Cost of living.

[Myusername19]

Anyone feeling put off from doing things because of rip off prices now? I cant seem to get used to them. I have a family of 5 now and that combined with cost of living means that if i wanted to go on holiday in the uk, im looking at £200-£300 per night. A week abroad 5k. A ten year old car with 3 full seats for car seats 5k. A takeaway £30. A meal out £70. Hardly seems worth it!

I own a small (tiny) business - it's a service, but I have (rented) premises. The cost of rent, service charges, gas, electricity, parts for servicing my equipment have literally doubled. My staff have pensions I have to contribute to, I have to pay employers' NI on top of them paying their own, holiday pay when they are not in n and someone else has to cover (so 2 x wages for that period) and £300 for licences to have the radio on in the background. I feel I never catch a break as there's a limit to what I can charge for the actual services I provide.

I agree @Miaowm of course it’s expensive when you have so many children

A takeaway £30. A meal out £70. Hardly seems worth it!
What? Where do you live???? Seriously, where abouts in the country do you live?
We're a family of 4, smaller than yours, living in the south east, and for us a takeaway is £70 easily, that's an Indian takeaway for 4 and we don't over order or over eat! That's 4 mains, 3 rices (we share), and maybe 2 naans, and that will cost us £70 easily every time. We see it as a once every 6 months treat!!
And a meal out for £70 for 5 of you??? Wow, you're lucky! A meal out for 4 of us comes in at about £110 for 4 mains, 4 desserts and drinks. In fact often it's only 2 desserts for the kids and DH and I go without. Still comes to over £100. We just can't do it anymore. It used to be one of our pleasures, to be able to go out for a meal together occasionally, when it used to cost about £60 for us all. Now, we just can't justify the cost any more, of spending over £100 for 4 meals. I really miss going out to eat. Even DC ask why we never do anymore. We simply can't afford it these days. Yet we're 2 hardworking professionals. Makes me really sad.

Yes, same here, swimming at the weekend for the 4 of us cost £35.
Insane.
Swimming you be a maximum of £10 for a family.
I had to say to DC this is a treat and we won't be going swimming again this summer hols, due to cost. I can't justify £70 for 2 swim sessions!!!
It's crazy money. I'm scratching my head about it. Swimming is a basic thing to do.

People saying 'something's got to give'
Nothing is going to give
All these inflated costs aren't going to come down. Never. Prices are not suddenly going to reduce or get cheaper.
Wages aren't suddenly going to go up, either.
Nothing is going to give.
We have to adapt. Life as we used to know it - days out, trips, eating out, takeaways, treats in the shopping trolley, new clothes - isn't going to be like that anymore for many of us.

But people with larger familys likely had them children before the cost of living happend but everything cost less so it was ok. So it's not really because they have a larger family as such. It's because of the ott rise in cost of everything

took mine to local NT place (have a life membership) and at least that then is free - total madness.

It's not free. I pay £12 a month.

Isn't a very small business like yours completely different to say supermarkets, large clothes shops ie primark m&s, smyths toys or what ever.

I don't understand how the (large )/,big chains like the above are msnong loads of profit if customers have had to cut right down on what they can buy

I agree. I think though, for too long we have been encouraged to spend money on things, just to keep the economy going. Over Consuming to keep a cycle going round, and round. Nothing is going to give, some people just need to get used to a new reality.

A takeaway delivery for 1 person would set you back almost €20 in Ireland.

Food prices here are outragous...

It’s crazy how much prices differ though isn’t it. We live in the NW but an expensive area. A takeaway would be more than OP suggests- £30 for two of us or nearer £50 if all 4 although we rarely do it. £100 last time for the 4 of us to go out for pizza (standard place). But swimming is £8 for us all in the lovely local pool. I use my bluelight discount and Tesco points for days out which really helps. I have a membership to the local RSH so go there lots and in school hols as they have kids activities. DC clubs vary in price but swimming for example is £20pm for weekly lessons, beavers £15 and gymnastics £45.

Definitely something to the past 20-30 years being an aberration rather than normal life. We’ve all got used to very luxurious lives and will probably have to adjust back to normal standards. I mean historically only royalty and the super rich could afford paid entertainments, staff cooking and clearing up meals, chauffeur-driven private transport. Paying people to do things for you (servants, slaves, waiters, deliveroo riders). Change is hard though.

The thing is that lots of people DO have lots of money. It's all becoming very polarised with lots of people barely surviving and lots of people with very high incomes, the "squeezed middle" is getting more and more squeezed!

If a shop or attraction can double it's prices and keep half the customers, it's making the same profit, in fact, it's making more profit as with half the customers, it'll need fewer staff, lower overheads generally etc. So that's what they're doing. Maybe not to the extreme of doubling prices, but certainly testing the elasticity of pricing. With higher prices, they don't need to sell as much to make the same profit.

It's like classic "mug" pricing, of charging more to the people who don't care about money (i.e. because they have plenty of it, or they're just living on debt). Then they offer deals/discounts for those who do care. Tesco clubcard is a prime example, as are other supermarkets, where it's easy to get a "meal deal" for £3.50 with a store card, but could be £5 or £6 without. They make a killing on those who can't be bothered with the store card, whether because they've too much money to care or because they're living on debt and don't care.

Its the erosion of wages which gets to me more than the inflation of goods and services I think!
10 years ago I was on around 40k including allowances in an advisor type role
Now in my profession for for manager roles the going rate is 40-45 k and advisor roles 30-35. Salaries have been edging downwards over the past year as more and more desperate out of work people take lower pay. I know, I am one of them.

Thank god we bought our house in 2012 and only have 50k of mortgage left and the kids are old enough not to need childcare.

I really feel for today's young parents/ first time buyers.

This - we are going to end up with a two tier society. The have's and have-nots. I think we are already half way there.

Indeed. We've enjoyed a few decades of "living beyond our means", in the Western World. The good times are coming to an end. We're going to have to get used to working more and having less "fun" etc., just like previous generations had to do. The balance of wealth in the World is shifting away from the West.

We simply can't afford to work part time, have big families, etc., and still expect the same standard of living.

It's partly why the younger generations feel angry as they know they're not going to have the same kind of lifestyle as their parents/grandparents generations.

I guess in some ways Liz Truss’ wish came true when she was Prime Minister for 5 minutes - only the rich get to enjoy life and have expendable income to spend on the fun stuff, while the rest of us just pay the bills. Wasn’t that her plan? She just wanted to achieve it a different way.

We have always had this. This is nothing new.

The gap is increasing though...back to Victorian times when people were either rich or poor and the poor people serviced the rich people and/ or the rich people got richer from exploiting the poor people's labor.

Go back far enough, yes, it was very much rich versus poor. But in more recent times, we had a massive "middle ground" and fewer people in the rich and poor camps at each extreme. Now for the past 20-30 years, the "middle" have been squeezed and we're now heading back to polarisation again with the gap between richest and poorest getting wider than ever, but paid for by the squeezed middle.

We are spoilt, clearly! Local school pool, family swimming ticket for the season (May-Sept) £55. Go as many or as few times as you like - generally there is a morning or evening adult lane swim plus family afternoon swim 5/7 days. There's also a few swimming lessons run during the daytimes in school holidays. Absolute bargain, especially for larger families. You don't have to have kids at the school just the right postcode. Has run like this since forever, I went with family friends in the late 60s/early 70s.

It seems counterintuitive, but a holiday on a campsite in France can work out cheaper than a holiday in the UK. Once on the campsite they have free entertainment for all kids, usually evening entertainment too. There's nearly always a swimming pool. So lots if free activities. Self catering is great, when the weather is good you can eat outside, so it feels special. You can even use tesvo vouchers for ferry crossings.

Tesco vouchers can also be used for railcards, which helps my older teens get around for.much less money. That and the £2 buses means travel is actually cheaper than when I was their age 30 years ago.

When eating out at home, we often skip desserts, opting to pick some nice ice cream up, saves a fortune. We get takeaways and go sit by the sea/lake/countryside. Sometimes we just take our own meal and do the same. Picnics with friends are amazing too.

We don't really do.big days out like Blackpool etc, it's never really appealed. I'd rather save the money towards a holiday.

Things are expensive, but there are often ways to do something special without breaking the bank.

My food stories won’t really add any value to this thread and I don’t have kids so here’s something different. I looked up an area we used to live in 4 years and 8 months ago, on a train line to London, so Z6, to see what rent there now looks like.

It’s gone up 50% and those two flats of a comparable standard were for 16-30% less floor space.

I believe the train and tube now costs 4.2k a year from those stations.

In the meantime my OH hasn’t had a pay rise for 2 years and was told 3 months ago he won’t get one next year either.

I have never been so thankful to have left the south east and I feel so sorry for folks who are stuck with those horrific increases.

@KievLoverTwo don't be! There are amazing benefits to living in London. The public transport is extensive and very cheap compared to the rest of the country. There are fantastic playgrounds galore, so if we are ever stuck with nothing to do, it's a cheap bus fare to an amazing new playground.
Next week, we might go to a free kids outdoor theatre which will cost nothing. Although big cities can be pricey, with it comes opportunities and options. I went to see a play at the national theatre with a friend for £20 a few weeks back, and we got seat-filler tickets for a kids comedy for £3.75 per person (I think) which DC loved.

DH gets a work subscription to the Telegraph, and they used to give a free movie ticket every month (we took turns going, our dc is not that keen). Independent cinemas usually have a cheap session - ours do £4 tickets on Sat morning

Agree that eating out has become more expensive, and we have certainly cut down, but at last the quality remains brilliant. Also agree with pp that you need to shop around a bit - a fairly-local local pub does two excellent burgers for a tenner on Monday, and another does £5 pints on a Tuesday if either of us fancies catching up with a friend. It takes a bit of effort but there are still deals to be had.

I did culture in London for twenty plus years. The only thing I miss is the V&A! These days I value a nice home and space over those things. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense whilst you are in the thrust of enjoying it, but I also spent decades going to gigs, so when I moved, “I’ve seen enough gigs now thank you” was a very easy thought to have.