Cost of Living - How are you handling it?

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:Pret a Manger is raising the price of its coffee subscription service to £25 a month (from £20). OK, it's quite a price-hike, but it's still outrageously good value if you're in a position to make good use of it - five drinks a day! (It's no use to me, but if I lived or worked close to a store I'd make great use of the offer.)

But I had to laugh at the naive entitlement of one berk who commented (unsurprisingly, his twitter account now deleted).

@Pret This isn’t acceptable. You can’t put prices up without consultation, especially when the quality of produce is deteriorating. I’ll be cancelling my subscription. Disappointing. pic.twitter.com/gnHiNX0I6T — Sam Anton (@samsonleonanton) February 2, 2022

"You can’t put prices up without consultation". Bless.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60223226

What the strawberry float, 5 per day?

So you could have 150 coffees a month for £25?!

Yep, it's nuts. I guess they're banking on people only using it once or twice on week days, on their way to/from work (still a bargain), but if there's one nearby, it's a crazy good deal.

Can you order 5 drinks at the same time? Because could office teams not just do an order every day for everyone?

Don't know. I would assume not.

Yeah it's 30 mins between drinks

Good excuse to say you're going on a coffee run, then taking two hours.

“Ok, who had the cold one?”
“And the really cold one?”
“Is this one yours with the skin on top?”

jiggles wrote:

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:

Tomous wrote:

rinks wrote:Pret a Manger is raising the price of its coffee subscription service to £25 a month (from £20). OK, it's quite a price-hike, but it's still outrageously good value if you're in a position to make good use of it - five drinks a day! (It's no use to me, but if I lived or worked close to a store I'd make great use of the offer.)

But I had to laugh at the naive entitlement of one berk who commented (unsurprisingly, his twitter account now deleted).

@Pret This isn’t acceptable. You can’t put prices up without consultation, especially when the quality of produce is deteriorating. I’ll be cancelling my subscription. Disappointing. pic.twitter.com/gnHiNX0I6T — Sam Anton (@samsonleonanton) February 2, 2022

"You can’t put prices up without consultation". Bless.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60223226

What the strawberry float, 5 per day?

So you could have 150 coffees a month for £25?!

Yep, it's nuts. I guess they're banking on people only using it once or twice on week days, on their way to/from work (still a bargain), but if there's one nearby, it's a crazy good deal.

Can you order 5 drinks at the same time? Because could office teams not just do an order every day for everyone?

Don't know. I would assume not.

Yeah it's 30 mins between drinks

Good excuse to say you're going on a coffee run, then taking two hours.

“Ok, who had the cold one?”
“And the really cold one?”
“Is this one yours with the skin on top?”

16p per cup, though.

Things are looking fine for us at the moment. We've each put £15 a month extra into the joint account to pay for the increased power bills based on our renewal and will increase further when we need to.

My disposable income is relatively tight (for example, still no next gen console or 4k television), but I live within my means and am prioritising any spare money towards things we need for the house, having bought somewhere just over a year ago. So I'm not living a life of luxury with unlimited spending, but there is scope to make things work if costs go up further without feeling the pinch significantly.

I know how hard it can be though. I was seriously impacted back in the credit crunch years ago and ended up in significant debt which was very hard to clear. Back then, my meals were things like 12 pence packs of noodles with a small portion of frozen veg, or a cup a soup. It's really important to have a good understanding of income and outgoings and the biggest advice I would give to anyone is to really face it head on and calculate what all of their costs are on a monthly basis. A big mistake I made was just ignoring it completely for too long. I'm more than happy for anyone to reach out privately if they want some guidance on how to approach this - I appreciate numbers isn't everyone's bag.

How much exactly were you pissing away each month on green font?

jiggles wrote:How much exactly were you pissing away each month on green font?

Using the adage of time = money... a significant amount. Especially once forums moved to the colour chart so I had to manually type it in to stick with my standard colour of green.

I have to admit though, this does feel good. I give it a day before somebody quotes this and buggers it up.

a great gut-punch for all this is that it's now nearly impossible to import things from abroad without getting hit with huge tax bills - and so many businesses have got hit with bad customer responses when selling to the UK that a lot of them are just refusing to let you buy.

Stugene wrote:a great gut-punch for all this is that it's now nearly impossible to import things from abroad without getting hit with huge tax bills - and so many businesses have got hit with bad customer responses when selling to the UK that a lot of them are just refusing to let you buy.

Yep, it's the niche stuff as well. In my case, a guy in Bulgaria who makes custom inserts for board game boxes won't ship here anymore.

Absolutely fine tbh but I know the energy prices won’t rise until April. I pretty much cover the entirety of my household bills due to the missus being in education for now. It does get us a small reduction on our council tax etc.

Always been a believer in live for the now as opposed to saving for a rainy day. We have a permanent let property which is affordable on my income alone. No 35 year mortgage to worry about and no intention of getting one.

Anyway, I’m away for a Greggs.

jiggles wrote:How much exactly were you pissing away each month on green font?

Prototype wrote:
Always been a believer in live for the now as opposed to saving for a rainy day.

Sorry for picking on this but you do have some savings yeah? Because that's a terrible attitude to have towards money.

Dual wrote:

Prototype wrote:
Always been a believer in live for the now as opposed to saving for a rainy day.

Sorry for picking on this but you do have some savings yeah? Because that's a terrible attitude to have towards money.

You don't have to apologise, I posted it and it's a fair question.

I have a modest amount of savings that would cover a few months rent/bills should I lose my job and and live within my means, so I'm just fine.

There's obviously a fine line between being a moron with money and penny-pinching until you die, but I'm happy enough with how I look after myself and my family.

I don't understand how people are going to cope with this. I'm thinking of those who are either already in poverty or have been in that sort of 5-10% of households just above it.

Energy bills, NI increase, UC uplift removal, inflation to exceed 7% and the real-terms percentage increase of household basics actually even much higher than that.

Is this the Tories undertaking Operation Early Sabotage, or something? They know they're strawberry floated at the next GE – they're creating as much long-term damage as possible, that they know will plague the nation for maybe a decade to come, so they're already preparing their "See what happens under a Labour government!" campaign?!

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories .

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:I don't understand how people are going to cope with this. I'm thinking of those who are either already in poverty or have been in that sort of 5-10% of households just above it.

Energy bills, NI increase, UC uplift removal, inflation to exceed 7% and the real-terms percentage increase of household basics actually even much higher than that.

Is this the Tories undertaking Operation Early Sabotage, or something? They know they're strawberry floated at the next GE – they're creating as much long-term damage as possible, that they know will plague the nation for maybe a decade to come, so they're already preparing their "See what happens under a Labour government!" campaign?!

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories .

I suspect many Tories don't realise how badly it will hit the poorest. It's difficult to empathise when you've always been rich (and don't take the steps to better yourself by focusing on others).

It is a problem that's happening across Europe (and probably the world), but at least more competent governments are taking some steps to try and alleviate the pain.

I'm switching jobs at the end of the month which will help a bit, but the Mrs will still be on the shitty benefits system.

Hopefully the new job will lower the car fuel costs a bit as it could be a little be more flexible in regards to being in the office. Especially if we do get a baby on the way.

Having worked in the benefits system, I honestly feel for anyone who has to rely on it. I did work in it before Universal Credit was established, but yeah, people are going to be strawberry floated over royally with this increase.

I think we'll manage but it will be harder. I'm thinking I'll need to up my second job to make sure there is a buffer, rather than relying on my PhD stipend and my partner's wage. That has knock on effects on mental health, free time, etc. We'll see. It's not going to be easy.

Rocsteady wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:I don't understand how people are going to cope with this. I'm thinking of those who are either already in poverty or have been in that sort of 5-10% of households just above it.

Energy bills, NI increase, UC uplift removal, inflation to exceed 7% and the real-terms percentage increase of household basics actually even much higher than that.

Is this the Tories undertaking Operation Early Sabotage, or something? They know they're strawberry floated at the next GE – they're creating as much long-term damage as possible, that they know will plague the nation for maybe a decade to come, so they're already preparing their "See what happens under a Labour government!" campaign?!

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories .

I suspect many Tories don't realise how badly it will hit the poorest. It's difficult to empathise when you've always been rich (and don't take the steps to better yourself by focusing on others).

It is a problem that's happening across Europe (and probably the world), but at least more competent governments are taking some steps to try and alleviate the pain.

They realise it will hit the poor, they just believe that the poor deserve it.

Knoyleo wrote:

Rocsteady wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:I don't understand how people are going to cope with this. I'm thinking of those who are either already in poverty or have been in that sort of 5-10% of households just above it.

Energy bills, NI increase, UC uplift removal, inflation to exceed 7% and the real-terms percentage increase of household basics actually even much higher than that.

Is this the Tories undertaking Operation Early Sabotage, or something? They know they're strawberry floated at the next GE – they're creating as much long-term damage as possible, that they know will plague the nation for maybe a decade to come, so they're already preparing their "See what happens under a Labour government!" campaign?!

I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories .

I suspect many Tories don't realise how badly it will hit the poorest. It's difficult to empathise when you've always been rich (and don't take the steps to better yourself by focusing on others).

It is a problem that's happening across Europe (and probably the world), but at least more competent governments are taking some steps to try and alleviate the pain.

They realise it will hit the poor, they just believe that the poor deserve it.

This. They believe how much money you have directly defines you worth as a person.

Me and my partner were hoping to move into a larger home where the gas & electric bill would rise a fair bit to begin with, the extra on top is going to be a real shock to the system. Ditto the council tax as we’re moving into a new build.
They say ‘work harder’ as a joke, but we’ll have to - partner will have to take on more evening and weekend work, we’ll have to think twice about holidays and maybe consider using Lidl a little bit.

Buffalo wrote:Me and my partner were hoping to move into a larger home where the gas & electric bill would rise a fair bit to begin with, the extra on top is going to be a real shock to the system. Ditto the council tax as we’re moving into a new build.
They say ‘work harder’ as a joke, but we’ll have to - partner will have to take on more evening and weekend work, we’ll have to think twice about holidays and maybe consider using Lidl a little bit.

Lidl has generally a better quality of food than the main supermarkets (meats and breads in particular). It's ideal if you're a keen cook, as you can get lots of good quality cheap ingredients. My wife is an amazing cook, and the food she's been making since shopping there is something else. It's not great though if you tend to want stuff to just put in the oven.