Mother in Law: The cost of living

I walked into the kitchen last week after a day working from home. Deceptively Angelic Child 2 (DALC2) and her grandad were doing some drawing. 

'Shall I tell you about when I was shot down over Germany?' he was saying to her.

'Never', she replied immediately, eyes focused on her drawing.

The drawing continued until DALC1 walked in. 'Grandad, can we play basketball in the garden?' she asked.

'Just for a little bit, don’t forget my shrapnel from ‘nam', he replied. She ignored him, pulled her trainers on and ran outside.

I must say, in my early 20s when I met him, it took me longer than my children to realise that a man born in 1950 could not have been in the RAF in World War II and he wasn’t in the US army in the Vietnam war either. I certainly cottoned on, though, when he said he was there when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, the day his son took me to see the band Franz Ferdinand in concert.

There is one true story he likes to tell, though, and recently it has made me go a bit cold: in the 90s, his mortgage rate went up to 15%.

I wasn’t in Vietnam either, but I am already sick of living through world events. I have plenty of true stories to tell my grandchildren of The Day the Schools Shut, and The Day the Schools Shut Again. Not being able to drive to see my best friend whose marriage had broken down for fear of being pulled over by the police. Being able to walk the dog with one friend but not with coffee cups. The house across the road literally putting a sign with a black cross on their front door. The saddest, bleakest funeral (I hope) I will ever go to.

Maybe I was silly when I was younger, but I thought that being a successful, hard working, 15 PQE fat cat lawyer with a husband with an equally good job would mean that money wouldn’t be an issue. I thought that taking the kids to the cinema (£32.50 with Odeon’s special kids deal, £33 for two Super Sharer snack deals) and then for something to eat (£80 including soft drinks at Prezzo) would be something I could do at any time of the month, not just the beginning. I’m not about to plead poverty; rather I want to reflect on how the average family is managing. For us, it is about choices and compromises: we aren’t getting a new car for a while, we are getting all of our food from the supermarket (see below) and we are secretly glad our kids both wanted to stop swimming lessons. But what if we were both in average jobs? Or less than average? What if I was on my own with the kids?

Our mortgage has gone up by £450. Our water bill by £20 and our broadband/TV by £30. We managed to fix our electricity until this winter but we have been paying about £400 a month on oil which is at least double what we were paying. I am informed by a friend who works at the council that they have no money, but our one household pays them £250 a month in council tax. My husband is back to commuting at £540 a month. And since when were Clarks school shoes £50? Where do people find this sort of extra money?

Before the pandemic, I got sick of the plastic recycling bin filling up every time I made spaghetti bolognese. So, we started getting our meat from a higher welfare online butcher who used minimal plastic. We got a fruit and veg delivery from a farm shop every week. I even took our empty shampoo and shower gel bottles to be refilled at a local zero waste shop. Late last year, we made a decision that we couldn’t afford to do all this any more - the amount we were spending on food was ridiculous. That car we aren’t buying is a hybrid. It costs a lot to be eco-friendly, and animal-welfare friendly, and healthy - and even on our good income, it is something we have had to let fall away for now.

It all feels out of our control, too. In all my working life, if I have wanted more disposable income I just had to work harder, get extra qualifications, put myself forward for promotions. I’m always happy to do that. Over the last year or two, though, I have continued to do those things just to pay the additional income to the bank in interest. And the worst of it is that there has been a small handful of white, middle aged, power-hungry men playing with our lives while the planet gets hotter and we bulk out our curries with chickpeas. In the immortal words of philosopher Danny Dyer, at least some of them are probably 'in Nice with their trotters up' right now.

I’m not going to tell you to stop buying coffees or lunches (unless this is my husband reading) or to plan your meals before you do your food shopping. That is all for another blog. What I want to say is this: we need to stay engaged. We need to find out why our local council is haemorrhaging council tax and vote in the next local elections for whoever is humble enough to admit there is work to do. We need to support sustainable policies that put families first and put some infrastructure in place to support individuals in their efforts to be eco-friendly. We need to vote, full stop. And maybe, one day, the tab on the BBC website that did say 'Coronavirus' that now says 'Cost of Living' will just disappear and our stomachs won’t lurch when we pick up our phones to read the news in the mornings.

*Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article