Money is money. In theory the cost of living should drop again somewhat once the world gets back to normal. This should be transient up to a point. If people have been living on the edge of their means due to spending any spare cash they had on luxuries for years and have no reserves then it very much is to do with luxury items.
People who have mortgaged themselves up to their eyeballs due to long term low interest rates and low cost of living have to look at themselves for some of the blame.
I'm not arguing that some parts of society would likely have been screwed unless they had been spending the absolute bare minimum for years and saving every penny they could. The issue will be that plenty of people will really struggle who should not. They will struggle because they have always pushed their finances to the limit every month. They will struggle because instead of saving money at the end of every month they have just seen that as money to spend on luxury items with no thought for the future or "what if".
"In theory" is a nice idea, but reality is often much different... In this greed driven capitalistic world, the prices are highly unlikely to drop much at all. As has been witnessed time and time again, for most people who are on minimum wage / stuck in the rent trap (or both) any "spare cash" they may gain from an increase to the NMW gets immediately "eaten up" by an increase in rent, an increase in fuel costs, an increase in food costs, absurd increases in electricity costs.
People who have mortgaged themselves up to their eyeballs due to long term low interest rates and low cost of living have to look at themselves for some of the blame.
The flip-side of this argument is again the deliberate manipulation of the "free market" to limit housing stock to keep driving prices higher and higher, forcing people to "mortgage themselves up to their eyeballs" just to have any chance to step on the property ladder. Just imagine if the social housing stock that was sold-off under Thatcher's "Right-To-Buy" scheme had actually been replaced? The government(s) (Both Tory and Labour) are seeming unwilling to actually regulate the housing / rental market, but they're sure willing to manipulate it.
I'm not arguing that some parts of society would likely have been screwed unless they had been spending the absolute bare minimum for years and saving every penny they could. The issue will be that plenty of people will really struggle who should not. They will struggle because they have always pushed their finances to the limit every month. They will struggle because instead of saving money at the end of every month they have just seen that as money to spend on luxury items with no thought for the future or "what if".
The issue fundamentally is just how large the section of society has become who are struggling.. Food banks at an all time high etc.. For many people they will always strive to have what they don't have, it's human nature. While I agree there are some people out there that are terrible with finances regardless, but they are a small minority. For most the desire for a new car or a new phone (or dare I say it... a house they can own :O ) is a perfectly normal, natural and understandable one and to be entirely expected. What is not acceptable however, is for people to have the vast majority of their monthly income eaten up by price hikes, suffer exploitative rental practices and borderline illegal price-fixing of the housing market while companies are continually making billions in profit every year.
The solution to this is not to point your finger and blame those who have a new Iphone (probably on a 2 year contract overall so what's that. £10 a month?) but to start to raise serious questions as to why such a large percentage of the wage of those least-well off is allowed to be "consumed" in this manner by greedy landlords and businesses.
Good to see some gaslighting is alive and well in here.
The cost of living crisis is not the fault of the low paid. Some in here seem to think it's acceptable for people to exist rather than live - work your 40 hours a week, come home to your beans on toast and stare at 4 walls the rest of the time and, if the person doesn't like it, then it's their own fault.
They have to use Elec/gas, they have to use fuel to get to work, they have to eat food to live.
For clarity - I am referring to the people who have cut back as much as possible.
I agree, this constant attempt to "blame" those less-well off for being in the situation they are as the fault of "poor finance management" is as out-of-touch as a Tory MP saying "people just need to work a 2nd job" or "they need to learn how to cook".
People (should) have a right to do more than just "exist". It's perfectly acceptable for someone to want a new Iphone, or a new car.. this is
normal but some people really seem to want to deny others the chance to aspire for better things and not just "exist".
. I used to use cash all the time but changed to contactless when my previous work's canteen introduced it. My statement was a horror show of so many transactions; early coffee, lunch and sometimes something later. My spending habit hadn't changed between cash and contactless but it was laid out bare in front of me how much I actually spent at work. Probably spent more using cash because of the shrapnel rounding effect. It was a real eye opener and I soon changed my ways.
