Cost of Living - How are you handling it?

Victor Mildew wrote:

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.

I’m a brand snob, unfortunately, but there’s a Lidl really close to our potential new house so I might have my hand forced anyway.

Victor Mildew wrote:

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.

Yeah we switched to doing the majority of our shopping at Lidl/Aldi years ago and have never looked back. You can't always get absolutely everything you need there but for the most part it has you covered and the price and quality of what is on offer is just fantastic.

Buffalo wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:

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.

I’m a brand snob, unfortunately, but there’s a Lidl really close to our potential new house so I might have my hand forced anyway.

Aldi steak is one of the only supermarket steaks that gets close to proper butcher quality.
Also tend to have fresher bread than most supermarkets I find.

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.

And let's not forget that many of them derive great pleasure from watching poor people suffer.

I've not really felt it yet, but my British Gas contract ends this month so going to be on the variable rate, at least for a bit. I've been quite comfortable the last few years in terms of meeting the monthly outgoings, and should still manage that, but it's my savings that will take the hit I think. WFH has saved me so much in petrol, it feels like one of the biggest pay rises I've ever had, which is a bit sad. I'm pretty stingy with the heating, but I use a lot of electricity for a single person. Huge TV, power hungry consoles, always a computer running as a server etc.

I do need a new car, and that will be a pretty big cost, but there's not much point right now when it's being used so little. I don't know how long the WFH will continue. The company has always had a fairly relaxed attitude towards it, even pre-pandemic, but we got bought out half way through last year, and I think in the US they were pretty strict about enforcing 3 days in the office. I think if they tell us we have to go back, that might be my 'oh gooseberry fool' moment.

I'm currently looking to buy my first home, and doing so alone, so concerned by the rises. I'm fortunate that I've gone with somewhere that's very affordable for me (I live in one of the cheapest parts of the country), so I can afford what I'm estimating my costs to be. I'm also fortunate that I've been saving for this moment for a long time, so don't have to rely on credit to furnish, but obviously any pot of money isn't infinite. I will be living somewhat frugally - I'll be a 2 min walk from an Aldi so that will be my main source of shopping, and it's also around a 20 min walk to work so I'll continue to not own a car. I imagine work from home will stop soon at my place, and I'll do a lot of showering at the gym (which is also council run, so cheap - and the frugally of this is a nice by-product, as I'll be going before work so want to be fresh when I'm done) so my energy usage will be as low as it could really be.

I will certainly be looking at what options I have for trying to progress my career - perhaps some courses or qualifications - as my wage has been stagnant for 4 years now and I just can't see any other way for me to get something that pays more. But each year minimum wage keeps creeping up, and within a few years it'll get to the point my base wage will actually hit that and then I'll actually get something extra.

If this had happened 10 years ago I don't know what I might have done, I was really, really struggling to keep myself afloat on minimum wage and the despair and fear I would have felt by this situation would have been overwhelming. I really sympathise with people this is going to affect the worst, it's strawberry floating awful.

The most annoying part about it is that two branches of people who’ll suffer the most are mainly those who are too apathetic to vote because they’re downtrodden and poor to start with, or Brexit voters who believe everything The Sun tells them.

Churchill have taken my home insurance from £121 last year to £209 this year. If that isn't a sign that 'we really want you to bugger off' I don't know what is.

And that's supposedly with a no-claims bonus of 5+ years.

What I don't get, with these rising bills and such people will be more out of pocket therefore have less disposable income and will cut down on things like going out for drinks/food/cinema etc. Now, these business will also see an increase in costs but less footfall due to everyone else being in the same boat and can't afford to actually have a life.....surely the costs of losing businesses/people not spending would be worse than say stinging people with all these costs now for the government? Or is that too far down the line that they know they'll no longer be in power by that point.

Dual wrote:Hoping for some big returns on my crypto investments to see me through.

Sitting in Starbucks and this post just made me reverse snort a snot bubble out of my nose like a 2 year old!

Thanks Dual you dick, Now those fat college girls at table 8 will never think I'm cool.

Buffalo wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:

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.

I’m a brand snob, unfortunately, but there’s a Lidl really close to our potential new house so I might have my hand forced anyway.

Give them a go, seriously.

A lot of the time brands are more expensive simply because they're brands. You're paying for their marketing budget rather than for extra quality. Obviously not always true, but for food I find a lot of the time it is.

Tomous wrote:

Buffalo wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:

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.

I’m a brand snob, unfortunately, but there’s a Lidl really close to our potential new house so I might have my hand forced anyway.

Give them a go, seriously.

A lot of the time brands are more expensive simply because they're brands. You're paying for their marketing budget rather than for extra quality. Obviously not always true, but for food I find a lot of the time it is.

I made the shift when I had to go down to 3 days a week working. I used to wander around Waitrose putting all the branded stuff in the trolley, without really thinking about it.
When I went to Lidl, which was on the other side of the road, in many cases there was exactly the same, branded product for way cheaper than Waitrose. I was kicking myself for all that money wasted for literally (and I mean literally!) the same product. Then we gradually tried the other off-brand stuff and realise you've been taken for a ride in a lot of cases. There's still a few things I get from Waitrose at Christmas, but the bulk of food shops was from Lidl etc.

I'd be willing to try Lidl, but they don't deliver, and I've already resolved never to set foot in another supermarket.

I shop at Tesco - and a little bit at Morrisons - and I've shifted to mainly own-brand stuff over the past five years.

I usually buy the cheaper fish fingers (i.e. the supermarket branded tiny-bits-of-fish-pressed-together versions) but the other week they only had the proper-chunks-of-cod ones and they were on sale so I got 'em... and they tasted lovely! This week they were back at normal price and they were pretty expensive so I reverted to the cheap-but-not-that-nice ones, though.

I think my current two-year fixed energy (electric) deal runs out this month so I'll need to get a new one. Floatin' dreading it .

jawa_ wrote:I think my current two-year fixed energy (electric) deal runs out this month so I'll need to get a new one. Floatin' dreading it .

There aren't any deals. Martin Lewis (who isn't perfect, but knows more than most) says we've got to just take it on the chin and stick with the variable (cap).

When I switched to the standard variable rate back in October my bills actually went down a little bit, so I was clearly on a really strawberry floating gooseberry fool deal beforehand!

Next rise on the variable rate is likely to be a real shitter though.

I know so many people who use the supermarket they shop at as some kind of status.

One friend said the other day. I'm going to shop at marks and Spencer now I earn more money!!!!!

rinks wrote:

jawa_ wrote:I think my current two-year fixed energy (electric) deal runs out this month so I'll need to get a new one. Floatin' dreading it .

There aren't any deals. Martin Lewis (who isn't perfect, but knows more than most) says we've got to just take it on the chin and stick with the variable (cap).

Dang! Thinking about it, I think my deal runs out real soon and I'd thought it odd that I hadn't heard anything... looks like I'll be shunted onto the variable rate one then .

The only way you could possibly get the price down on gas/electric is if you use a cashback site like Quidco or Top Cashback. For genuinely new customers (i.e. you weren't previously with them at any point) I think SSE for example are offering £32 via Quidco. It's not a lot, but every little may matter to you.