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?

Yes I see this discussed a lot and I am not sure.

If we took all their money and divided it between ourselves would that resolve things. Inflation would boom even faster and it would just ‘disappear’ away.

I hate the concept of economy and money. You are right though that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. All that I can say for certain that this means is that the travel of direction is the defining factor. And I think we would probably be in the poor category.

So the answer is ‘be rich’? 😅

YANBU. Retailers are taking the piss with pricing on the whole, as are employers and companies who are keeping wages as low as they can whilst executive and CEO pay is higher than it’s ever been before.
Dont believe that there’s no money in the economy - it’s there but in the hands of a tint minority who are doing everything possible to keep things as is.

I've been around a long time, although not in the UK. When I was a kid the shops were open five days a week, that's it. No-one was spending their weekends out shopping like they do now, there weren't sales every five minutes encouraging people to the stores. You only need to go into town on a public holiday to see hordes of people shopping - unheard of years ago. Things like TVs, whiteware etc. used to cost a small fortune, but of course things lasted longer than they do now and didn't need constant replacements. People really do shop as a hobby now, if they have nothing better to do they go shopping whereas in the past many more people played sports etc. which filled their free time.

@Dreamethmost people on UC get 5.5k?

@SquirrelGGWhen did shops used to be shut on a Saturday then?

I buy most of my clothes on Vinted and it always shocks me to realise that someone bought that item new from the shop originally. The item I’m ‘splashing out’ spending a tenner on, someone paid £50+ for it new!

Yeah. I used to buy expensive perfume in my 20s every now then as a treat
I was a student, it was very considered but possible
Now those perfumes dont come in 30ml anymore
Its 90ml and £100, im 40 and I cant afford it when a basic supermarket shop costs me 70 quid a week.
Its sad actually because you just think why do I even bother there's nothing to aspire to, no little lifts

Close enough. Last time I checked it out they would give us 4.7- 4.9k (before housing element).

So we are on c. 5.5k
We now pay 1.4K mortgage sadly - RIP my 2021 5 yr fix 😭
Live in a large detached house so have energy bills of £600 a month
I could go on..

But I think that demonstrates almost immediately how the lower ‘MC’ can quickly end up with less than the ‘working class’

@Dreamethbut why i’d your example applicable to most people. Surely rent & childcare are part of a high UC claim?

That’s the figure without rent and childcare. That’s just the basic figure for 2 adults, 2 kids.

What was your income when you were entitled to 4.8k and what was that based on?

I just fiddled with the numbers to see what the maximum we could get was. So I pushed the salary around until I reached the peak take home we could get whilst on UC - as this would also open up extra entitlement to childcare/ housing/ subsidised days/ cover for pension contributions.

It was just an experiment.

Where have you got this from?

Entitled to calculator.

Sorry @dingodan

I realise where I have confused you. I said ‘they would give us’. They aren’t giving us 4.7k.

It’s two adults, two kids working and that’s the max someone can ‘take home’ on UC to still be entitled.

They’re raking it in in Ireland, you’re right. It’s become the European HQ of every multinational US tech company. But If you saw the way they are spanking the income and doing nothing about their housing and infrastructure crisis, you’d quake in your boots.

But the basic amount excluding housing & childcare is not 4.8k

Basic amount plus your earnings (which I played around with) minus the reductions for your earnings.

Go on there and do it. I am not wrong I assure you.

Have you got any data to support this. My take on this is that M&S for example are an excellent British employer who pay their staff fairly. But on the other hand - H&M or Zara are foreign domiciled companies. Also the vast majority of tax is paid by a small percentage of higher earners - the top 10% pay almost 60% of tax.

That makes more sense, yes you can have a high income but still receive help with high housing & childcare costs.

No. Housing and childcare was not included. This is not including that.

You need to play on the calculator.

I think we should have taken the opportunity after Brexit to turn ourselves into the Singapore of Europe by lowering corporation tax by a massive amount and attracting these businesses to domicile here. I didn’t vote for Brexit - but it is obviously impossible to keep a bloated liberal economy going after splitting from the huge tax free trading partner of your closest neighbours.

@DreamethI just tried a calculator with some figures; a household income of 70k & a mortgage with no childcare & the only benefit available was child benefit….

If you think that wealth redistribution is the answer I can guarantee that we won’t be in the top ten for GDP for long.

Grocery shop has become a luxury and taking huge chunk compared to pre Brexit prices, hospitality sector especially become expensive (compounded by Covid).

I rarely buy a coffee out now due to cost, whereas that was a regular luxury.

Monsoon was always expensive though.

Are your DC doing activities?

Those add up and a change since when we were young? Typically peers my age had one activity.

Holidays? We had one holiday a year in grandparents caravan (fond memories).

Having DC is more expensive than it was, due to changing expectations and reason many having smaller families.