Cost of living crisis/kWh Measuring Contest

Yeah there's a real Tory type vibe behind the reasoning.

Good solidarity with your fellow workers, whether they be in a union or not.

I still can't grasp how you actually think it's your call as to whether or not someone else should feel anxious about their own financial circumstances - especially when you know fuck all about said individual(s).

You've already said you don't have kids. Not everyone has the choice whether to be a "wage worker". Not everyone has the income to save 10% of their salary and it doesn't mean they spend beyond their means.

Having kids for example is fucking expensive if both parents work. I've just spent five years with a monthly childcare bill that was 1.2X my mortgage - two kids at nursery full time. That's not factoring in food, clothes, holidays etc. Now they're at school it's still costing us £500/month as the school day is so out of sync with the working day.

Speaking of mortgages, property prices are ridiculously inflated in most of the UK so if you actually want to own your own property that factors in. High inflation with massively increase in fuel, insurance premiums etc.

And I'm saying this with household income that is pretty ok.

It's fucking baffling how you don't live in the UK, or have kids (or any horse in someone else's race) yet here you are *in this thread of all places* condescendingly lecturing people on their own household finances.


Some people have caring responsibilities, disabilities, relatively shitty paid jobs like nurses and teachers.

It's probably fair to say that most people have no realistic chance of being able to make investments to the scale that would yield anything meaningful. Do some basic research on average UK salary, childcare costs, housing costs and (checks thread title). Then factor in your notion of 10% savings let alone investments.

Getting bizarre joy that you are doubling down on your take. I'm imagining this discussion playing out "irl" at a dinner party and the look of sheer abject horror on your girlfriends* face as you "No, but" your way through everyone's literal lived experience and chastising the other couples for their lack of saving/investing prowess.

If you forget all the hyperbole there is a useful theme here coming out of both sides - the majority of people are just scraping by and if we assume the general population will always be at least OK, then we shouldn’t worry too hard about hitting rock bottom as it’s highly unlikely and something will come up.

Of course, our stupid brains then say we will be that million to one exception.

Quaddy took a brave leap and thankfully it looks like it’s worked, but by his own admission it was a last minute change in fortunes, and when you have kids that sort of risk taking isn’t possible if your a responsible parent - so we all have sleepless nights, more so as we imagine everyone else is winning and we are uniquely winging it badly.

Only one person is being ridiculous here.

There’s a very large proportion of people in the country that if they lost their job then they’d be fucked almost instantly. It’s literally impossible for some to save money because of what they earn vs the cost of things.

If you think people being anxious about it is ridiculous then you are seriously lacking empathy or understanding of anything to do with society.

It is your right to find it ridiculous but it's a whole other thing to find the need to belittle the other person's and invalidate their actual lived experience. What seems ridiculous to you from your personal perspective may not be the same for someone else. We've already established you don't have kids or live in the UK so you can't do like-for-like statements without sounding like a cunt


You can't say overdramatise if you're not the person affected. It's nothing to do with you how 'dramatic' anything is to any given individual. And in this case, worrying about not being able to pay your mortgage and/or relocate your family isn't being overdramatic. Neither of those situations are casual for many people.

"I've lost my job, my house is getting repossessed, I have to move my family to find work which means my autistic son has to change schools which in turn will create huge anguish for him and we'll be 100s miles away from our family support network".....

"Stop being overdramatic, losing your job was your fault and I can't believe you haven't even invested in a Scandinavian ISA" says the man with no kids, no insight, no frame of reference and no fucking empathy.

Oh dear, keep digging your personal cesspit

I miss the crypto thread.

On topic, a reminder that today is the last day before ISA allowances reset, so is a good time if able, to top up savings (although I recognize that with the standard interest tax allowance, and the 20k annual ISA limit for vast majority of people the reset isn't really all that impactful). We use my allowance for both of us as my wife is a US citizen so pays stupid taxes anyway.

I started saving into a Vanguard stocks and shares ISA last year, but have just opened my first deposit ISA. I picked Chip - as it is currently offering 5% - although it just tracks the BoE base rate.

Also, thanks to the person who noted my major error on pension saving benefits, as I am looking at adding to my workplace DB pension, given the tax relief!

Yeah, Chip’s ISA is at 5.10% right now, and also offering an easy access saver at 4.84%. Zopa was 5.08%.

Oh. We're going back to this, then?

Could a friendly mod step in and keep get the thread back to the topic.

God knows I post some shite in the wrong threads and I'm all for tangents , but what's going on is disruptive more than leading to discussion.

zag is still salty we didn't like his utterly horrifying site plugins.

On stocks and shares - mine have done really well, over 20% in past year,. But I'm mainly just using the vanguard 80% life strategy fund (80% shares, 20% bonds). I'm not going down the stock picking route... I'm a fairly sophisticated person with some financial market experience (and economics training), but it just feels like pure speculation.

I also save some for my kids - my nan randomly without telling me started to transfer £50 a month for each kid into my bank account. I didn't even notice for ages. So I match that and put it my vanguard ISA account in a suitable retirement focused fund for each kid.