The rising cost of living

[sidcow]

6 hours ago, AVFCDAN said:

 the first one on there for me wanted 15 quid for a footlong, 

[choffer]

6 hours ago, Genie said:

I’m surprised places like Mcdonald’s haven’t set up delivery only kitchens yet. Purely cooking and handing over to couriers. 

They have. There's a ghost kitchen not far from me in Hanworth (in that Lundun).

[El Zen]

I’m definitely feeling it. The mortgage bill alone is now eating north of 60 per cent of my take home salary every month. 

[Xela]

Shopping is the most noticeable thing for me. I'd say my usual shop has doubled in the last 2 or 3 years. 

Everything else hasn't really impacted me. Home energy went up but I cut back my usage a lot on the central heating, and petrol is only a minimal hit as I don't cover many miles. 

Another big hit for me will be going back into the office 3 days instead of 1 day a week. Travel costs will bite there. 

[bobzy]

2 hours ago, El Zen said:

I’m definitely feeling it. The mortgage bill alone is now eating north of 60 per cent of my take home salary every month. 

Presumably this is because of your (now not so recent) personal life situation?  Or has the jump in costs lead to a massive rise in your mortgage?  (Or possibly both things? )

[Wainy316]

My mortgage is set to double in March if rates stay the same.

[El Zen]

19 minutes ago, bobzy said:

Presumably this is because of your (now not so recent) personal life situation?  Or has the jump in costs lead to a massive rise in your mortgage?  (Or possibly both things? )

Mostly the former, of course, but the monthly bill is about 40 per cent higher than it was a year ago. 

[bickster]

M&S offers are now silly

They used to do a curry one every now and again. Two mains and two sides for a tenner, it worked out that you got one of the sides free essentially and possibly a bit off the other

Now it's £15 and you save about a £1 on the whole thing, it's barely a deal any more and unless you really are buying 2 & 2 isn't worth it at all

The Gastropub deal is £12 but they almost encourage you to have the deal because they've pushed the price of the mains up to the £10 mark so it's almost pointless not having the deal

Very odd strategy and they can both eff off

 

[fightoffyour]

12 minutes ago, bickster said:

M&S offers are now silly

They used to do a curry one every now and again. Two mains and two sides for a tenner, it worked out that you got one of the sides free essentially and possibly a bit off the other

Now it's £15 and you save about a £1 on the whole thing, it's barely a deal any more and unless you really are buying 2 & 2 isn't worth it at all

The Gastropub deal is £12 but they almost encourage you to have the deal because they've pushed the price of the mains up to the £10 mark so it's almost pointless not having the deal

Very odd strategy and they can both eff off

 

Used to be a tenner with wine last time I was in an M&S that wasn’t at BHX! (**** their shitty own brand crumpets by the way)

[chrisp65]

15 minutes ago, bickster said:

M&S offers are now silly

They used to do a curry one every now and again. Two mains and two sides for a tenner, it worked out that you got one of the sides free essentially and possibly a bit off the other

Now it's £15 and you save about a £1 on the whole thing, it's barely a deal any more and unless you really are buying 2 & 2 isn't worth it at all

The Gastropub deal is £12 but they almost encourage you to have the deal because they've pushed the price of the mains up to the £10 mark so it's almost pointless not having the deal

Very odd strategy and they can both eff off

 

 

Yep, did the same mental maths last time I was in there… suddenly realised I was struggling to pick a fourth thing to take advantage of a discount that still left it more expensive than it needed to be.

I suspect that if the takeaway curry demographic ‘do’ mental maths the sales will fall off a cliff because the ‘value’ has disappeared.

[Seat68]

You people with your fancy M&S meal deals.

 

 

 

 

Its all about their mild cheese board for me.

[bickster]

13 minutes ago, fightoffyour said:

Used to be a tenner with wine last time I was in an M&S that wasn’t at BHX! (**** their shitty own brand crumpets by the way)

Nah thats a different deal, they did away with the free wine one ages ago. The Gastro one is permanent and replaced it. Its just Main, Side & starter or desert. Say we wanted the Paella, it used to be £7 and then went up to £8, now when they introduced this deal they pushed it up to a tenner,to encourage you to buy the deal of the other two items but often the sides are wholly inappropriate for the mains so you not only get encourage to buy stuff you don't really want or pay a highly inflated price for the bit you do want. If you still do the deal you say end up buying something else to go with the side you bought

Not playing that game, I just don't bother buying the Paella or whatever else it is that I wanted

[fightoffyour]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

Nah thats a different deal, they did away with the free wine one ages ago. The Gastro one is permanent and replaced it. Its just Main, Side & starter or desert. Say we wanted the Paella, it used to be £7 and then went up to £8, now when they introduced this deal they pushed it up to a tenner,to encourage you to buy the deal of the other two items but often the sides are wholly inappropriate for the mains so you not only get encourage to buy stuff you don't really want or pay a highly inflated price for the bit you do want. If you still do the deal you say end up buying something else to go with the side you bought

Not playing that game, I just don't bother buying the Paella or whatever else it is that I wanted

You've never had a paella with a potato gratin on the side?

[AVFCDAN]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Nah thats a different deal, they did away with the free wine one ages ago. The Gastro one is permanent and replaced it. Its just Main, Side & starter or desert. Say we wanted the Paella, it used to be £7 and then went up to £8, now when they introduced this deal they pushed it up to a tenner,to encourage you to buy the deal of the other two items but often the sides are wholly inappropriate for the mains so you not only get encourage to buy stuff you don't really want or pay a highly inflated price for the bit you do want. If you still do the deal you say end up buying something else to go with the side you bought

Not playing that game, I just don't bother buying the Paella or whatever else it is that I wanted

Am I reading this right that the main on its own is now a tenner or is that the deal?

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, AVFCDAN said:

Am I reading this right that the main on its own is now a tenner or is that the deal?

Yep, pretty much all the mains in that deal are now a tenner, maybe some are £9:50

[Genie]

Im a bit dubious just how many “surprising” economy announcements we see. 
It was widely expected (because the chancellor said it) that August’s inflation would go up when announced in September but it’s just been confirmed to have gone down from 6.8% to 6.7%. 

Food by far the biggest contributor. 

It’s not clear (to me at least) if this is the manufacturers or the supermarkets taking the piss with their margins.

TV, Mobile and internet companies charging inflation plus 3.9% each year can all **** off as well. 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Genie

[StefanAVFC]

6 hours ago, El Zen said:

I’m definitely feeling it. The mortgage bill alone is now eating north of 60 per cent of my take home salary every month. 

Christ,  but sadly not uncommon

my wife pays our mortgage and it’s about 35% of her salary but then we have mine as well and I earn around double what she does. If she was on her own it would be a real squeeze

I know a bloke who got a mortgage to build a house, got halfway through, rates doubled and now he can’t afford to continue and he can’t even sell it because it’s basically a sell. Proper scary times. 

[Genie]

3 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

Christ,  but sadly not uncommon

my wife pays our mortgage and it’s about 35% of her salary but then we have mine as well and I earn around double what she does. If she was on her own it would be a real squeeze

I know a bloke who got a mortgage to build a house, got halfway through, rates doubled and now he can’t afford to continue and he can’t even sell it because it’s basically a sell. Proper scary times. 

Why does your wife pay the mortgage out of interest?

We have all household bills going into a joint  account and then we both pay into it each month to cover them. 

It’s split about 65% me, 35% her based on our salaries.

[StefanAVFC]

11 minutes ago, Genie said:

Why does your wife pay the mortgage out of interest?

We have all household bills going into a joint  account and then we both pay into it each month to cover them. 

It’s split about 65% me, 35% her based on our salaries.

We have a mess with our bank accounts if I’m honest

We count all of our money as ours collectively but we currently have 

my personal account - my salary goes here and I pay for most of our expenses from it 

wife’s personal account - her salary goes here but she pays bills from here 

mortgage account - mortgage goes automatically from here -> transferred from her personal account 

shared account (same bank as my personal) which we don’t use for anything 

I guess we do it the way we do because generally she pays for bills and mortgage and I pay for cars, loans etc. for example she needed a new laptop so I put the 0% credit on my account as they were more likely to accept me on it than her due to the mortgage being on her 

but in practice we don’t see it as her paying x and me paying y. We genuinely think of all the money we have as ours. I don’t care what she spends it on and vice versa. 

Edited September 20, 2023 by StefanAVFC

[Rugeley Villa]

Me and my wife’s way of doing things isn’t properly organised and it irritates me.  Bills go out of her bank bow(used to be mine) I send her my share. The money we earn is just our money none of this well I ain’t paying for that you are etc . I’m not keen on knowing what’s in my bank because it’s never enough but I have to keep tabs from time to time.