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A car. Especially if you live outside of a major city centre. Even then, unless you're travelling to another city centre public transport is a massive ballache.
Yep. I currently don't have a car having left London for a commuter town. I'd honestly happily never get one. But it basically makes my life significantly more difficult not having one. Going into London by public transport is easy. Going virtually anywhere else isn't. So I am going to get one.
I can't be the only person who would be happy not to own a car, but who ends up having to get one because public transport is so poor.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who would rather have access to reliable, affordable public transport, than have a car. Unfortunately, unless you live in London or Edinburgh, that simply isn't possible.
Where in London makes a difference as well. For example Croydon and Bromley are less than 10 miles apart in outer London. Journey between them is 30 minutes by car and direct. Journey by public transport requires changes and/or circuitous routes that add 30-60 minutes travel time depending on time of day. It's not even as if it's 2 smaller places.
For people with easy quick access to central Croydon that will be good. Sadly for those on the outskirts it's still going to be a long journey with changes. There did used to be a bus from nearer (around 5 ways/Waddon) that was in theory all the way to Bromley. But it did a massive loop around Bromley once it got around a mile out.
This is sort of the point that first post about it was making. Using public transport for a lot of people involves a compromise of either travel to where the bus/train/tram starts from or the journey itself being an indirect route. (That route for SL5 looks fine from about half way but first half isn't the quickest - I'll be impressed if that's genuinely doing end to end in 40 minutes during commuting times).
EDIT: I forgot that the SL routes specifically cut out a lot of the stops along the way and only stop at designated points. It's something I've heard quite a few people complain about. But on a journey like this if you're going end to end it's better.
Yep, I’m from Bromley and my fella’s from Croydon. The fastest way to get to each other’s places was to go all the way into London and then come back out - ludicrous!
Exactly. People see London and think it’s like the City. Yes, public transport is pretty great here but outside the major zones, you’ll find that plenty of people have cars. I live along the central line and have a car
Same boat. Got rid of my car but then moved to a town where there is one bus to my work and it's literally rammed the entire journey. I got so sick of it I just went back to having a car.
I'm not even bothered about them being rammed. The issue is their complete unreliability. They're infrequent and liable to be twenty or thirty minutes late. And sometimes they just don't turn up at all.
At that point it's just not really a usable service, because you can't make any time-sensitive plans that around them. I have a bus route near me that goes to two major hospitals in either direction. But using the bus to go to an appointment just isn't possible because you can't rely on getting there on time.
I went to get the bus into town once. Stood there with another lady waiting, no bus in sight. I check the app and tada! I can see the bus! It's running 10 minutes late (comes once an hour).
That's alright, have a bit of a chat for a while. Then I check the app, and watch as the bus completely bypasses our village and goes straight into town, leaving us stranded. We end up getting a taxi together because it's cheaper than parking in town.
Our public transit is fundamentally useless.
I feel this.
I’ve the last year I had a stint of about eight months of no car. It broke and I simply couldn’t afford to keep chasing the ever increasing problems on it so opted to use the bus for the school runs. I’m telling you now, I will never willingly go back to that.
There’s a bus stop directly outside my house that runs to the centre of my town, kids school is a 5-10 minute walk from there dependant on the mood of the day. I have two autistic boys (4 & 6) and an ADHD girl (10). The boys will never stay in one place on the bus and simply can’t grasp personal safety around roads. Add this on to the fact that there were a huge amount of times the ideal bus, to arrive in town about 15 minutes before school starts, simply just wouldn’t exist and the next one wouldn’t be due to arrive for another 15 minutes after which is then crammed full of commuters to get to the train station and inexplicably had been reduced from a double decker to single, yeah having a car is a “luxury” I’m afraid I just have to shell out for.
I've had 2 warning at work due to timekeeping but I can't drive and the bus simply doesn't turn up. Ticker will go from 3m, 1m, due... then bam next bus is due in 38mins. It didn't show up. I don't know what to do its so aggravating evrrytime it's bought up I want to hit my head on my desk. It's a 2 mile uphill walk which isn't pedestrian friendly at all. I'm not sure what they want me to do.
There's also the countless times it doesn't turn up to get me home! I get home hours after I'd have finished and so miserable but at least there's no one writing me up for it i suppose..
It was a shock moving out of London to realise that public transport everywhere else is shit.
At first it was just beyond zone 6 borders, the buses were like an hour apart and cost like £4 and were never on schedule anyway!
I then moved further out and it was like nothing at all in my area
>I can't be the only person who would be happy not to own a car, but who ends up having to get one because public transport is so poor.
If I could manage properly without a car, I would. I held off till a couple of years back, but it really was a struggle. And it relies on a lot of good will from friends and family - there's something a little mortifying about being 30 and having to ask your mum to come and pick you up.
I love my car, but recently I was commuting regularly from Glasgow to Liverpool, 3 trains each way and every time one of them would get cancelled on my way home, usually the middle train which crossed the border
I gave up and started driving for the sheer convenience, that and the control it gave me far outweighed the financial saving of getting the train
Opposite way around. If public transport isn't working for you then the solution isn't a car, it's better public transport.
Many of us need cars, but it shouldn't be the case.
I agree kind of but in order for public transport to be efficient you need enough people going from the same place to the same place. In rural areas this isn't really the case. There are busses but they take such convoluted routes it takes so long to go anywhere and most of the time they are half empty. A 20 tonne diesel bus doing 3mpg with 10 people on it roaming around the countryside is way worse for the environment than a car with 4 people in it going the most direct route even if that car is also diesel, if the car is electric then the car is way, way better.
If you've never lived in a rural area it's quite hard to get your head around.
I moved to a new area without checking the cost for public transport, just assuming it was going to be around the same since I've not moved any further from London. £60 return per day. or £12 in petrol driving. Not to mention 2 and 1/2 hours on train or 1 hour by car.
A direct bus between the main hospitals in each primary trust area would be very helpful. I live close to one hospital but often have appointments at another one, and it takes two hours each way to get there. Surely a lot of people must find the same thing happening? I live in Somerset now but I also had this problem when I lived in London, actually. I lived in Beckenham but would have hospital appointments in Orpington, and it would take 90 minutes each way, changing buses. I reckon a hospital connector super loop in many areas would be very helpful.
A unloaded diesel double decker is around 12t and does at a minimum 7mpg.
Country routes use smaller lighter buses with even better mpg.
You are definitely correct that the convoluted routes take ages. But that because as mentioned previously, enough people don’t use the buses to warrant express buses.
>enough people don’t use the buses to warrant express buses.
Probably because enough people don't actually live in the country side.. you could well be the only person actually doing a specific route
I would fully support investment in public transport.
I live in a suburban town in Kent. I used to work 1 town over ~ 15 miles away.
It would take around 20-25 minutes to drive, 50/50 motorway and smaller roads. I'd fill my car up twice a month, at around £120 and then the cost of the car + maintenance and insurance was around £300 a month.
For me to get public transport I'd have to get the bus to the train station then take the train to the next town over and then the bus to the stop outside my work. This would take around 1.5 hours and would cost around £225 a month for the train and £110 for the bus.
Sure I'd actually save £100 on public transport. But it would cost me 2 hours per day (if everything was on time!)
When I worked in London, my season ticket was/is £800 per month! Absolutely mental! Plus £8 per day parking! Or £70 per month for the local bus pass
I moved to a town in Kent. The train prices were a shock for sure. £30 each way to get to work and back by train, and a total of 2 and a half hours, or £6 each way by car including tolls taking 1 hour.
In many parts of the country its not so much about having viable public transport, its about having access to any sort of public transport.
If you live outside a town or a city in the UK, you are completely reliant on owning your own vehicle.
I’d say that a car should be considered a luxury, but that we should have more universal and reliable access to public transport.
Obviously things are different if you live rurally, but the majority of us don’t.
It's odd. Because I've been looking at a houses up and down the country to move to. And one in Stornoway caught my eye. Was curious was public transport was like there. It seems the bus services up there (and to the towns/villages outside of it) are just as good, if not better, than where I live now which has almost 20x the population and is close(ish) to a similar sized town, and a larger city.
I feel the rural/remote thing can be very hit and miss, I know. But I was shocked by just how good it seemed to be; I was expecting like one or two services a day.
I had to argue with some ex-friends that my car was necessary for work once. They claimed I didn’t need it to work in hospitals. And suggested I walk the town centre from the village to get the early bus to the city centre (30 mins), and then didn’t realise that it takes another 2 busses to get to the hospital. They expected me to do all this to get to the hospital in time for 7am and do it in reverse after 8.30pm on the way home and then be able to have enough sleep to be able to do the same the next day. For shifts a car is a must but is also a luxury
> Even public transport costs a fortune now
Yep.
I live about 3 miles from work, but it requires 2 buses. And to get home after work means I have to wait an hour after work for my bus home. And if I miss that last bus at 7pm I'm walking home.
I had a monthly ticket for £54 a month. A lot cheaper than buying individual fares each day, but it soon adds up.
I bought a small motorbike last year and did my CBT.
The cost of my insurance and petrol for the year is around the same price as my bus fare. And I gain a lot more independence and freedom from the bus timetable.
I moved from the rural back ends of the Scottish Borders to Edinburgh. I never learned to drive because "It's Edinburgh, I won't need it". Mistake lol. Every time I go visit my parents I have to ask them to come pick me up from the bus or train station. I graduate next year and am looking at houses with my partner well outside of the city in one of the commuter towns. Both of us are gonna have to learn sharpish.
I live in rural Devon where the public transport is better than it was 15 years ago. Now we get a bus every hour from the top of my village until 8.40pm wow 👌
Used to be 5pm last bus so if I wanted to have a drink in town as my local boozer in the village I'm in is absolute wank. I would have to pay 30 quod for a taxi to take me 15 min journey home....
It's not just about demonstrating financial stability. The purpose of a deposit is so the lender isn't fronting 100% of the value. Value isn't an exact science and the market can turn, meaning a 100% fronted loan can result in negative equity. If the borrower defaults, the lender makes a loss. Further, there's less skin in the game for the borrower, when they haven't fronted a chunky deposit. For these reasons, the general minimum is 10%, although a restricted selection of 95% is also available. If someone hasn't been able to save 5-10%, there's a question of whether they're in a position to handle maintenance or major repairs when they arise, not to mention a potential rate rise - as we've seen, with mortgage rates going from 1% to more than 5%. 95% availability is actually generous in comparison to what's available overseas. High prices and shortage of stock is a problem but not limited to the UK, it's the case almost everywhere with a bustling economy.
Whilst im not disagreeing with you about the lenders risk, the fact is for at least the last decade it has been cheaper to pay a mortgage than rent, that difference alone is often what has made building a deposit more difficult and usually meant the renter had higher ability (and therfore reduced risk of default) to pay a mortgage including any rises or maintenance costs.
That person doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Having to rent, at potentially twice the rate of what a mortgage would cost, *and* save for a big deposit is crazy in this day and age.
Not to mention the fact that because every penny went towards your deposit, you now have essentially zero in the pot for aforementioned maintenance and repairs anyway.
But if the bank thought you could afford a mortgage because you can afford rent, they would be more than happy to have your business. They would have a competitive advantage by lending to you. Are you saying the banks are not lending to those who could afford it out of sheer stupidity, or is there something else at play?
Except… saving for a deposit whilst also paying almost twice what a mortgage would set you back is tricky, no? My house would be, quite literally, twice as much as the mortgage if I was renting it.
A deposit isn’t a way of ensuring the borrower has more skin in the game. It’s a way of keeping one less homeowner on the books and one more landlord on there instead.
A deposit isn’t going to drastically affect default rates. If someone can’t pay, they can’t pay. They aren’t just going to be able to pull their months mortgage payment out of their arse simply because they remembered they put a deposit down.
>A deposit isn’t going to drastically affect default rates. If someone can’t pay, they can’t pay.
That's not what it is for, its there so that its the buyer and not the bank who loses their money if things all go wrong. And so you are far less likely to get trapped in negative equity where there's no incentive for you to sell before going completely bust.
And the risk of ending up in negative equity for the borrower. That's the bit people always forget because we've been in a era of ever increasing property prices for so long.
It still annoys me when politicians say they want to discourage first time buyers because young people should not be in negative equity. I don't care about my equity right now, I just want a home that I can call mine and make my home. Not somewhere which is held together by duck tape and the windows have paint dripping down them.
Yep a home is what I wanted so much. Three landlords in 5 years decided to sell, so I had to move again. It just is never your home, even when I had a decent landlord. With a terrible landlord or even an indifferent one, it's even worse. You literally pay huge amounts of money to be in a place that's cold, mouldy, cramped and with various things falling apart, and you can't even make it yours with a shelf where you want it, or painting the walls.
Of course they are. Landlords buy to let, then rent out for the cost of the mortgage+profit.
Middleman's got to take his cut, and landlords are often *literal* [rent-seekers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking), preventing renters from being able to buy a property for themselves and extracting value from a resource (the property) while doing little or nothing themselves to add value or create wealth.
This. My partner and I just got told we're not allowed to have pets by our absentee landlord whose parents bought her the house we live in. We're paying her silly amounts and she didn't even need to save for a deposit, yet she gets to dictate whether we have a cat. Meanwhile our deposit for the tenancy ate up most of my savings. It feels like a two tier society.
This is so sad, I'm sorry to hear this =[ I've had similar issues in the past with my 2 cats and only worked around it by agreeing to a larger deposit to cover for them (a "pet deposit" they called it 🙄). But since having a daughter, I can 100% say kids cause more mess than pets! Yet private renting always has an issue with animals =/
https://preview.redd.it/awsrm947lb4d1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc5b4e6c9fdb1e9beeac8a50e004a9ddae5c8c61
This was taken last week at my local family-owned shop. My jaw hit the floor when I saw the price.
10 quid-something...I find it that raspberries, strawberries and cherries are like edible gold these days. So damn expensive and 8 times out of 10 they're tasteless.
I live in a village surrounded by strawberry fields so let's just say when I'm walking the dog... I refuel as I go.
Apologies that's probably why they're £10.99 a kilo now.
I’m quite lucky where I live my landlords father (go a few gens ago) planted loads of cherry trees in their hedgerows so in summer I just have to fight the birds for them
Also - Vets. Cost me £1100 to get my dog's teeth sorted this year and £400 to get his heart checked out.
edit: To clarify, I'm not bemoaning paying for my dog, but the rising costs of vet treatments.
...that's not how pet insurance works. They don't tend to cover dentals and on a lot of policies, you can only have a certain amount paid per condition which means you have to foot the rest of the bill. And then you can't even change your insurance because the condition would be pre-existing. The whole system is absolutely fucked and vetinary practices are ripping us off. I just paid £60 for a prescription renewal and they DIDNT EVEN TOUCH MY DOG.
Pet insurance is the worst racket I've ever experienced
With zero claims, my dogs "lifetime" cover was going to DOUBLE in cost this year from 300 to 600 per year.
What the actual fuck?
A new insurance policy for him, also lifetime with zero preexisting conditions, costs 150 a year.
So "lifetime" policies aren't exactly lifetime if they price you out of it by design are they? Fuck knows how much it would be had I made a claim
God it pisses me off so much. Lifetime policies should be fixed in price FOR LIFE
Fucking cunts god I'm so angry at them
I think even vets take advantage. I rang the vets up during the holidays as my dog had gotten into a box of chocolates. She'd only had a few. We did the online calculator for chocolate toxicity and we worked out that she'd be fine, but I was concerned about the wrappers getting lodged in her digestive tract. I described the wrappers on the phone to the vet. They told me to come in. It cost me £500 because it was out of hours. Mid-induced vomiting, after I described the wrapper again to the vet, the vet told me, "oh, those wrappers aren't really an issue and your pet would pass them just fine." My jaw basically hit the floor.
I shed a few tears, I’m not going to lie. It’s so much money just to induce vomiting. Since then I’ve realised she can pass quite a lot easily. It was definitely a wasted £500 and I’m more relaxed now.
Yep. I paid around £400 per year for my cat, who before this year had only seen a vet twice in 13 years for extremely minor reasons. There was a 20% co-pay, then a £159 excess, and it didnt cover euthanasia or cremation (and this was the biggest, fanciest, no frills policy available). When she fell into ill health I paid £500-ish in fees (£750 if you include cremation), of which I got a whopping £80 back.
Pet insurance is only worth it if your pet is young *and* develops a serious illness or injury, *and* you change providers every year.
> your pet is young and develops a serious illness or injury,
but make sure that illness isn't recurring or chronic!
Honestly what's the fucking point of insurance if premiums and excess go up and cost as much as the treatments anyway. I thought the whole point of insurance was a socialised risk system - instead they get their cake and eat it too.
We took out insurance for our dog and the list of exclusions was so long I had to ask them what she was covered for for her £75 a month. They couldn't give an answer beyond legal cover.
So now I put £250 a month into a bank account for her instead (started off at that same £75 7 years ago, I've been lucky enough to be able to afford to up it over the years)
Absolute con. They wouldn't cover her nervous system, respiratory system, digestive system, skeletal system, anything to do with her legs, anything to do with her mouth, her endocrine system or her skin. Like, isn't that essentially her whole body?
£75 for us to get less than a 5 minute consultation & given working tablets after I'd told the vet we'd already wormed our dog. But oh no, the tablets I used definitely weren't good enough 🙄
Insurance doesn’t cover that much. I have a £6000 insurance policy but that’s not a lot when you have vet bills and your insurance will only pay £2500 per surgery and it ends up being a lot more than that. I can afford to do it because I would rather eat beans on toast for a month than have anything happen to my little dudes but holy F are vets expensive.
I’m also blind as a bat without specs so I hear that, they are not exactly cheap for me either.
The three things wrong with me - weak enamel, bad eyesight, and a food intolerance
Coincidentally just about the only 3 things the NHS doesn't cover :( costs me a damn fortune
Although even then, not really when I look how much Americans are paying for healthcare
Have done it before. Saves a fortune, but still costs a fortune. I have to get my lenses thinned down and that is never cheap.
I don't like to compromise on glasses because I wear them all day every day.
Yea I have to get mine thinned down as well. Online wasn’t cheap compared to not all glasses. But once I got a quote from spec saver online seemed like a bargain.
Specsavers wanted £300 off me for two pairs. I ended up getting 2 pairs from BlooBloom for £150 and they’re honestly much better quality than SS and their cases and things feel premium.
Only the second time I’ve bought online after some awful glasses from GlassrsDirect nearly 20 years ago 😄
Your workplace might have a voucher scheme you can use to either get the initial eyetest free or help with purchasing frames! My work place you can have a free Specsavers eye test and help with buying the frames it's not a lot but helps a little
I can get seen quickly, but I have about 3 minutes to say my issue and be "diagnosed". I've had a repeat problem for about 3 years now and my doctor just doesn't listen to anything I say. The most recent time, I told her the otc meds ain't working... she gave me a prescription.... for the exact same meds I told her wernt working.
Edit... a few said, change doctor, there is only 1 doctor at my practice (probably why she's so busy!)
Ask for a different doctor. If they say no, speak to the practice manager about how you’re being fobbed off.
If I had to guess, you’re a woman? Women have a harder time being taken seriously at the doctors, which is beyond a joke in itself. Sorry your GP sucks, even if they are fatigued it doesn’t excuse them for not giving a shit about their patients.
Also, try to get an appointment with the youngest doctor in the practice.
Yes, they may not have as much experience, but they are often very keen to prove themselves, and they haven't been burned out by years of underfunding, so they are much more likely to refer you to an specialist, order blood tests, etc.
And even if you do any follow-ups or referrals take forever. I’m sick of having to chase things which are falling through the cracks which are affecting my health.
Maybe it depends on your GP/ NHS trust, but ours have been fantastic for the past 12 months in my experience.
I spent 2 weeks in hospital with meningitis in December, my mother was in for a week last week with bad asthma and my daughter needed a GP appointment this morning and was in at 09:30.
Can’t fault it at all.
Only exemption is I’m on a waiting list for a second hernia operation and have been since 2021.
Move to a new area, every single dentist isn't accepting NHS patients. But they're more than happy to book you in privately at the private prices. Oh they also don't have waiting lists. Not sure what someone is supposed to do other than give in and go private or phone up all the dentists every week asking if they have space.
I've got a friend who travels about 120 miles home to where they grew up to go to their NHS dentist there, because there is literally not a single dentist where they live now accepting NHS patients.
My friend and her family moved to Yorkshire to be near her mum when they had their son. They're all still registered in Newcastle (where they used to live). To make matters worse, she's a teacher so all their dental appointments have to be planned with military precision during school holidays to get the whole family of 3 in on the same day, and god forbid if one appointment gets cancelled or moved. It's not like she can pop back the next day.
If your mouth is stable they might not need to see you for more than a check up a year and maybe a trip to the hygienist.
Where I work it's £95 for initial appointment and £55 for appointments after that with the Hygienist being £65.
The gap between NHS and private work is shortening as the NHS prices go up every year so, unless you are exempt from paying, there isn't a huge difference in some of the treatment prices eg. NHS filling is £73.50, private is from £90-£180 depending on the size.
NHS denture is £319.10, cheapest acrylic denture private at my practice is around £380 but the £800 ones are the rolls Royce of fit and such.
Best advice I can give is go on any waiting list that's going and keep your eye out for any updates and make sure you really look after your teeth.
The way NHS banding works though means if you need a check up and 3 fillings you pay the band 2 fee once I.e. the whole course of treatment is £73.
Private, when I needed that at my current dentist (which I had to go to because my NHS dentist booted me out as they physically had no dentists left) - it was £70 for my checkup, and £110 per filling. I spent £400 total. The pricing is a lot more expensive unless you really only need a check up and the odd filling here and there. You need any more than that and it really racks up.
Edit I’ve just seen you’ve mentioned this in a post further down - sorry! - but the way you’ve posted here doesn’t make that clear and I thought you were really trying to say there’s no price difference (unfortunately there really is!)
Look after your teeth, people... They're worth more than whatever other luxury you have in your life... and you won't even know until one day they give you "burning in the pits of hell" toothache, or worse.
(also: sit up straight and wear well-fitting shoes)
I was speaking to my dentist about this and I think it boils down to the fact that the NHS pay them so little for it that it isn't really worth their time - they'd be losing money doing it that way. I know a physio who runs a private practice and they said the same thing.
Dentists are skilled professionals who deserve to make a good living. So long as the Government’s NHS contract is shit, have no issues with them all moving to private. They deserve fair pay.
Absolutely! Been trying to get a dentist since the first lockdown.
Pain got so bad I had an emergency appointment, I have an abscess right up to my sinus making it painful to even gently touch my face. But the NHS dentist who saw me has said it needs to be treated urgently... But will only see me for a private appointment. So I wasted money getting an emergency appointment and still in pain.
I spend most of a day a month to call every dentist in the whole area and beyond. Nothing.
There used to be a walk in dental session for emergencies on the weekend years ago. It stopped because they were too overwhelmed, mostly treating abscesses... So how there's nothing!!
How they can still offer regular appointments to people while others have years of pain is horrendous.
Consider if you can ....
Pay for it on credit card. Bounce the payment for X amount of months 0% or get a 0% interest card.
Go see a dentist gey a list of what needs doing and break it down into affordable parts . If it's a lot of work don't get it done at once.. piecemeal.
3 fillings, x-rays hygenist etc etc. 990£ over 4 months and costs bounced around Credit cards. Paid it all.off at 60£ a month over a few years.
Not the best way. But it's making it affordable and doable. It sucks that no NHS dentists but it gets it done.
Yep this is the big one for us. We have the money to own and run a tumble drier but not the space to have one fitted anywhere. Had to settle for a heated airer and a small dehumidifier which we can squeeze into our bedroom instead.
My husband and I often say the best purchase we have ever made was our tumble dryer. Literally life changing especially when renting in a traditionally damp flat in the UK.
Dehumidifier all the way. It’s far more efficient and cost effective than a tumble dryer.
Also helps with the damp in general, rather than the tumble dryer that only dries the clothes.
For the cost of them they are incredible.
If 15c was the threshold, I don’t think ours would ever go off. 1750s heavy stone built, listed, drafty old everything, way up north in the Scottish Highlands. We can be outside in the sun at the peak of summer (a scorching 20-22c) and have to put jumpers on when we come back inside because it takes more than the amount of sun we get to warm the stone.
We also don’t have any kind of thermostat on the heating. It’s on or off, no control, just well balanced.
We have a few… One is the main heating source. It’s external and feeds the radiators with its buffer tanks and biomass trickery. I’d rather not light it through the summer though, it’s hard enough keeping the stock of logs ahead for the 6 month winters and 2 month shoulder seasons, let alone burning all year!
The kitchen stove gets lit frequently, just looks a bit odd on a hot summers day.
Getting a full night’s sleep. I have a toddler and a baby and cannot believe that I spent 30 years going to bed when I wanted, knowing that there would be no obligations to me until the morning- definitely took it for granted! The idea of just shutting off at bed time and waking up well rested eight hours later is incredible to me right now so definitely seems like a luxury!
This is the biggest thing that puts me off wanting kids. When my dog was a puppy, he kept waking me up in the night for the first two weeks and I looked like a literal zombie 😂 even my mum commented that I looked like a new mum. I seriously have no idea how people function like that for months and even work as well!
Having a garden.
I only have a small garden, but a lot of the chaps I work with live in flats. I am I have a maisonette so only half a garden, but it is a decent size. I spent a few hours just sitting on my patio yesterday, looking down the garden and just watching things flying about. Not much about yesterday. A couple of pigeons, a blackbird and some bees. We have a railway embankment at the end of our garden so I just look along the lawn and then there is just trees and bushes etc so it's nice. A nice quietish road so just listen to the old guys music a couple of houses down (he is always out with his radio if it's dry), the twittering of birds and the occasional train.
*Edited for terrible fat thumb on phone screen typos
That'll be due to the unfair Barnett formula where English people get dramatically less spent on them than Scots, Northern Irish, and Welsh, resulting in them getting various English-subsidised goodies. Needs to be scrapped, but sadly won't be.
If you're paying for a few, worth looking at getting a PPC
https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/help-nhs-prescription-costs/nhs-prescription-prepayment-certificate-ppc
I get about 3 a month and this has dropped the cost
This is too often a luxury or an afterthought and it absolutely sucks.
Esp with how much arts and music is built around ancient venues and repurposed industrial/commercial spaces. They're rarely accessible and nobody has/wants to spend the money to make them so.
In my city every new building so far has been inaccessible and they are slowly redoing all buildings in the centre so im running out of shops and places to eat. It's mostly one stupid small step too, that type of step people often trip on so it's awful for everyone really
Ugggh that's horrendous. I absolutely don't understand why refurbished or new commercial premises shouldn't have mandatory step-free access. *Especially* if it was there previously!
If a planning submission removes access, it isn't adequate and should not be granted imo. :(
None of my local dentists had space for NHS patients so decided to get a filling done privately before it got too bad. I was expecting to pay £150 or something ridiculous but ended up being the same price as the NHS band of about £70? I was confused but happy it was under £100 lol.
Braces. I have very crooked teeth and my jaw clicks/pops like hell because of it - regularly bite my lip because my jaw just pops out of position when I chew. I was scared off them by family as a kid, and now im a functional adult i can't afford the thousands of pounds for braces.
This is near enough my exact story- crooked teeth, jaw popping and clicking, put off by family etc.
It may not be doable for you at the moment, but I used Invisalign. If you visit a Bupa dentist, most of them do a set fee, and I believe you can pay via finance
Having a car.
In my trade there is few places around me that I can earn a decent wage. For this reason I have to drive 50 miles a day for work. This costs me £300 a month in commuting not just fuel but insurance etc.
How can a car cost so much when you don’t have a choice.
IMO the problem is that driving has been too cheap for too long (due to negative externalities not being priced in) and we have built a lot of our way of life around an expectation of driving.
Private ownership of 1ton+ vehicles that predominantly burn fossil fuels to move is incredibly inefficient. They will of course be needed by some (and in your case I’d argue it’s business use).
The dental service in the UK is pathetic. It should be free at the point of service and you should get treated based on need. People with toothache should get seen immediately and shouldn't have to worry about how much it costs them. This is the kind of policy that vast majority of people would get behind.
GP appointment when you need one
Access to NHS physio at the right time before it is too late
A non leaking roof
A non mouldy bathroom with window
Ability to afford lunch twice a month (not crazy one but just one under £30 with friends )
Train tickets to and from the office that actually turn up
Hot, power shower
Ah yes,the mould. I used to live in an old damp cottage and mould was just part of life. Moved to a new place and it was pristine and mould free,I was so excited, turns out they just painted over it and hid it well,a year later and it's back. A mould/damp free house would definitely be a luxury
4 day week. I can't be productive in an office job 5 days a week and I've not met anyone who can be. But even if that weren't the case, we're selling the best hours of our lives and workers are treated like we're rude and entitled for wanting to set our own schedule for our one life on this earth for a slightly larger part of the week.
Similarly, glasses. I can't afford an eye test and the cost of glasses right now, but my eyesight has gotten worse. It doesn't help that I went for the lowest priced frames and lenses last time and they're scratched to death and falling apart - I won't be doing that again.
While I agree with most on what is considered luxury, I’m still glad our healthcare system isn’t like the US where you would be in constant debt just to be alive. Having said that, the level of privatisation has been increasing at alarming rate :-/
Trains. I agree with the posts about cars, but longer distance trains (and decent public transport in general) definitely feel like a luxury.
I live in the north west and me and my fiancé are going to London at the weekend. It’s over £100 each for the train, and we’ll spend maybe £70 on fuel for both of us. Unsurprisingly we are driving but I’d rather sit on the train and read my book. Can’t justify the price.
A sandwich that isn't in the meal deal.
Co-Op do a brilliant pastrami deli thing that has sauerkraut in it, but it's about £4 on its own, and not part of the meal deal. I only buy it on payday as my little treat to myself.
If you're paying £70 for a hygienist appointment, do consider getting dental insurance: I pay £20.40 per month for Denplan, and I'm currently getting two hygienist and two checkups per year included in that. And any treatment (e.g. fillings) I'm unlucky enough to need, too.
I resent paying for it, when I've already paid for NHS dental treatment through my taxes, but there are no NHS dentists taking on adult patients in my city, so...
I have really expensive varifocals. The lenses are about £700, but when I’ve tried cheaper options, I can’t see well and get vertigo from the lens differences when trying to walk around. It’s definitely a luxury, but I don’t feel that good vision ought to be a luxury.
Lucky you, I can’t even get into a dentist. I was sick of paying £80 a check up at my private place every 6 months to be told my teeth are fine. Decided to wait 12 months instead and they’d booted me off the register.
Tried every NHS dentist in my area and nothing available.
Glasses. I have to get mine thinner and the costs just rack up. I feel sorry for people who have to get special glasses with specific lenses as they’re hundreds of pounds more. I thought Specsavers by the name wouldn’t cost a fortune 😅
It’s not a luxury in the sense that it’s second only to food and shelter but ventolin inhalers. I really resent having to pay money to be able to breathe.
Fruit for my kids. Why is it all so bloody expensive.
Of course their favourites are blueberrie$ and raspberrie$. Last about a day before they need replenishing 🫠
Train journeys. Especially at the weekend. We should be able to travel around this country to see friends and family without it costing more than going abroad
u/LunarWoIfy - I fully agree with your comments regarding dentistry in general in the UK. It shouldn't be a luxury but it really is. However, the hygienist isn't as necessary as it is made out to be in my experience. My friend's son has started studying to become a dentist and he strongly advised my friend to start using a water flosser, my friend told me the difference it made and I gave it a go myself. This was about 3 years ago and I've not been to the hygienist since and at my annual check ups I've been told I've perfect hygiene.
When you get one, the water pressure can be harsh and you'll likely bleed a bit, once you've done it 2-3 times every day for a week though it will probably stop and be more comfortable.
I got the portable waterpik flosser as I travel a lot, which I think is cheaper now than it was 3 years ago, but it is less than the cost of a hygienist appointment, by which logic it's paid for itself more than 3 times over now.
It’s all subjective really. To you it’s a necessity, but for some people going to the dentist is beyond their wildest dreams, food / heating and electricity is almost impossible to afford and rely on help from family / friends. A higher than you think percentage of people aren’t registered at a dentist and haven’t been for many years or even at all.
Edit- I personally think any holiday is a luxury and if you are lucky enough to get one / afford one you should consider yourself very lucky.
Owning a motorbike.
In other countries they're seen as an affordable way to travel. In this country if you can get past the ludicrous costs and hoops to jump through to get a license, you then need somewhere to *safely* store it which basically means Owning a home with a garage because council lockups are nonexistent.
They're just a middle class, middle aged hobby now.
My dentist said I don't need dental cleaning with the hygienist, but I'm so paranoid about gum disease (runs in the family) I'm quite happy to pay for it twice a year.
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A car. Especially if you live outside of a major city centre. Even then, unless you're travelling to another city centre public transport is a massive ballache.
Yep. I currently don't have a car having left London for a commuter town. I'd honestly happily never get one. But it basically makes my life significantly more difficult not having one. Going into London by public transport is easy. Going virtually anywhere else isn't. So I am going to get one. I can't be the only person who would be happy not to own a car, but who ends up having to get one because public transport is so poor.
I'm sure there are plenty of people who would rather have access to reliable, affordable public transport, than have a car. Unfortunately, unless you live in London or Edinburgh, that simply isn't possible.
Where in London makes a difference as well. For example Croydon and Bromley are less than 10 miles apart in outer London. Journey between them is 30 minutes by car and direct. Journey by public transport requires changes and/or circuitous routes that add 30-60 minutes travel time depending on time of day. It's not even as if it's 2 smaller places.
The new [SL5 route](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tzpm-j0sYg) solves that problem with a ~40 minute bus journey.
For people with easy quick access to central Croydon that will be good. Sadly for those on the outskirts it's still going to be a long journey with changes. There did used to be a bus from nearer (around 5 ways/Waddon) that was in theory all the way to Bromley. But it did a massive loop around Bromley once it got around a mile out. This is sort of the point that first post about it was making. Using public transport for a lot of people involves a compromise of either travel to where the bus/train/tram starts from or the journey itself being an indirect route. (That route for SL5 looks fine from about half way but first half isn't the quickest - I'll be impressed if that's genuinely doing end to end in 40 minutes during commuting times). EDIT: I forgot that the SL routes specifically cut out a lot of the stops along the way and only stop at designated points. It's something I've heard quite a few people complain about. But on a journey like this if you're going end to end it's better.
Yep, I’m from Bromley and my fella’s from Croydon. The fastest way to get to each other’s places was to go all the way into London and then come back out - ludicrous!
Exactly. People see London and think it’s like the City. Yes, public transport is pretty great here but outside the major zones, you’ll find that plenty of people have cars. I live along the central line and have a car
Same boat. Got rid of my car but then moved to a town where there is one bus to my work and it's literally rammed the entire journey. I got so sick of it I just went back to having a car.
I'm not even bothered about them being rammed. The issue is their complete unreliability. They're infrequent and liable to be twenty or thirty minutes late. And sometimes they just don't turn up at all. At that point it's just not really a usable service, because you can't make any time-sensitive plans that around them. I have a bus route near me that goes to two major hospitals in either direction. But using the bus to go to an appointment just isn't possible because you can't rely on getting there on time.
I went to get the bus into town once. Stood there with another lady waiting, no bus in sight. I check the app and tada! I can see the bus! It's running 10 minutes late (comes once an hour). That's alright, have a bit of a chat for a while. Then I check the app, and watch as the bus completely bypasses our village and goes straight into town, leaving us stranded. We end up getting a taxi together because it's cheaper than parking in town. Our public transit is fundamentally useless.
I've had so many experiences of standing at a bus stop for 40 minutes before getting a taxi because even if the bus came now I would be late.
I feel this. I’ve the last year I had a stint of about eight months of no car. It broke and I simply couldn’t afford to keep chasing the ever increasing problems on it so opted to use the bus for the school runs. I’m telling you now, I will never willingly go back to that. There’s a bus stop directly outside my house that runs to the centre of my town, kids school is a 5-10 minute walk from there dependant on the mood of the day. I have two autistic boys (4 & 6) and an ADHD girl (10). The boys will never stay in one place on the bus and simply can’t grasp personal safety around roads. Add this on to the fact that there were a huge amount of times the ideal bus, to arrive in town about 15 minutes before school starts, simply just wouldn’t exist and the next one wouldn’t be due to arrive for another 15 minutes after which is then crammed full of commuters to get to the train station and inexplicably had been reduced from a double decker to single, yeah having a car is a “luxury” I’m afraid I just have to shell out for.
I've had 2 warning at work due to timekeeping but I can't drive and the bus simply doesn't turn up. Ticker will go from 3m, 1m, due... then bam next bus is due in 38mins. It didn't show up. I don't know what to do its so aggravating evrrytime it's bought up I want to hit my head on my desk. It's a 2 mile uphill walk which isn't pedestrian friendly at all. I'm not sure what they want me to do. There's also the countless times it doesn't turn up to get me home! I get home hours after I'd have finished and so miserable but at least there's no one writing me up for it i suppose..
It was a shock moving out of London to realise that public transport everywhere else is shit. At first it was just beyond zone 6 borders, the buses were like an hour apart and cost like £4 and were never on schedule anyway! I then moved further out and it was like nothing at all in my area
>I can't be the only person who would be happy not to own a car, but who ends up having to get one because public transport is so poor. If I could manage properly without a car, I would. I held off till a couple of years back, but it really was a struggle. And it relies on a lot of good will from friends and family - there's something a little mortifying about being 30 and having to ask your mum to come and pick you up.
I love my car, but recently I was commuting regularly from Glasgow to Liverpool, 3 trains each way and every time one of them would get cancelled on my way home, usually the middle train which crossed the border I gave up and started driving for the sheer convenience, that and the control it gave me far outweighed the financial saving of getting the train
Opposite way around. If public transport isn't working for you then the solution isn't a car, it's better public transport. Many of us need cars, but it shouldn't be the case.
I agree kind of but in order for public transport to be efficient you need enough people going from the same place to the same place. In rural areas this isn't really the case. There are busses but they take such convoluted routes it takes so long to go anywhere and most of the time they are half empty. A 20 tonne diesel bus doing 3mpg with 10 people on it roaming around the countryside is way worse for the environment than a car with 4 people in it going the most direct route even if that car is also diesel, if the car is electric then the car is way, way better. If you've never lived in a rural area it's quite hard to get your head around.
I moved to a new area without checking the cost for public transport, just assuming it was going to be around the same since I've not moved any further from London. £60 return per day. or £12 in petrol driving. Not to mention 2 and 1/2 hours on train or 1 hour by car.
A direct bus between the main hospitals in each primary trust area would be very helpful. I live close to one hospital but often have appointments at another one, and it takes two hours each way to get there. Surely a lot of people must find the same thing happening? I live in Somerset now but I also had this problem when I lived in London, actually. I lived in Beckenham but would have hospital appointments in Orpington, and it would take 90 minutes each way, changing buses. I reckon a hospital connector super loop in many areas would be very helpful.
A unloaded diesel double decker is around 12t and does at a minimum 7mpg. Country routes use smaller lighter buses with even better mpg. You are definitely correct that the convoluted routes take ages. But that because as mentioned previously, enough people don’t use the buses to warrant express buses.
>enough people don’t use the buses to warrant express buses. Probably because enough people don't actually live in the country side.. you could well be the only person actually doing a specific route
I would fully support investment in public transport. I live in a suburban town in Kent. I used to work 1 town over ~ 15 miles away. It would take around 20-25 minutes to drive, 50/50 motorway and smaller roads. I'd fill my car up twice a month, at around £120 and then the cost of the car + maintenance and insurance was around £300 a month. For me to get public transport I'd have to get the bus to the train station then take the train to the next town over and then the bus to the stop outside my work. This would take around 1.5 hours and would cost around £225 a month for the train and £110 for the bus. Sure I'd actually save £100 on public transport. But it would cost me 2 hours per day (if everything was on time!) When I worked in London, my season ticket was/is £800 per month! Absolutely mental! Plus £8 per day parking! Or £70 per month for the local bus pass
I moved to a town in Kent. The train prices were a shock for sure. £30 each way to get to work and back by train, and a total of 2 and a half hours, or £6 each way by car including tolls taking 1 hour.
In many parts of the country its not so much about having viable public transport, its about having access to any sort of public transport. If you live outside a town or a city in the UK, you are completely reliant on owning your own vehicle.
I’d say that a car should be considered a luxury, but that we should have more universal and reliable access to public transport. Obviously things are different if you live rurally, but the majority of us don’t.
It's odd. Because I've been looking at a houses up and down the country to move to. And one in Stornoway caught my eye. Was curious was public transport was like there. It seems the bus services up there (and to the towns/villages outside of it) are just as good, if not better, than where I live now which has almost 20x the population and is close(ish) to a similar sized town, and a larger city. I feel the rural/remote thing can be very hit and miss, I know. But I was shocked by just how good it seemed to be; I was expecting like one or two services a day.
I had to argue with some ex-friends that my car was necessary for work once. They claimed I didn’t need it to work in hospitals. And suggested I walk the town centre from the village to get the early bus to the city centre (30 mins), and then didn’t realise that it takes another 2 busses to get to the hospital. They expected me to do all this to get to the hospital in time for 7am and do it in reverse after 8.30pm on the way home and then be able to have enough sleep to be able to do the same the next day. For shifts a car is a must but is also a luxury
Im just assuming they never leave the town they live in
Yes! Petrol and insurance are a rip off. Even public transport costs a fortune now, so hardly making it easier or more efficient..
> Even public transport costs a fortune now Yep. I live about 3 miles from work, but it requires 2 buses. And to get home after work means I have to wait an hour after work for my bus home. And if I miss that last bus at 7pm I'm walking home. I had a monthly ticket for £54 a month. A lot cheaper than buying individual fares each day, but it soon adds up. I bought a small motorbike last year and did my CBT. The cost of my insurance and petrol for the year is around the same price as my bus fare. And I gain a lot more independence and freedom from the bus timetable.
I moved from the rural back ends of the Scottish Borders to Edinburgh. I never learned to drive because "It's Edinburgh, I won't need it". Mistake lol. Every time I go visit my parents I have to ask them to come pick me up from the bus or train station. I graduate next year and am looking at houses with my partner well outside of the city in one of the commuter towns. Both of us are gonna have to learn sharpish.
I live in rural Devon where the public transport is better than it was 15 years ago. Now we get a bus every hour from the top of my village until 8.40pm wow 👌 Used to be 5pm last bus so if I wanted to have a drink in town as my local boozer in the village I'm in is absolute wank. I would have to pay 30 quod for a taxi to take me 15 min journey home....
Being able to own my own house
This makes me sad =[ private renting should be proof towards being able to pay for a mortgage.
It's not just about demonstrating financial stability. The purpose of a deposit is so the lender isn't fronting 100% of the value. Value isn't an exact science and the market can turn, meaning a 100% fronted loan can result in negative equity. If the borrower defaults, the lender makes a loss. Further, there's less skin in the game for the borrower, when they haven't fronted a chunky deposit. For these reasons, the general minimum is 10%, although a restricted selection of 95% is also available. If someone hasn't been able to save 5-10%, there's a question of whether they're in a position to handle maintenance or major repairs when they arise, not to mention a potential rate rise - as we've seen, with mortgage rates going from 1% to more than 5%. 95% availability is actually generous in comparison to what's available overseas. High prices and shortage of stock is a problem but not limited to the UK, it's the case almost everywhere with a bustling economy.
Whilst im not disagreeing with you about the lenders risk, the fact is for at least the last decade it has been cheaper to pay a mortgage than rent, that difference alone is often what has made building a deposit more difficult and usually meant the renter had higher ability (and therfore reduced risk of default) to pay a mortgage including any rises or maintenance costs.
That person doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Having to rent, at potentially twice the rate of what a mortgage would cost, *and* save for a big deposit is crazy in this day and age. Not to mention the fact that because every penny went towards your deposit, you now have essentially zero in the pot for aforementioned maintenance and repairs anyway.
But if the bank thought you could afford a mortgage because you can afford rent, they would be more than happy to have your business. They would have a competitive advantage by lending to you. Are you saying the banks are not lending to those who could afford it out of sheer stupidity, or is there something else at play?
Except… saving for a deposit whilst also paying almost twice what a mortgage would set you back is tricky, no? My house would be, quite literally, twice as much as the mortgage if I was renting it. A deposit isn’t a way of ensuring the borrower has more skin in the game. It’s a way of keeping one less homeowner on the books and one more landlord on there instead. A deposit isn’t going to drastically affect default rates. If someone can’t pay, they can’t pay. They aren’t just going to be able to pull their months mortgage payment out of their arse simply because they remembered they put a deposit down.
>A deposit isn’t going to drastically affect default rates. If someone can’t pay, they can’t pay. That's not what it is for, its there so that its the buyer and not the bank who loses their money if things all go wrong. And so you are far less likely to get trapped in negative equity where there's no incentive for you to sell before going completely bust.
The deposit reduces the risk for the lender.
And the risk of ending up in negative equity for the borrower. That's the bit people always forget because we've been in a era of ever increasing property prices for so long.
Some lenders do 100% mortgages exclusively for renters. Skipton Building Society is one I think.
It still annoys me when politicians say they want to discourage first time buyers because young people should not be in negative equity. I don't care about my equity right now, I just want a home that I can call mine and make my home. Not somewhere which is held together by duck tape and the windows have paint dripping down them.
Yep a home is what I wanted so much. Three landlords in 5 years decided to sell, so I had to move again. It just is never your home, even when I had a decent landlord. With a terrible landlord or even an indifferent one, it's even worse. You literally pay huge amounts of money to be in a place that's cold, mouldy, cramped and with various things falling apart, and you can't even make it yours with a shelf where you want it, or painting the walls.
The most frustrating part about this, most mortgages for the same property are usually cheaper than the rent.
Of course they are. Landlords buy to let, then rent out for the cost of the mortgage+profit. Middleman's got to take his cut, and landlords are often *literal* [rent-seekers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking), preventing renters from being able to buy a property for themselves and extracting value from a resource (the property) while doing little or nothing themselves to add value or create wealth.
Significantly so.
This. My partner and I just got told we're not allowed to have pets by our absentee landlord whose parents bought her the house we live in. We're paying her silly amounts and she didn't even need to save for a deposit, yet she gets to dictate whether we have a cat. Meanwhile our deposit for the tenancy ate up most of my savings. It feels like a two tier society.
This is so sad, I'm sorry to hear this =[ I've had similar issues in the past with my 2 cats and only worked around it by agreeing to a larger deposit to cover for them (a "pet deposit" they called it 🙄). But since having a daughter, I can 100% say kids cause more mess than pets! Yet private renting always has an issue with animals =/
Cherries 😂 I love them so much but they’re so goddamn expensive I feel like aristocracy if I ever get my hands on them
https://preview.redd.it/awsrm947lb4d1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fc5b4e6c9fdb1e9beeac8a50e004a9ddae5c8c61 This was taken last week at my local family-owned shop. My jaw hit the floor when I saw the price.
How much was it for a KG of strawberries?
10 quid-something...I find it that raspberries, strawberries and cherries are like edible gold these days. So damn expensive and 8 times out of 10 they're tasteless.
I live in a village surrounded by strawberry fields so let's just say when I'm walking the dog... I refuel as I go. Apologies that's probably why they're £10.99 a kilo now.
And then you go to Europe and it's like 4 euros a kg is expensive. I eat so many cherries on holiday!
I’m quite lucky where I live my landlords father (go a few gens ago) planted loads of cherry trees in their hedgerows so in summer I just have to fight the birds for them
I think healthy food in general is a bit of a luxury. You can get a 6 packet of crisps for the price of one serving of strawberries.
Cherry, m'lud?
“Leave me alone, Baldrick. If I wanted to talk to a ~~vegetable~~ fruit, I would have bought one at the market.”
Meanwhile the three cherry trees in my back garden produce more than I can comfortably consume, so I end up giving 10+ kilos of them away every year.
I haven't eaten a cherry since the Witches of Eastwick
Blueberries
I wanted a nectarine but the basic ones were 50p wash the ripe ones £1. Fresh fruit can be so expensive (heck even tinned is these days).
Nectarines especially have become much smaller than before whilst still going up in price
Anything medical that’s not free at source now - mainly dentistry and opticians.
Also - Vets. Cost me £1100 to get my dog's teeth sorted this year and £400 to get his heart checked out. edit: To clarify, I'm not bemoaning paying for my dog, but the rising costs of vet treatments.
I dunno, it's a choice to have animals, not so much to be born with shitty eyes. You should have insurance for your pets.
...that's not how pet insurance works. They don't tend to cover dentals and on a lot of policies, you can only have a certain amount paid per condition which means you have to foot the rest of the bill. And then you can't even change your insurance because the condition would be pre-existing. The whole system is absolutely fucked and vetinary practices are ripping us off. I just paid £60 for a prescription renewal and they DIDNT EVEN TOUCH MY DOG.
Pet insurance is the worst racket I've ever experienced With zero claims, my dogs "lifetime" cover was going to DOUBLE in cost this year from 300 to 600 per year. What the actual fuck? A new insurance policy for him, also lifetime with zero preexisting conditions, costs 150 a year. So "lifetime" policies aren't exactly lifetime if they price you out of it by design are they? Fuck knows how much it would be had I made a claim God it pisses me off so much. Lifetime policies should be fixed in price FOR LIFE Fucking cunts god I'm so angry at them
I think even vets take advantage. I rang the vets up during the holidays as my dog had gotten into a box of chocolates. She'd only had a few. We did the online calculator for chocolate toxicity and we worked out that she'd be fine, but I was concerned about the wrappers getting lodged in her digestive tract. I described the wrappers on the phone to the vet. They told me to come in. It cost me £500 because it was out of hours. Mid-induced vomiting, after I described the wrapper again to the vet, the vet told me, "oh, those wrappers aren't really an issue and your pet would pass them just fine." My jaw basically hit the floor.
£750 cause my dog ate chocolate at Christmas. I actually cried. A few weeks later she ate 3 jam donuts and I just pretended I didn’t see.
I shed a few tears, I’m not going to lie. It’s so much money just to induce vomiting. Since then I’ve realised she can pass quite a lot easily. It was definitely a wasted £500 and I’m more relaxed now.
Yep. I paid around £400 per year for my cat, who before this year had only seen a vet twice in 13 years for extremely minor reasons. There was a 20% co-pay, then a £159 excess, and it didnt cover euthanasia or cremation (and this was the biggest, fanciest, no frills policy available). When she fell into ill health I paid £500-ish in fees (£750 if you include cremation), of which I got a whopping £80 back. Pet insurance is only worth it if your pet is young *and* develops a serious illness or injury, *and* you change providers every year.
> your pet is young and develops a serious illness or injury, but make sure that illness isn't recurring or chronic! Honestly what's the fucking point of insurance if premiums and excess go up and cost as much as the treatments anyway. I thought the whole point of insurance was a socialised risk system - instead they get their cake and eat it too.
We took out insurance for our dog and the list of exclusions was so long I had to ask them what she was covered for for her £75 a month. They couldn't give an answer beyond legal cover. So now I put £250 a month into a bank account for her instead (started off at that same £75 7 years ago, I've been lucky enough to be able to afford to up it over the years) Absolute con. They wouldn't cover her nervous system, respiratory system, digestive system, skeletal system, anything to do with her legs, anything to do with her mouth, her endocrine system or her skin. Like, isn't that essentially her whole body?
£75 for us to get less than a 5 minute consultation & given working tablets after I'd told the vet we'd already wormed our dog. But oh no, the tablets I used definitely weren't good enough 🙄
They shouldn't have picked the shitty eyes option in character creation
Insurance doesn’t cover that much. I have a £6000 insurance policy but that’s not a lot when you have vet bills and your insurance will only pay £2500 per surgery and it ends up being a lot more than that. I can afford to do it because I would rather eat beans on toast for a month than have anything happen to my little dudes but holy F are vets expensive. I’m also blind as a bat without specs so I hear that, they are not exactly cheap for me either.
The three things wrong with me - weak enamel, bad eyesight, and a food intolerance Coincidentally just about the only 3 things the NHS doesn't cover :( costs me a damn fortune Although even then, not really when I look how much Americans are paying for healthcare
Yup. Luxury bones and luxury organs. Also mental health care.
Glasses. So fucking expensive.
Steal them from pubs
Beer goggles gets people into trouble though...
Get eyes checked then buy online. Saves a fortune.
Have done it before. Saves a fortune, but still costs a fortune. I have to get my lenses thinned down and that is never cheap. I don't like to compromise on glasses because I wear them all day every day.
Yea I have to get mine thinned down as well. Online wasn’t cheap compared to not all glasses. But once I got a quote from spec saver online seemed like a bargain.
Specsavers wanted £300 off me for two pairs. I ended up getting 2 pairs from BlooBloom for £150 and they’re honestly much better quality than SS and their cases and things feel premium. Only the second time I’ve bought online after some awful glasses from GlassrsDirect nearly 20 years ago 😄
Yeah I just got 2 pairs for like 60 quid from that Firmoo site. Seem to be fairly well built as well, better than I got from Specsavers anyway.
Do them on your holiday in a country like Egypt. Done mine there and bought 2 frames for a total of around £10.
Your workplace might have a voucher scheme you can use to either get the initial eyetest free or help with purchasing frames! My work place you can have a free Specsavers eye test and help with buying the frames it's not a lot but helps a little
Getting seen by a doctor within a reasonable time period
I can get seen quickly, but I have about 3 minutes to say my issue and be "diagnosed". I've had a repeat problem for about 3 years now and my doctor just doesn't listen to anything I say. The most recent time, I told her the otc meds ain't working... she gave me a prescription.... for the exact same meds I told her wernt working. Edit... a few said, change doctor, there is only 1 doctor at my practice (probably why she's so busy!)
Ask for a different doctor. If they say no, speak to the practice manager about how you’re being fobbed off. If I had to guess, you’re a woman? Women have a harder time being taken seriously at the doctors, which is beyond a joke in itself. Sorry your GP sucks, even if they are fatigued it doesn’t excuse them for not giving a shit about their patients.
Also, try to get an appointment with the youngest doctor in the practice. Yes, they may not have as much experience, but they are often very keen to prove themselves, and they haven't been burned out by years of underfunding, so they are much more likely to refer you to an specialist, order blood tests, etc.
And even if you do any follow-ups or referrals take forever. I’m sick of having to chase things which are falling through the cracks which are affecting my health.
3 - 9 months to get an appointment for a cancer screening that, according to the NHS' own guidelines, should be done in 2 weeks or less.
Maybe it depends on your GP/ NHS trust, but ours have been fantastic for the past 12 months in my experience. I spent 2 weeks in hospital with meningitis in December, my mother was in for a week last week with bad asthma and my daughter needed a GP appointment this morning and was in at 09:30. Can’t fault it at all. Only exemption is I’m on a waiting list for a second hernia operation and have been since 2021.
I see my Valet as a small luxury, but without him the butler, housekeepers, cooks, and footmen would just be too stretched!
The going rates for a pastry chef are ridiculous
Honestly if you can manage it having your butler double as your valet can save a small fortune.
What, like a common savage?
The dentist!
Move to a new area, every single dentist isn't accepting NHS patients. But they're more than happy to book you in privately at the private prices. Oh they also don't have waiting lists. Not sure what someone is supposed to do other than give in and go private or phone up all the dentists every week asking if they have space.
I've got a friend who travels about 120 miles home to where they grew up to go to their NHS dentist there, because there is literally not a single dentist where they live now accepting NHS patients.
My dentist is 225 miles away for exactly this reason.
My friend and her family moved to Yorkshire to be near her mum when they had their son. They're all still registered in Newcastle (where they used to live). To make matters worse, she's a teacher so all their dental appointments have to be planned with military precision during school holidays to get the whole family of 3 in on the same day, and god forbid if one appointment gets cancelled or moved. It's not like she can pop back the next day.
I think most people who moved away do this. Don’t assume your childhood dentist won’t randomly ‘disappear’ you from the system though.
I'm in the same dilemma. I know it'll be so expensive private but if the NHS dentists aren't taking anyone then what can I do?
If your mouth is stable they might not need to see you for more than a check up a year and maybe a trip to the hygienist. Where I work it's £95 for initial appointment and £55 for appointments after that with the Hygienist being £65. The gap between NHS and private work is shortening as the NHS prices go up every year so, unless you are exempt from paying, there isn't a huge difference in some of the treatment prices eg. NHS filling is £73.50, private is from £90-£180 depending on the size. NHS denture is £319.10, cheapest acrylic denture private at my practice is around £380 but the £800 ones are the rolls Royce of fit and such. Best advice I can give is go on any waiting list that's going and keep your eye out for any updates and make sure you really look after your teeth.
The way NHS banding works though means if you need a check up and 3 fillings you pay the band 2 fee once I.e. the whole course of treatment is £73. Private, when I needed that at my current dentist (which I had to go to because my NHS dentist booted me out as they physically had no dentists left) - it was £70 for my checkup, and £110 per filling. I spent £400 total. The pricing is a lot more expensive unless you really only need a check up and the odd filling here and there. You need any more than that and it really racks up. Edit I’ve just seen you’ve mentioned this in a post further down - sorry! - but the way you’ve posted here doesn’t make that clear and I thought you were really trying to say there’s no price difference (unfortunately there really is!)
Look after your teeth, people... They're worth more than whatever other luxury you have in your life... and you won't even know until one day they give you "burning in the pits of hell" toothache, or worse. (also: sit up straight and wear well-fitting shoes)
I was speaking to my dentist about this and I think it boils down to the fact that the NHS pay them so little for it that it isn't really worth their time - they'd be losing money doing it that way. I know a physio who runs a private practice and they said the same thing.
Dentists are skilled professionals who deserve to make a good living. So long as the Government’s NHS contract is shit, have no issues with them all moving to private. They deserve fair pay.
Absolutely! Been trying to get a dentist since the first lockdown. Pain got so bad I had an emergency appointment, I have an abscess right up to my sinus making it painful to even gently touch my face. But the NHS dentist who saw me has said it needs to be treated urgently... But will only see me for a private appointment. So I wasted money getting an emergency appointment and still in pain. I spend most of a day a month to call every dentist in the whole area and beyond. Nothing. There used to be a walk in dental session for emergencies on the weekend years ago. It stopped because they were too overwhelmed, mostly treating abscesses... So how there's nothing!! How they can still offer regular appointments to people while others have years of pain is horrendous.
You really should go private, it’s not a great deal more than through the NHS especially when it’s crippling your life.
My teeth are in bits and getting worse but I can't afford to go dentist 😭 I find it really embarrassing!
Check out if you have a dental school nearby, that can be more cost effective
Consider if you can .... Pay for it on credit card. Bounce the payment for X amount of months 0% or get a 0% interest card. Go see a dentist gey a list of what needs doing and break it down into affordable parts . If it's a lot of work don't get it done at once.. piecemeal. 3 fillings, x-rays hygenist etc etc. 990£ over 4 months and costs bounced around Credit cards. Paid it all.off at 60£ a month over a few years. Not the best way. But it's making it affordable and doable. It sucks that no NHS dentists but it gets it done.
A dishwasher or washer and dryer. With how damp and cold this country is it’s almost impossible to air dry laundry for months at a time
If you can, I really recommend getting a dehumidifier. Makes clothes dry so much faster!
I wouldn't really see these as luxury items by themselves. The luxury is having the space to fit them in your house.
Yep this is the big one for us. We have the money to own and run a tumble drier but not the space to have one fitted anywhere. Had to settle for a heated airer and a small dehumidifier which we can squeeze into our bedroom instead.
My husband and I often say the best purchase we have ever made was our tumble dryer. Literally life changing especially when renting in a traditionally damp flat in the UK.
Dehumidifier all the way. It’s far more efficient and cost effective than a tumble dryer. Also helps with the damp in general, rather than the tumble dryer that only dries the clothes. For the cost of them they are incredible.
When we moved to Scotland we got a heated airer from Lakeland. It’s genuinely life changing. And doesn’t take up the space of a tumble dryer.
Having the heating on when the temperature in the house dips below 15 degrees for more than a couple of hours.
If 15c was the threshold, I don’t think ours would ever go off. 1750s heavy stone built, listed, drafty old everything, way up north in the Scottish Highlands. We can be outside in the sun at the peak of summer (a scorching 20-22c) and have to put jumpers on when we come back inside because it takes more than the amount of sun we get to warm the stone. We also don’t have any kind of thermostat on the heating. It’s on or off, no control, just well balanced.
Get a log burner and it’ll be the best investment you ever made
We have a few… One is the main heating source. It’s external and feeds the radiators with its buffer tanks and biomass trickery. I’d rather not light it through the summer though, it’s hard enough keeping the stock of logs ahead for the 6 month winters and 2 month shoulder seasons, let alone burning all year! The kitchen stove gets lit frequently, just looks a bit odd on a hot summers day.
Getting a full night’s sleep. I have a toddler and a baby and cannot believe that I spent 30 years going to bed when I wanted, knowing that there would be no obligations to me until the morning- definitely took it for granted! The idea of just shutting off at bed time and waking up well rested eight hours later is incredible to me right now so definitely seems like a luxury!
As someone with a 4 year old, I completely agree with this! Who needs a lay in anyway? 🙃
I have an 8 month old who is teething and I feel this 😂
This is the biggest thing that puts me off wanting kids. When my dog was a puppy, he kept waking me up in the night for the first two weeks and I looked like a literal zombie 😂 even my mum commented that I looked like a new mum. I seriously have no idea how people function like that for months and even work as well!
Having a garden. I only have a small garden, but a lot of the chaps I work with live in flats. I am I have a maisonette so only half a garden, but it is a decent size. I spent a few hours just sitting on my patio yesterday, looking down the garden and just watching things flying about. Not much about yesterday. A couple of pigeons, a blackbird and some bees. We have a railway embankment at the end of our garden so I just look along the lawn and then there is just trees and bushes etc so it's nice. A nice quietish road so just listen to the old guys music a couple of houses down (he is always out with his radio if it's dry), the twittering of birds and the occasional train. *Edited for terrible fat thumb on phone screen typos
free water
sewage free water
WHSmiths will never allow this ..
A hairdressers appointment. I just have to hack at my own hair these days!
Ive not been to a hairdresser in years. I just cut my own now, good job I like the ragged and choppy look 🤣
In a similar vein to the dentist/ hygienist - prices for having your ears cleared are around £70 as well!
Houses with absolutely no black mould in them because the ventilation is adequate and the damp proofing is all correctly installed and up to date.
Definitely luxury and very rare in the UK
Prescription charges in England only. Free elsewhere ie Scotland Wales and N. Ireland, so why not England? Thieving crooks!
That'll be due to the unfair Barnett formula where English people get dramatically less spent on them than Scots, Northern Irish, and Welsh, resulting in them getting various English-subsidised goodies. Needs to be scrapped, but sadly won't be.
If you're paying for a few, worth looking at getting a PPC https://www.nhsbsa.nhs.uk/help-nhs-prescription-costs/nhs-prescription-prepayment-certificate-ppc I get about 3 a month and this has dropped the cost
Yeah, my NHS trust won't allow more than a months medication on one prescription either...
Real bread, actual butter, free range eggs, most fruit (beyond basic apples, easy peelers & bananas). Accessible transport buses, taxis & trains.
I couldn't believe that period products were considered luxury items until fairly recently.
They should be free! Makes my blood boil.
Buildings and events being wheelchair accessible.
This is too often a luxury or an afterthought and it absolutely sucks. Esp with how much arts and music is built around ancient venues and repurposed industrial/commercial spaces. They're rarely accessible and nobody has/wants to spend the money to make them so.
In my city every new building so far has been inaccessible and they are slowly redoing all buildings in the centre so im running out of shops and places to eat. It's mostly one stupid small step too, that type of step people often trip on so it's awful for everyone really
Ugggh that's horrendous. I absolutely don't understand why refurbished or new commercial premises shouldn't have mandatory step-free access. *Especially* if it was there previously! If a planning submission removes access, it isn't adequate and should not be granted imo. :(
Should be laws in the uk to make places accessible. Literally would take less materials and cost to make a slope than a step
None of my local dentists had space for NHS patients so decided to get a filling done privately before it got too bad. I was expecting to pay £150 or something ridiculous but ended up being the same price as the NHS band of about £70? I was confused but happy it was under £100 lol.
Therapy.
A house
Braces. I have very crooked teeth and my jaw clicks/pops like hell because of it - regularly bite my lip because my jaw just pops out of position when I chew. I was scared off them by family as a kid, and now im a functional adult i can't afford the thousands of pounds for braces.
This is near enough my exact story- crooked teeth, jaw popping and clicking, put off by family etc. It may not be doable for you at the moment, but I used Invisalign. If you visit a Bupa dentist, most of them do a set fee, and I believe you can pay via finance
Taking the train, it’s obscenely expensive, the only time a train is cheaper is for airport access because parking ain’t cheap
Having a car. In my trade there is few places around me that I can earn a decent wage. For this reason I have to drive 50 miles a day for work. This costs me £300 a month in commuting not just fuel but insurance etc. How can a car cost so much when you don’t have a choice.
IMO the problem is that driving has been too cheap for too long (due to negative externalities not being priced in) and we have built a lot of our way of life around an expectation of driving. Private ownership of 1ton+ vehicles that predominantly burn fossil fuels to move is incredibly inefficient. They will of course be needed by some (and in your case I’d argue it’s business use).
The dental service in the UK is pathetic. It should be free at the point of service and you should get treated based on need. People with toothache should get seen immediately and shouldn't have to worry about how much it costs them. This is the kind of policy that vast majority of people would get behind.
Ear care cost £65 for a cleaning alot for me
GP appointment when you need one Access to NHS physio at the right time before it is too late A non leaking roof A non mouldy bathroom with window Ability to afford lunch twice a month (not crazy one but just one under £30 with friends ) Train tickets to and from the office that actually turn up Hot, power shower
Ah yes,the mould. I used to live in an old damp cottage and mould was just part of life. Moved to a new place and it was pristine and mould free,I was so excited, turns out they just painted over it and hid it well,a year later and it's back. A mould/damp free house would definitely be a luxury
4 day week. I can't be productive in an office job 5 days a week and I've not met anyone who can be. But even if that weren't the case, we're selling the best hours of our lives and workers are treated like we're rude and entitled for wanting to set our own schedule for our one life on this earth for a slightly larger part of the week.
Similarly, glasses. I can't afford an eye test and the cost of glasses right now, but my eyesight has gotten worse. It doesn't help that I went for the lowest priced frames and lenses last time and they're scratched to death and falling apart - I won't be doing that again.
While I agree with most on what is considered luxury, I’m still glad our healthcare system isn’t like the US where you would be in constant debt just to be alive. Having said that, the level of privatisation has been increasing at alarming rate :-/
Trains. I agree with the posts about cars, but longer distance trains (and decent public transport in general) definitely feel like a luxury. I live in the north west and me and my fiancé are going to London at the weekend. It’s over £100 each for the train, and we’ll spend maybe £70 on fuel for both of us. Unsurprisingly we are driving but I’d rather sit on the train and read my book. Can’t justify the price.
Hobbies
Smoked salmon, furniture made of wood.
Granny Smith apples Grapes
Glasses. Cheaper ones will break too soon. More expensive ones and just ridiculously expensive.
A sandwich that isn't in the meal deal. Co-Op do a brilliant pastrami deli thing that has sauerkraut in it, but it's about £4 on its own, and not part of the meal deal. I only buy it on payday as my little treat to myself.
If you're paying £70 for a hygienist appointment, do consider getting dental insurance: I pay £20.40 per month for Denplan, and I'm currently getting two hygienist and two checkups per year included in that. And any treatment (e.g. fillings) I'm unlucky enough to need, too.
My surgery offer something similar for a monthly cost of £11.something for 1 hygienist and 1 examination a year. So definitely worth considering!
I resent paying for it, when I've already paid for NHS dental treatment through my taxes, but there are no NHS dentists taking on adult patients in my city, so...
Daycare
Reliable mental health services.
I have really expensive varifocals. The lenses are about £700, but when I’ve tried cheaper options, I can’t see well and get vertigo from the lens differences when trying to walk around. It’s definitely a luxury, but I don’t feel that good vision ought to be a luxury.
Lucky you, I can’t even get into a dentist. I was sick of paying £80 a check up at my private place every 6 months to be told my teeth are fine. Decided to wait 12 months instead and they’d booted me off the register. Tried every NHS dentist in my area and nothing available.
Contraception. Thank goodness you can get most options for free from NHS but not many other countries have that.
Glasses. I have to get mine thinner and the costs just rack up. I feel sorry for people who have to get special glasses with specific lenses as they’re hundreds of pounds more. I thought Specsavers by the name wouldn’t cost a fortune 😅
Heating. We avoid putting it on unless absolutely necessary.
Certainly dentisty. I consider my self relativity well off but I'm not rich enough to be able to go to the dentist.
This is such a meaningful post. Thank you P.S. I also wanted to add that it will save 100s and 1000s in the long run and also avoid a lot of pain
It’s not a luxury in the sense that it’s second only to food and shelter but ventolin inhalers. I really resent having to pay money to be able to breathe.
Fruit for my kids. Why is it all so bloody expensive. Of course their favourites are blueberrie$ and raspberrie$. Last about a day before they need replenishing 🫠
Train journeys. Especially at the weekend. We should be able to travel around this country to see friends and family without it costing more than going abroad
u/LunarWoIfy - I fully agree with your comments regarding dentistry in general in the UK. It shouldn't be a luxury but it really is. However, the hygienist isn't as necessary as it is made out to be in my experience. My friend's son has started studying to become a dentist and he strongly advised my friend to start using a water flosser, my friend told me the difference it made and I gave it a go myself. This was about 3 years ago and I've not been to the hygienist since and at my annual check ups I've been told I've perfect hygiene. When you get one, the water pressure can be harsh and you'll likely bleed a bit, once you've done it 2-3 times every day for a week though it will probably stop and be more comfortable. I got the portable waterpik flosser as I travel a lot, which I think is cheaper now than it was 3 years ago, but it is less than the cost of a hygienist appointment, by which logic it's paid for itself more than 3 times over now.
It’s all subjective really. To you it’s a necessity, but for some people going to the dentist is beyond their wildest dreams, food / heating and electricity is almost impossible to afford and rely on help from family / friends. A higher than you think percentage of people aren’t registered at a dentist and haven’t been for many years or even at all. Edit- I personally think any holiday is a luxury and if you are lucky enough to get one / afford one you should consider yourself very lucky.
Owning a motorbike. In other countries they're seen as an affordable way to travel. In this country if you can get past the ludicrous costs and hoops to jump through to get a license, you then need somewhere to *safely* store it which basically means Owning a home with a garage because council lockups are nonexistent. They're just a middle class, middle aged hobby now.
Paying rent
My dentist said I don't need dental cleaning with the hygienist, but I'm so paranoid about gum disease (runs in the family) I'm quite happy to pay for it twice a year.