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?

I don’t think high earners in their 40s have paid off their mortgages generally speaking! Unless they’re from wealthy backgrounds. Have you seen how much houses cost these days?! 🤣

In reply to my own post (!!), if dh and I were in comparable job with comparable start to married life and a family that my parents had, we would not be able to do what they did.

I truly believe that if you have a lot of billionaires, the money is coming from somewhere. Somebody is made poorer by them being made richer.

Agreed, and you also need to balance it with payments into a pension.

Fair point. Ran it through a budget planner, and average earners with children in thier 40s probably won't be saving £2k per month. But should be saving some each month.

Additionally, some of your assumptions are high. Most people probably won't spend £800+ on commuting costs.

Additionally, OP has a top 10% household income, not median.

I think this is utter nonsense tbh.

The fact that KM was considered MC just shows how ridiculous the class system is, and why it has further brackets (LMC, UMC, etc). Her being considered MC is, if anything, proof of how illogical it is, it doesn't somehow upgrade the criteria for being middle class for everyone else just because 1 person was oddly classified.

Middle just means exactly that - the average. Broadly it's the same now as it was twenty or thirty or forty years ago - white collar jobs, decent house, parents' education to at least 6th form, now more common to degree level. The fact that some people are at the top end of that description and some at the bottom end is just how averages work. Fripperies like how much you could afford to spend on a top aren't really relevant.

Look at the 'AIBU to think tickets and popular places are much harder to access now' thread running right now - how can you say the vast majority of the population are working class and living in poverty when there is so much discretionary spending that, despite prices for almost everything being hiked disproportionately over the last few years, gigs and plays and restaurants and museum exhibitions are still completely selling out, new cars, phones, coffees etc are being constantly sold.

Approximately 14 million people tried to buy oasis tickets despite them averaging at about £100 a pop - that's more than a fifth of the population alone who felt they could drop that (plus transport, hotel, drinks, etc) on a night out, before you even take into account the many people who could also afford it but didn't want to see them.

What exactly is so superior about the lifestyles of people in traditionally middle class jobs (GP, teacher, middle management) in Australia or the USA compared to here? The only thing I can think of is larger homes, but that's because they are much bigger countries with more space, and don't need to take into account urban planning based around 1000 year old sites! If anything people in those roles in the USA have, for example, far fewer holidays than your average MC Brit due to less annual leave.

The point is your assumptions are wrong!

Plenty of higher earning 40 yr olds won’t be able to save 2k a month.

Lol

No idea why people are saying OP doesn’t sound middle class.

She sounds 100% middle class. Even down to the stingy anxiety about a £10 coffee trip 😂

You’re not wrong OP. But you do need to loosen up a bit. You can spend £10. You can probably spend the £80 too.

You have enough money you just don’t like the number when you see prices so are depriving yourself on principle. By the sounds of your post.

But upper class has a different meaning. The Middletons aren’t upper class. I agree middle class is a broader term now.

That’s actually quite interesting. And I think there’s something in that.

Where it gets really weird though is that this 100k household - 5.5k take home that people keep talking about - is basically pretty close to what you get when on UC.

So working class actually have as much as ‘middle class’ 100k earning professionals - yet also get subsidised sometimes (free days out £1 entry), and are much smarter at buying things ie. They buy their cigarettes black market, £300 perfumes for a tenner from the perfume girl on Facebook, and various other means to get new things for less. They don’t tend to do expensive hobbies.

Then you have MC who are split in two; those who buy everything second hand or with coupons and deals. A kind of competitive poverty at times. Or those that buy new and sell on. Have expensive hobbies. Bigger houses - so bigger utility bills. They actually have less disposable than WC families imo and they dont have the networks to get things cheap.

So that’s maybe why the prices are crazy. Because basically a large portion of the country has the same amount of money now. Just different priorities for spending.

And again to complicate things - income isn’t even class. When you meet someone you’re unlikely to know instantly how much money they have. What you do know is what class they are.

Yes I have friends from a very similar background to you who are now in similar careers to their parents but don't have anywhere near the same standard of living their parents did.

😂Perhaps you are right! I would be happier to pay the £10 if the coffee and cake was actually nice I suppose. Not sure I can justify an £80 dress though!

"I truly believe that if you have a lot of billionaires, the money is coming from somewhere. Somebody is made poorer by them being made richer."

You are 100% correct, this is exactly what is happening.

Oh 1000%

The general quality of stuff at the moment pisses me off no end!

And I don’t actually agree with that.

Price is based on supply and demand. Elon musk isn’t buying enough clarins skin care or cupcakes to influence the price 😂

If you could afford a trip or any of these items then you aren't middle class. Not that class even matters.

You seem to think “middle class” is all to do with income and buying material things. Being middle class is more of a mind set than a disposable income and shopping. Middle classes tend to value education, they most likely enjoy the arts, do a lot of cooking from scratch and spend a lot of time, reading, gardening and other inexpensive hobbies. I think you have the aspirational class/keeping up with the Joneses in your mind and getting muddle with the middle class.

@AlonsoMosley but sending you (and a sibling?) to a private school would have been a huge expense for your parents. Only about 7% of children in the Uk go to private school. So no wonder they had to budget in other areas!

I think it's less that we are wanting the same things as the very rich more that when it comes to the proceeds of growth and productivity the billionaires are hoarding it all for themselves, the selfish blighters!

I've discussed this in subsequent posts.

Exactly. Has this person seen areas in the US like parts of Philadelphia. lol

What on earth are you on about?
Of course the UK is a rich nation , in the top 10 for GDP.

There is just a huge discrepancy of wealth distribution. It needs to be remedied.

What did your short trip to London comprise off & where are you travelling from? I go to London frequently, never find it too expensive

I took the figures from the internet - typical commuting costs. Though I said £4-500 a month, not £800.

My petrol "only" costs me about £140 a month, but I then have to allow for the running costs of the car and wear and tear. The 55p per mile HMRC amount is based on those kind of things, so going by that the true cost is over £300 a month. And that's a shortish commute (not feasible by public transport). Train tickets from just outside the M25 into London, a pretty typical commute, are around £450 per month if you get a monthly season ticket.

Oh and forgot to say - parking at the station if you don't live in walking distance is around £7 per day on top.