for £10 because getting 2 inches lopped off by a creative director at a London salon or my cheap local salon is much of a muchness.

Agree to a point that I earn ok but have less money. I’m having to avoid buying things I might have a few years ago. I don’t buy many clothes now and we rarely eat out.

however, when I was younger it wasn’t the norm to eat out. I’d never see my parents with a takeaway coffee like I see a lot of people walking around now. We didn’t really get takeaways unless it was a treat or a birthday. Toys were for birthdays and Christmas and we circle things in the Argos catalogue. Didn’t have easy access to things like Amazon so it was a trip to b&b or similar to pick bits up. More effort meant less likely to spend more.

but on a whole I agree. I don’t go into town much or walk round the shops as I can’t afford to buy the nice things! And by nice it’s not designer I’m talking about - just standard high street like Fatface or next etc.

I use kindle because I am learning French and reading French litt. If I don't know a word, I can press on it and get 1. The meaning from the French dictionary in French. 2. Translation of the word into English.

@nomas, I have curly hair (lots of it) that grows outwards not down long. I prefer it cut short because I am petite. Understanding my hair growth pattern is the skill that I happily pay for. I live on Dartmoor, and I see shorn sheep daily. I prefer not to look like George Mudge won the fastest shear!

Funny but true story.
My daughters close friend is a great little baker and 2 years ago in school she brought in delicious cupcakes 2 days a week, 50 x 2 days @ £2 each.
This is a private school and she did it as a little hobby.
Both parents are hospital consultants and she is now entering medicine.
She cleared £5k during that year.
She is a credit to herself, will make a fantastic doctor, but clearly has a great business head too.
I did however raise my eyes to heaven at my daughter/me paying this every week.
One day her father mentioned bringing a tray of them in for his surgical team and she charged him!
Great young woman.

£10 is less than minimum wage. I'm sure you'll say it's fine because the haircut takes less than an hour, but really? You consider £10 a reasonable amount to pay for an experienced hairdresser? You remind me of my ex MIL who loved talking about how little she paid for haircuts. Ironically, a middle class, liberal Labour voter. Wouldn't surprise me if she's on MN talking about how fantastic Andy Burnham is.

Went out with various vouchers I’ve had for ages for a pizza last week.
Not been in that particular restaurant for years and was astonished how much it was for a pizza that you can buy for 6 or 7 pounds in the supermarket. It was ok, but I wouldn’t have bothered without the vouchers and it definitely didn’t seem as good as it once was. The poor waitress was on at own , rushed off her feet and only had half the place open. The place and toilets were clean though.
It all feels such a rip off. Chicago town pizzas are just as good. (Maybe I’m just jaded by it all though ! Lol)

Erm - I think you've got a decimal place wrong there! A quick search suggests average savings are £288 per month, and the median is around £180 per month. That's for the 80% who have any savings at all - 20% don't have any.