Cost Of Living Crisis (COLC) - How fucked are ye?

[Thursday]

Probably okay, but it's likely going to make some plans more complicated/less realistic. Would be tactless to complain compared to some people's situation though.

[thenoise]

... graduated during the last recession

Same, and I found great comfort when you lot were all over-educated office temps like me.

Fucked off my dead-end office job five years ago to return to university. Graduated again during (a lockdown that would inevitably lead to) an even worse recession. Winning at life right here.

[GMTV]

Use bottled gas for cooking (and have about a year's supply/one bottle).  Don't have heating.  And I don't live in the UK, so, even though I'm poor as arse, I feel reasonably positive.  Never a day goes by when I don't bless the day I left shitty island, feel very sorry for all who're stuck there.  I am not even lying.

I wonder as things really start to bite this winter, that more people will fancy jumping ship and moving abroad if they can find work. If the standard of living starts falling sharply compared to other countries, can imagine a lot of people looking around thinking why am I staying in this shithole of a country

[SpiderChrist]

If my energy bill doubles, I will most likely have to choose between food and heating. Renting, missus only working a temp job, both of us on the wrong side of 50. The only hope we have is selling her dad's house (he died last year) and not spunking the money up the wall.

[confettiinmyhair]

I think I'm concerned about credit card debt mostly, been juggling that around in recent years with the 0% balance transfers. I've got some overtime shifts set up and a couple of private practice gigs to set me up until the end of the year.

[SpiderChrist]

I earn 30,000 a year and it's not enough. I've been living month to month since junior SC was born, as my missus only wanted to work part time. I pay all the rent, and all the fucking bills too. I'm fucking sick of it.

[Psybro]

Martin Lewis uploads a vlog of himself, suddenly white-haired, screaming "It's eternity in there!" and clawing out his eyes.

[kenneth trousers]

Same, and I found great comfort when you lot were all over-educated office temps like me.

Fucked off my dead-end office job five years ago to return to university. Graduated again during (a lockdown that would inevitably lead to) an even worse recession. Winning at life right here.

The last two new starters that I've had with me at work (freight train driver) are graduates in their late 20s who have previously bounced from one depressing office job to the next.
Their relief to have escaped that life is palpable.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Spent ages saving, doing little surveys and stuff to get piddling little coupons for Amazon, shopping around for the best deals, etc. What's the fucking point if the energy company can just go nah fuck you and totally wipe out years of Martin Lewising with one bill increase. It's all a scam.

[Alberon]

We're fine to carry on as we are at the moment though the energy rises will wipe out the few hundred pounds we save every month.

This winter we won't have to turn the heating off, but we won't stick it up an extra couple of degrees when we're cold, just put on a few layers.

Of course, wages aren't going to increase anything near like inflation so that will eat into our spending power in the next year. I agreed to a pay freeze a couple of years back due to COVID impacting the university I work at. Things were better than feared so we actually did get a pay rise last year, but it's nothing compared to inflation.

And we're the lucky ones. No mortgage so the rate rises won't hurt us and might even help with the savings we do have.

But it is going to get brutal out there for many not as lucky as us.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Turning off the heating won't actually help that much as the standing charges have rocketed up in anticipation of people doing exactly that.

[TrenterPercenter]

Electric blankets is my go too - I'm not in situation where I will need to turn the heating off but I see this as a war on my household so I'm taking steps.

[Replies From View]

With bills going up in the background I'm struggling already just covering the increasing cost of food.  I've cancelled most of my entertainment subscriptions now, leaving only Netflix which is a shared house account, and not spending any money on hobbies like going to gigs, buying plants, travelling to see people or anything like this.  Glad I gave up booze about 5 years ago as that would be an unnecessary expense otherwise.  Almost all of my money is going to my rent, my bills and my food.  How much worse is it expected to get?

[Replies From View]

(Turns out supporting kids with special needs isn't a great way to keep food in your cupboard or save for the future.  Who knew?)

[Buelligan]

Still, I bet you have some nice plants.  What plants do you have?  And have you thought about joining an online swap group?  I believe they have them, online, in places like London.

I'm really enjoying my Scilla violacea and Albuca humilis at the moment.


Look at that!

[Lemming]

Fucked to the point of considering just going "arsed mate" and selling what little I own to fuck off to live in the wilderness, or perhaps beg some rural village in Africa or East Asia to let me join them. I was messaging a Ugandan villager on YouTube a while ago and she said to come and stay any time, a statement ripe to be exploited in a Partridge-esque fashion.

People always talk about the nonstop fear, anxiety and uncertainty of living in a capitalist society, but people rarely talk about the raw, soul-grinding tedium. Any anxiety I had over my living situation has long since been replaced with absolute fucking boredom at this point. Spend time doing something dull and money goes into my account, waheeey, money immediately goes out again leaving me with nothing, repeat for-fucking-ever. Mind-numbing and pointless with no end goal or reward in sight. I would genuinely rather maroon myself in a canoe in the middle of the Atlantic and live off saltwater and passing seaweed like a cunt at this point.

Also my back tooth's fucked. Not been to a dentist in eons so not sure how it works but I imagine I'll end up paying hundreds to have it fiddled with. Would rather just rip it out myself like a heterosexual cowboy.

[TrenterPercenter]

How much worse is it expected to get?

Sadly I think it will get much worse.  It depends on the international events but the Ukraine-Russia thing looks like it is long haul now. We are fucked that if interests rates rise too much then it will instantly bankrupt a load of homeowners yet to not increase them feeds inflation.  Uk is going feel this even more because of Brexit where the Eurozone will transfer someone of their debt to us via tariffs.  You can then already see the rhetoric is heating up over US and China, something that has been sparked over their positioning on Russia (likely the US feeling that Russias operations are possibly part of wider strategy - they are probably right).

[TrenterPercenter]

(Turns out supporting kids with special needs isn't a great way to keep food in your cupboard or save for the future.  Who knew?)

Regardless I see you and value you for this RFV.

[Alberon]

There was an opinion piece in the Telegraph today strongly championing green energy and begging the two tory leadership candidates not to drop net zero, pointing to polling showing even tories are not in favour of cutting them.

He went on to claim that thanks to these technologes we will have lower energy bills than they were before the invasion of the Ukraine.

Goldman Sachs, the voice of Big Money and Mr Sunak's alma mater, has just published its latest Carbonomics report on what the global energy system will look like over the next 20 years. It makes a sobering read for refuseniks. The old order will be swept away at a torrid pace and the next super-billionaires will be in green hydrogen, electrolysis, energy storage, smart meters, charge networks for electric vehicles, insulation and so on.

Goldman thinks overall energy costs per capita in Europe and the UK will fall 36pc below pre-Ukraine averages by 2050. The International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency says the energy bill as a share of GDP will halve from 4pc to 2pc by mid-century under fast-track green plans. It is a gain, not a cost.

So just almost three decades of pain and it'll be plain sailing from then on!

[itsfredtitmus]

can't see this going well for me at all have an urge to go on an anti-psychotic and just numb it away

[shoulders]

.
People always talk about the nonstop fear, anxiety and uncertainty of living in a capitalist society, but people rarely talk about the raw, soul-grinding tedium. Any anxiety I had over my living situation has long since been replaced with absolute fucking boredom at this point. Spend time doing something dull and money goes into my account, waheeey, money immediately goes out again leaving me with nothing, repeat for-fucking-ever. Mind-numbing and pointless with no end goal or reward in sight.

Sort of, I feel like that in a way, but more paralysed.

Ever more things to do outside work yet less and less time to do them in.

This is why I've moved to working a 4 day week, even though that basically makes 4 days a near total write off. Wake, wash, commute, work, commute, eat, slump in front of tv, sleep, repeat.

It seems the real tedium of the past was what inspired the romantic poets to works of angsty existential soul- searching. If you weren't working to the bone for mere survival there was fuck all to do except hang around near cloughs observing the seasons while occasionally getting upset when your wife and child got ill or died or your mistress stopped exchanging raunchy letters.

[Ferris]

How does this end? British people are too polite for a revolution.

[shoulders]

How does this end? British people are too polite for a revolution.

Lots of excellent poetry from the ex-colliery towns as newly redundant Barry from Moorthorpe cancels his membership of Kung Fu 2000 to get flabby and into the arts.

[Ferris]

Can't wait!

[confettiinmyhair]

Spent ages saving, doing little surveys and stuff to get piddling little coupons for Amazon, shopping around for the best deals, etc. What's the fucking point if the energy company can just go nah fuck you and totally wipe out years of Martin Lewising with one bill increase. It's all a scam.

Do you do comping as well?

[shoulders]

Spent ages saving, doing little surveys and stuff to get piddling little coupons for Amazon, shopping around for the best deals, etc. What's the fucking point if the energy company can just go nah fuck you and totally wipe out years of Martin Lewising with one bill increase. It's all a scam.

The system functions on a tacit consent from middle class people that's more or less 'so long as you play right by us, crack on with any tax dodging and any other dodginess'.

That only works when enough people feel the benefit. There's a flex of course, where people suck it up, but the breaking point is about to be reached.

When that point was reached in Greece, PASOK were annihilated.

[Replies From View]

We are fucked that if interests rates rise too much then it will instantly bankrupt a load of homeowners

Could somebody explain this to me please?  Are we talking about homeowners losing their money and their homes, or just the made-up number of their "house value" falling?

Because god forbid house prices ever get low enough that someone could buy a house without having a ludicrously high paid corporate job or whatever.

[Ferris]

Could somebody explain this to me please?  Are we talking about homeowners losing their money and their homes, or just the made-up number of their "house value" falling?

Because god forbid house prices ever get low enough that someone could buy a house without having a ludicrously high paid corporate job or whatever.

My understanding is that purchasing a house in the UK has meant a lot of people really stretching themselves financially, especially if they've leveraged mortgages to buy more properties.

That's affordable, somewhat, if the interest rates (ie the amount you pay each month to service the mortgage debt) stays low. If it goes up... uh oh, suddenly your million quids worth of mortgages that you could afford to pay for each month become very expensive because you have to pay more interest each month.

Ferris Bleak View^TM: it just means landlords will increase rents to cover their own reckless over-borrowing.

[TrenterPercenter]

Could somebody explain this to me please?  Are we talking about homeowners losing their money and their homes, or just the made-up number of their "house value" falling?

I can try and explain.  The debt (mortgage) is different separate from the house the house in many ways is the collateral for the debt, unable to pay your debt? Then the bank takes your house.  They are lending you the money for the purchase and the rate or rather financial conditions at which they lending you the money are the interest rates, which are based on the BoE interest rate.

The very basic idea here is that the BoE loans money to banks at the base rate and then banks loan the money at a higher rate (why? because they offer different "products" etc.. and need to turn a profit themselves).  The inverse of loaning money is saving money of which there are also a variety of products (saving vehicles) so a higher BoE interest actually equates to more interest (profits for savers).  By increasing interest rates you are essentially persuading people (and banks!) to save by giving them an incentive and making debts more expensive........like mortgages.

it's not about losing the value of the house but the over inflated value of the house which has been borrowed through debt.  Increasing interest rates would suddenly make these massive debts much harder to service and people would lose their houses.

Btw I'm not against this - I think this is the way to go.  It's a blanket statement but lots of people over-mortgaged themselves, many people would never even get a mortgage on the property they live in now because the house price change, lots of people are assets rich (i.e. a house) and cash poor, reconsolidating their equity (essentially using their house as a credit card).

[Dayraven]

Could somebody explain this to me please?  Are we talking about homeowners losing their money and their homes, or just the made-up number of their "house value" falling?

Shorter than the other explanations — interest rate rises mean higher mortgages for those not on a fixed rate, so there will be people who will become unable to pay.