The Real Cost of Living in Britain

treliac

PasturesNew wrote: »

Does it really cost £20 for fish/chips for a family of 4? For starters you'd never ask for 4 bags of chips, you'd get "a large portion of chips" and share it.

That's why you're a size 8 - 10 PN

PasturesNew

treliac wrote: »

That's why you're a size 8 - 10 PN

After I posted that I thought some more and realised that no one person could eat a whole "large cod". So a family of 4 would usually, imho, be fed with "2 large cod and a large chips".

I think I'm a 10-12 now
Been tucking into lots of sweeties and biscuits.... and pies.

amcluesent

>So a family of 4 would usually, imho, be fed with "2 large cod and a large chips".<

Anyone north of the border will, of course, be ordering a 'Munchy box' from their local takeaway -



A fine repast of a layer of Doner Kebab meat on top of a Naan Bread and chips, two tubs of Sauce with coleslaw, Onion Rings, Pakora and Chicken Tikka below. Hoots!



Some may prefer the Pizza Crunch Supper, a half-pizza deep fried in chip-shop batter and piled on a wodge of chips. Crivens!

treliac

drc wrote: »

There is also the whole element of envy that if someone has something that you do not, that you should be entitled to it (even if the other person has worked hard for it and you haven't). The link between hard work, achievement and success has been broken. All must have prizes.

Has this been nurtured in schools, where the philosophy, for some years, has been that no child can be seen to fail?

And, sadly, back to benefits. With the cost of living so high, pay for the unskilled so low, it's been better for lots of those at the bottom of the pile not to make an effort. Doesn't necessarily mean they want fewer material goods though.

And, to speculate, the way those only a little better off have been able to demonstrate their worth has been to use credit, i.e. buy stuff with money they don't have.

I do wonder how the govt thinks it will get the unemployed back to work. There's the problem of too few vacancies and the even bigger problem of the disparity between earnings potentials at the lower end and the actual cost of living.

treliac

amcluesent wrote: »

>So a family of 4 would usually, imho, be fed with "2 large cod and a large chips".<

Anyone north of the border will, of course, be ordering a 'Munchy box' from their local takeaway -



A fine repast of a layer of Doner Kebab meat on top of a Naan Bread and chips, two tubs of Sauce with coleslaw, Onion Rings, Pakora and Chicken Tikka below.

Some may prefer the Pizza Crunch Supper, a half-pizza deep fried in chip-shop batter and piled on a wodge of chips. Crivens!

Looks more like something the cat chucked up to me!

Soubrette

MRSTITTLEMOUSE wrote: »

Just goes to show then that Mr and Mrs Average have become accustomed to living well beyond their means funded by debt,since so many are becoming insolvent.
It's no good speculating what you need to live on for a certain standard of living,you have to live on what you get and clearly people have'nt been doing that but creating a false econonmy of their own to fit their needs with money they have'nt yet earned.
Time to pay the piper,I fear and come back down to reality.

I think this pretty much hits the nail on the head for me - I love the debt free wannabe part of this board, I am so impressed that people have made mistakes but really want to sort them out.

However, sometimes people post statement of affairs with sky, gym, high mobile phones etc and when challenged always have an excuse as to why they can't get rid of them - even though they can't afford them all.

The simple answer for some I think is to make a list of priorities and then draw a line under the one when the money runs out - if you want something below the line you have to move something out from above.

If the mean average is used in things like income - more people will be below the mean than above it because massive incomes will skew the figures much more than smaller salaries but 90% below seems excessive.

PasturesNew

amcluesent wrote: »

>So a family of 4 would usually, imho, be fed with "2 large cod and a large chips".<

Anyone north of the border will, of course, be ordering a 'Munchy box' from their local takeaway -



A fine repast of a layer of Doner Kebab meat on top of a Naan Bread and chips, two tubs of Sauce with coleslaw, Onion Rings, Pakora and Chicken Tikka below. Hoots!



Some may prefer the Pizza Crunch Supper, a half-pizza deep fried in chip-shop batter and piled on a wodge of chips. Crivens!

That looks bl00dy yummy. mmmmm..... I want one of those now

JonnyBravo

tomterm8 wrote: »

Your grammar is impeccable, I am afraid I disagree with your mathematics, it is highly likely that disposable income is not a normal distribution mathematically speaking, and so there is no reason to believe that the population is equally split between people with more than the average disposable income, and those who have less.

You are of course quite right in your distribution argument and the following argument about average disposable income.
I don't think it follows that the "average lifestyle" follows the same rule though.

Picture an even more distorted society where 99% of the wealth lies in the top 1%. Clearly the "average lifestyle" according to your calculation method would lie inside the top 1% of the population. I'd guess neither of us would argue that to be "average lifestyle"?

In truth it is a simple journalistic phrase, your point has merits but so does LM's.
It requires a significant proportion of the population to have a lifestyle approximating the example for it to be considered "average", no matter what the distribution.

C_Mababejive

The REAL cost of living in Britain is not measured in mere pounds,shillings and pence...

AD9898_2

Just wait until IRs reach realistic levels again (which they surely will do over a long mortgage period), that along with higher inflation, lower wage inflation will be the killer. I'd suggest with low IRs current lifestyle should be quite good, if it's not and families are burying themselves in the red now, they are likely to be in for a torrid time looking towards the future.

The curse of high house price inflation that has outstripped wage inflation is being nicely masked by low IRs, SLS, banks not repo'ing etc... when this mask falls, the devastation will be like a dam bursting.

People should realise we're living in great times at the moment, certainly compared to what's to come.