So amongst other rants that have bombarded my Wife’s and Fathers ears over the past month, the record rise of inflation and cost of living have been battling with the Russia rants daily. I’m aware I’m not the only person with this issue and that many other people would trade places with me, but it does sometimes seem I’m the only one whose making the most noise about it…well me and my Dad on the other side of the pond, “They’re quick to put the price of bread and petrol up, but it won’t come down as quick”.
As ever, we started the year with the hangover from Christmas (possibly the biggest anti-climax created - rant for another day), and once again we prepared ourselves for rise of inflation and subsequently waited to see if our employers would agree. This year however, we’re at a record 30-year high - of course we bloody are; As the birth of my first child (and likely only at this rate) would create that magnitude of inflation wouldn’t it! Food, gas/petrol (depending which side of the pond you’re from), actual (natural) gas and just about everything else you can think of is at “record highs”.
Now I’ll be the first to say I’m an average bloke; one wife, one child, one dog, one mortgage, one car (without finance) and I like one holiday a year (within the Country is fine) and one slab of beer a week. Now I like to think that with my salary, this should all be affordable but Mr Supply Chain doesn’t concur. Based on his calculations, he thinks it’s reasonable that a third of my utility bill should be for actual usage with the balance being for fees alone. This coupled, tripled, quadrupled, quintupled…with everything else you have to pay makes me sometimes think I should revisit a previous version of myself and tell him not to get married, not to have children or dogs and under no circumstances get a mortgage. Instead, live in a rented bedsit alone, which should afford you the luxury of some spare money to buy some bread, some supermarket grade beers and possibly one tv subscription (another rant).
We hear phrases and statements like, “we must live within our means” and “the start of the year might be uncomfortable”, but I can assure you this is the default position in most households these days, especially since the “recession”, and it’s child recessions (I think we’re on the 3rd or 4th recession gen now…), so it makes me laugh when we’re told to ‘tighten our belts’ a bit more. Christ, I already feel like I’m trying to get into those 28” waist ‘drain pipes’ I thought looked good back in 2008. Next year I’ll me trying to wear my one year olds pants at this rate. My point here is, when did ‘making ends meet’ become a luxury?
It seems it’s expected more and more that the little man can be squeezed again and again making the poor poorer and the rich richer, because if I’m being squeezed, someone else somewhere is getting bloated. This, like most issues in the world is of course a man-made problem. Wars, inflation, recessions, stock-market crashes, atomic bombs, genocide, racism, violence, drug abuse, pandemics…you name it, there’s an arsehole(s) walking this planet (or “pushing daisies up”, to quote my father) who started it. The Earth doesn’t stand there metering the extracted oil, invoicing Oil Tycoons. The Earth didn’t wake up one day and decide that Ukraine had to be invaded. The Earth didn’t decide to create segregation between its population because of ethnicity…no, this was all created by us…mankind and “mankind is an arsehole”, again to quote my Father; But I digress. My point being, inflation goes up, because the supply chain increases relatively and somewhere at the end of that chain is an arsehole either having one last payday, or having a pissing contest with his rivals.
Now being the offspring of a Financial Planning Manager, I was careful when we took on our mortgage. I was informed by our Broker that we could’ve got a bigger mortgage but the little voice in my head (my Father) told me this would not be wise and we took a mortgage well within our means with some future-proofing added in for child(ren) and to some extent the dog - he has a lovely bed under one of the Kitchen worktops when he’s not sprawled out on my side of the bed. It was also ‘agreed’ for me to be the breadwinner while my Wife set-up her own business, which again was all factored into the financial plan. Now, three years later I find myself on the verge of checking shelf-edge labels in supermarkets, something I thought I’d never have to do again after those horrid times of being a student, walking the aisles of Tesco, calculator in one hand, adding up the prices to avoid embarrassment at the till and contemplating if it was more important to have 4 cans of Carling that week or steal toilet roll from work again to avoid buying my own (yes, you know you’ve done that).
This current predicament is likely more common than I’m aware of and I know other people must be going through the same thing but I also find that nobody likes to admit this, like it would be an admission of failure on our behalf. As if we should accept that paying a utility bill, which the majority of which is ‘fees’, is somehow justifiable. On that, when I contacted our supplier and was informed it was due to the gas rate and ‘carbon tax’, I found it comical that they word it, as if it’s my fault personally that my house still uses fossil fuels and that my car is petrol/gas powered. Believe me, if I could have an electric car, a roof loaded with solar panels and triple glazing, I would…but somebody (Mr Supply Chain) won’t let me get to a point where I can save money, even after I’ve switched my choice of coffee brands for a more ‘economical taste’ and decided those holey socks have another outing in them.
It makes me wonder some days where this will end. I’m still not convinced we ever came out of the recession, with mini-recession after mini-recession following and more and more people having to take on “side hustles”, to make ends meat - side note, the only ones being hustled are us for having to take on second jobs. I’m sure half the takeaway delivery drivers are probably accountants by day, pizza delivery driver in the evening, something I’ve considered myself, but working a job which far exceeds the contracted 40-hour work week, combined with a one year old, doesn’t leave you with too much energy or time come the end of the day or week. Plus due to the fact we can’t afford daycare, my Wife looks after our son during the day with me taking over in the evenings and weekends to allow her time to do her work. Also, I do prefer spending my ‘out of office’ time with my family and not lurking other people’s front porches delivering pizzas.
I should note this isn’t a new thing. I do recall a time when even someone as financially astute and diligent as my dad once did a stint as a taxi driver on Sundays. Financial Planning Manager during the week, chauffeur to football louts, drunken old boys and God Botherers on Sundays. That was a 12-hour day for him and occasionally he’d have to clean up vomit from those ‘Sunday Session’ morons. For a man with a decent enough paid job, with potential for bonuses and already working 60-hours a week - is it really not enough? I mean given we need to sleep, eat and commute and maybe see our families, do we still have to find pockets of time in our day to do another job?
Now I’m not too proud second jobs, which I’m deemed over-qualified for, in fact, I did do a job recently, in a local park dismantling some event equipment for minimum wage. It was a hard days graft and I definitely earned that money that day (I also made a mate and we often joke about that day now and the other randomers we met - “I’m going straight to my dealers after this is finished”, said one) and to be honest, I’d happily do those one-off jobs for a spot of extra money here and there but I don’t see why I currently feel the need to do it to make ends meet. It does seem more and more common though that everyone seems to have side gigs, which I always assumed was a fallback if they lost their main job (in some cases it is). However, more and more it seems that peoples main job is there to cover the cost of living and if they want anything beyond that then it’s on them to find a second job.
Now, as you’ll start to see, I’ll always try to provide a solution, despite how unrealistic or unlikely it is to come off, but this is my blog and this is my solution.
As with any household, it requires an income as there are outcomes; my income is X and my outgoings are Y and as long as X is greater than Y, then we don’t have a problem. My income could be $10 a year, as long as my outgoings are say $8 or $9 or even $10 on a bad day - it’s all relative!
Now I get everyone’s in the business of turning a profit but as a basic minimum requirement everyone (EVERYONE), needs to break-even. In such extreme cases, where inflation hits record highs, or a recession or pandemic occurs, there needs to be a fail-safe world order whereby nobody (other than the morons who created the problem) should be compromised and forced to go bankrupt or sell there houses or get second, third jobs to make-up for that pay reduction. What needs to happen is that everyone has to hold their price - NO INCREASE OR DECREASE. If rich oilman holds his price (I’m sure the Earth will hold theirs), then each man down the line can hold his, until it reaches little old me and my Utility bill remains the same. Now this obviously needs to happen with every single supply-chain in the World, across millions of companies across hundreds of Countries; many moving parts I agree but it can be done. Now this isn’t come Fight Club, let’s reset the debt plot or some promotion for Communism, it’s just enabling every person on the planet to have a chance at surviving.
Ultimately, it’s about everyone pulling in the same direction in times of extreme circumstances but we never do and never will because this is the nature of MANkind and with that I’m sure you’ve you’ve noticed I tend to reference the Worlds arseholes as Men…and I’ll tell you why in a future rant.
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