Page 4 | General life is different to years ago

kmr24 · 2024-09-01T20:03:11+00:00

Hello, I'm just thinking of how everything thing has changed over the past 5 years . No one has a lot of disposable income , rent and food is higher and just general things are not the same... I've heard taxes are going up now also! I feel low with it all and I need to find a new house I've been in for 10 years as the landlord wants to sell and I can't find anywhere to rent. And the council have a very long waiting list. There's a lot of people in this boat it's sad how we have to live like this.will the climate ever change or is this how it is now?

taxguru · 03/09/2024 13:27

Bjorkdidit · 03/09/2024 12:42

@taxguru Your DSs water bill cannot be right. A flat isn't going to have high rates which is the only way he's going to be paying that much for unmetered.

But if it is, and he can't have a meter, he can pay an assessed charge, which should take account of his lower usage due to living alone and bring it down more in line with what it would be if he was metered.

His broadband doesn't need to be anywhere near £50 pm either. Ours is under half that for high speed full fibre and it's more than sufficient for WFH.

Does he get the single person council tax discount?

BT broadband is copper cabled and slow/unreliable. He started with that, and it wasn't adequate. Managed to get BT to cancel the contract. So he's now with Virgin cabled.

Yes, single person discount for council tax, but still band C due to the value of the flats as they're in an expensive city!

He's done all he can with water rates.

IDontHateRainbows · 03/09/2024 13:28

taxguru · 03/09/2024 11:55

@Halloumiheaven

The hard truth is, it's self made

You really can't make a sweeping generalisation like that. Especially these days when basic costs of living are so high. If people can barely afford the essentials/necessities, they aren't in a position to buy a house to rent out, are they?

My son has just finished his first year in a professional job with on of the UK's biggest insurers. On a pretty good wage for a graduate job. He has literally nothing left after paying his rent, utilities, transport, food, etc. His "discretionary" fun spending is about £100 per month, so he has to choose whether to go to the pub quiz or whether to go to five a side football, he can't afford to do both.

None of that is down to a lavish lifestyle or overspending. His flat is a tiny one bedroomed with kitchen area in a corner of the living area. Right on the edge of town, the furthest away possible from the town centre on anything remotely like a decent bus route. It takes over a third of his wage on rent alone. Utilities come to something like £500 per month being £100 on electricity despite him barely having the heating on (it's a hugely expensive electric water heating system, no gas, and of course, it's rented so he has to put up with it), council tax something like £200 per month (utterly crazy for a tiny flat, but it's an expensive city), £150 or so for water rates (not metered, so he's paying for 2/3 people- again outside his control as he's renting), £50 for internet as he needs speed and reliability due to having to work from home 2 days per week and study from home, plus insurance, mobile phone sim card at a tenner per month, etc. He can't cut down his food bill - he already gets everything from Tesco using clubcard discounts, takes his own packed lunch to work, never buys coffees or other items during the working day, a cheap takeaway only once per week. It's a ridiculously frugal lifestyle for a graduate professional.

Heaven only knows how single people on minimum wage can afford to exist unless they're still living at home, which is impossible for lots of professional graduates as the decent jobs are centralised in a hand full of major cities, so they have to move away for decent jobs, or have to stay living at home and end up working in retail, hospitality or care at minimum wage. What an awful choice for people whose home towns are in the run down regions!

Living in a property by yourself is a luxury in your 20s. Most people house share or live with a partner. In London it's getting normal to house share into your 30s, 40s even

taxguru · 03/09/2024 13:29

Kitkat1523 · 03/09/2024 12:58

It does depend where you live though …..I’m in the NW and relatively easy to get a council house or social housing if you aren’t too fussy about the area…..my DD got one with her baby in 5 months back in 2016….my DS got one in 2018 2 months after his baby was born …..2 of my neices and my DSs ex got new 2 bed new builds last year….with landscaped garden, car charging points, lovely kitchens …….I think they have built over 200 over the past 2 to 3 years ……I appreciate it’s harder if you are single though…..not so many one bed flats around here either

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Not many blue chip employers in the run down regions. That's why they're run down. When you have large decent employers, it improves the local area.

ichundich · 03/09/2024 13:31

When people day 'hardly anyone had a car in the 70ies and 80ies' - true, but there was public transport and it was cheap as chips. Nowadays not having a car is only an option if you live in a city or town with a certain infrastructure. TV's always used to be a big chunk of people's incomes. What's changed is the frequency with which we upgrade our devices. And what's really gone up is costs for services, energy prices, holidays, fares, tickets. How does £350 for an Oasis ticket compare in real monetary terms to a Michael Jackson ticket from 1989?

taxguru · 03/09/2024 13:32

IDontHateRainbows · 03/09/2024 13:28

Living in a property by yourself is a luxury in your 20s. Most people house share or live with a partner. In London it's getting normal to house share into your 30s, 40s even

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He couldn't get house shares either. It's not as if he didn't try. Because it's a Uni city, all the landlords are letting out to students as they pay better! Plenty of HMOs clearly state "students only". Before he started the job, the employer had set up a "groupchat" for all the new graduates a few months beforehand so they could start chatting and discussing things like living together, but they all reported the same problems. When he started, some of the other new starters were living in hostels as they couldn't find anywhere to live, even shared houses are in great demand!

Until you've experienced it, it's hard to imagine just how bad things have got.

Opinionvoice · 03/09/2024 13:34

The problems have been building up for a lot longer than 14 years! Sorry, successive governments of all parties over decades have left us in this state.

PixieMcGraw · 03/09/2024 13:34

Threads like this show how polarised society is. Housing prices have accelerated way ahead of wages, ditto rent. Energy prices the highest ever. Food is now going up almost every week. Foodbank use at a record high. Student debt, credit card debt. I was able to buy a property in 2003 in outer London, 3 beds for less than £250k. Same street, same properties now £750k. Have wages tripled since 2003? My DS19 renting in London where he works pays £1,000 plus bills in a shared house. He's not on the lattes and cocktails. Everything he took to the house came from car boots and charity shops. To characterise the cost of living crisis as a result of people not knowing how to economise or living aspirational lives is demonstrably false just by looking at the numbers.
When Labour got in in 1997 there was optimism and 'things can only get better'. After austerity, cuts to living standards, we need a chink of light but instead constant doom and gloom and 'things are going to get worse'. It's tiring.

beetr00 · 03/09/2024 13:35

GorgeousTulips · 03/09/2024 07:45

You need a licence to watch iplayer so what do you watch online for free?

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@GorgeousTulips a mere few platforms to watch for free 🙂

https://www.itv.com/
https://www.channel4.com/categories
https://www.channel5.com/
https://u.co.uk/

ichundich · 03/09/2024 13:36

Kitkat1523 · 03/09/2024 11:40

We didn’t get a fridge until the 70s when I was around 10….neither did we have a colour to or a phone or a car.

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Again, maybe not as many people had fridges but they had local grocery stores near them to get fresh produce every day.

Opinionvoice · 03/09/2024 13:40

westernlights · 01/09/2024 22:44

Definitely this.
Expectations and the need to have the best of everything, social media doesn't help.
Don't get me started on people who complain they can't feed their kids yet have lip filler, nails, tattoos etc,
Priorities are very different

Obviously this only applies to some..

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I buy everything second hand that it’s possible to, and use everything till it is completely unusable ( even then, if it clothes I’ll cut it up to make tea towels and wipes). My sofa is getting on for thirty years old for example, and I have no plans to change it. Still using cooking pots I got from Argos thirty years ago. You get the picture.

I’m still feeling the pinch. This really isn’t about people’s expectations being too high.

BTW, a mobile phone is no longer a luxury. It’s now a necessity.

spikeandbuffy24 · 03/09/2024 13:42

taxguru · 03/09/2024 11:55

@Halloumiheaven

The hard truth is, it's self made

You really can't make a sweeping generalisation like that. Especially these days when basic costs of living are so high. If people can barely afford the essentials/necessities, they aren't in a position to buy a house to rent out, are they?

My son has just finished his first year in a professional job with on of the UK's biggest insurers. On a pretty good wage for a graduate job. He has literally nothing left after paying his rent, utilities, transport, food, etc. His "discretionary" fun spending is about £100 per month, so he has to choose whether to go to the pub quiz or whether to go to five a side football, he can't afford to do both.

None of that is down to a lavish lifestyle or overspending. His flat is a tiny one bedroomed with kitchen area in a corner of the living area. Right on the edge of town, the furthest away possible from the town centre on anything remotely like a decent bus route. It takes over a third of his wage on rent alone. Utilities come to something like £500 per month being £100 on electricity despite him barely having the heating on (it's a hugely expensive electric water heating system, no gas, and of course, it's rented so he has to put up with it), council tax something like £200 per month (utterly crazy for a tiny flat, but it's an expensive city), £150 or so for water rates (not metered, so he's paying for 2/3 people- again outside his control as he's renting), £50 for internet as he needs speed and reliability due to having to work from home 2 days per week and study from home, plus insurance, mobile phone sim card at a tenner per month, etc. He can't cut down his food bill - he already gets everything from Tesco using clubcard discounts, takes his own packed lunch to work, never buys coffees or other items during the working day, a cheap takeaway only once per week. It's a ridiculously frugal lifestyle for a graduate professional.

Heaven only knows how single people on minimum wage can afford to exist unless they're still living at home, which is impossible for lots of professional graduates as the decent jobs are centralised in a hand full of major cities, so they have to move away for decent jobs, or have to stay living at home and end up working in retail, hospitality or care at minimum wage. What an awful choice for people whose home towns are in the run down regions!

I'm single on min wage with a mortgage and it's tough

I do have now and Netflix included as part of my internet because it was free with it
My one luxury is a gym membership at about £1 per day it works out

wavingfuriously · 03/09/2024 13:47

NewName24 · 01/09/2024 22:39

No one has a lot of disposable income

They do. Lots of people do. What I presume you mean is "people in your social circle".

A huge part of the way society has gone backwards in the last 20 years or so (but particularly the last 14) is that the divide between rich and poor has grown hugely.

there is not any issue with a shortage of money across the whole country. The issue is that the balance of those who are well off and those who have very little is so very wrong.

Agree! people living round me in certain area of north london are rolling in it! I'm certainly not..

MinervaMcGonagallsCat · 03/09/2024 13:49

No one has a lot of disposable income

This just isn't the case. It's true for lots of people but not for everyone.

We are in the best position we've ever been financially.

At the same time more people are living in poverty than before.

This is what happens as a result of a long period of the tories bringing in power.

ScribblingPixie · 03/09/2024 14:08

At the same time more people are living in poverty than before.

The definition of poverty has been modified though, quite cynically, to make sure that politicians can make that claim.

DancingLions · 03/09/2024 14:17

I grew up in the 70s and I never understand why people hark back to then and say oh we didn't have this and that. Well yes, it was over 50 years ago! You expect life to improve in that time. I'm sure my parents in the 70s had far more than their parents did in the 1920's!

My mums twin tub was a step up from washing by hand. We had a TV (from radio rentals!) A freezer. We got a video player in my mid teens. And we were quite poor.

You could have a better life on less money back then. The things you couldn't have were either because they didn't exist or were still in the stage of being very expensive, like flights.

caringcarer · 03/09/2024 14:39

ssd · 01/09/2024 21:08

Well hopefully after 14 years of the tories plundering any resource they can get their hands on, labour will start getting the country back on its feet, although nothing will happen overnight. And if that includes "what you've heard" about taxes going up, so be it.

I think your LL's are selling up now to try to avoid the likelihood Labour will change CGT from 18/28 percent to 20/40 percent. Many LL's have had enough and are selling up. Many traditional terraced rental homes would cost over £13k to get EPC C grade just so renters can save about £30 a year. Labour are bringing in EPC C grade by 2030 so many many more LL's will sell up. Let's just hope Labour will have built enough houses to home the people displaced.

taxguru · 03/09/2024 14:47

caringcarer · 03/09/2024 14:39

I think your LL's are selling up now to try to avoid the likelihood Labour will change CGT from 18/28 percent to 20/40 percent. Many LL's have had enough and are selling up. Many traditional terraced rental homes would cost over £13k to get EPC C grade just so renters can save about £30 a year. Labour are bringing in EPC C grade by 2030 so many many more LL's will sell up. Let's just hope Labour will have built enough houses to home the people displaced.

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Hopefully those houses will still be homes though. I.e. give people who are currently renting a fighting chance of a buying their own home rather than what we've seen in the last 20-30 years where landlords with multiple properties have been buying up all small houses to rent out and make huge profits for themselves. It's not as if all the currently rented houses are going to suddenly vanish if they're sold is it? Someone will be living in them, so the "total" housing stock won't reduce. (Unless, of course, they're bought by holiday let owners or Uni student flat landlords!!).

unmemorableusername · 03/09/2024 15:01

When my DCs were little I planned to remortgage and give them £10k each for a deposit on starter flats when they graduated.

They'd need £50k each now and that's just not happening!

So they'll be trapped renting.

I hope they can get jobs they can commute to so at least they could boomerang home to stay rent free to save up their deposit.

I'd also move so I could help them with childcare.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 03/09/2024 15:02

midgetastic · 02/09/2024 21:27

Yup but all those things weren't common years ago either - perhaps it's my age as five years ago doesnt seem like years ago !

Yes - I was expecting this to be a thread about growing up in the 70s or being a young adult in the 90s!

ScribblingPixie · 03/09/2024 15:07

taxguru · 03/09/2024 14:47

Hopefully those houses will still be homes though. I.e. give people who are currently renting a fighting chance of a buying their own home rather than what we've seen in the last 20-30 years where landlords with multiple properties have been buying up all small houses to rent out and make huge profits for themselves. It's not as if all the currently rented houses are going to suddenly vanish if they're sold is it? Someone will be living in them, so the "total" housing stock won't reduce. (Unless, of course, they're bought by holiday let owners or Uni student flat landlords!!).

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Around me, in North London, a 2-bed buy-to-let type of flat would cost £500,000 upwards, so out of the reach of most young people. Tons of people here are from outside the UK, or young, single and in a flat share, in the city to work, and don't necessarily want to buy. Rents are getting higher and higher because of reduced availability. Enforcing higher standards and better rights in rented accommodation makes total sense. Driving out landlords makes none.

BlackShuck3 · 03/09/2024 15:10

My dad always blames Thatcher, he's probably right.

Everyoneesleistheproblem · 03/09/2024 15:23

He's not on the lattes and cocktails. Everything he took to the house came from car boots and charity shops.

Although it's much easier to get everything second hand now. My Free Giving page has beautiful sofas, freezers, ovens, bikes etc as so much stuff gets moved out before it's worn out. Ebay, Vinted etc mean you really don't need anything new if you know what you want.

Its things like mobile phones that have shot up. Back in the early 2000's you could get a PAYG phone for a tenner and literally just top up when you needed it. A PAYG now requires monthly payment. Contracts for everything we have now means money needs to be coming in regularly.

caringcarer · 03/09/2024 15:25

taxguru · 03/09/2024 14:47

Hopefully those houses will still be homes though. I.e. give people who are currently renting a fighting chance of a buying their own home rather than what we've seen in the last 20-30 years where landlords with multiple properties have been buying up all small houses to rent out and make huge profits for themselves. It's not as if all the currently rented houses are going to suddenly vanish if they're sold is it? Someone will be living in them, so the "total" housing stock won't reduce. (Unless, of course, they're bought by holiday let owners or Uni student flat landlords!!).

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It's if the renter's will have the deposits and income multipliers and not on temporary contracts to be able to afford to buy.

StMarieforme · 03/09/2024 15:27

ssd · 01/09/2024 21:08

Well hopefully after 14 years of the tories plundering any resource they can get their hands on, labour will start getting the country back on its feet, although nothing will happen overnight. And if that includes "what you've heard" about taxes going up, so be it.

This what people don't understand. It's not that Labour want to raise taxes, but they're going to have to, to get us out of an horrific multi billion pound black hole left by the Tories. I wish people could see that.

AdventuresInMothering · 03/09/2024 15:27

ichundich · 03/09/2024 13:36

Again, maybe not as many people had fridges but they had local grocery stores near them to get fresh produce every day.

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and families could afford to live on one average wage, so 1 parent could be at home with young children and free to shop for fresh food every day or 2