I almost can’t believe it, sitting here in my abundantly-provisioned London home in 2025, but my dad once told me that when he was a kid they’d sometimes run out of food.
There would be bread maybe, but little else. At least not for the children.
“Sometimes I’d have salt and pepper sandwiches,” my dad confided.
Was his story credible? Honestly I’ve no idea.
My dad is long gone and my grandmother rustled up those spartan provisions either during or right after World War 2. Rationing was still in effect, and my dad’s claim sounds both plausible and like the punchline to an old joke.
What I don’t doubt though was that life could be tough for them. The family lived in the poorer part of town and both parents did various physical jobs.
My dad and his sister grew up fine, but the risk of being spoiled never troubled them.
From salt and pepper to the spice of life
My dad was frugal all his life. My grandmother, too. When I think back to the money she’d share with us grandchildren while she wore the same clothes for a decade, my heart aches. Though I was oblivious to it at the time, of course.
Back in the late 1940s, my dad and my grandmother were going without. There were essentials that they should have had – but sometimes they didn’t have them.
By the 1990s though they were at most doing without.
Not that either seemed to mind.
My dad had a good job, and he’d got us into a semi-detached house in a fancier postcode.
My grandmother marvelled at it when she was brought over for dinner on Friday evenings – while cooing over the professional-looking Wendy Houses, trellises, and fences my dad crafted from discarded shipping pallets he’d scavenged from industrial estates.
For her part, I suspect saving versus spending brought my grandmother a lot of comfort, and perhaps a sense of agency. Not that she would have put it that way.
Going without versus doing without in 2025
People who’ve had no money don’t scoff at those who hold too much as if it’s magical.
Compared to having no money, it is.
But almost nobody who reads this blog will fit that description. I’d wager we’ll know very few people like it in our wider circles, too.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t some going without in Britain today. Of course there are.
But that hasn’t got much to do with the lives of you and me. Even when we think we’re making big sacrifices, we’re pretty much always doing without, not going without.
I’ll define going without as trying to live without the essentials most people take for granted.
In contrast, doing without means you’re missing something – again usually something most others have and value, sure – but not something essential.
Going without: the essentials of modern life
- Around 2,000 calories a day
- Fruit, vegetables, and a healthy protein
- Somewhere safe, warm, and dry to sleep in and store your things
- Sufficient clothes to look tidy in social situations
- A straightforward way to get to and from work
- Access to electricity, cooking, and washing facilities
- A mobile number and an Internet connection
- Either a smartphone or a computer
Doing without: stuff you can sacrifice but you don’t want to
- Your own transport
- Furniture that’s not secondhand or from IKEA
- Netflix, Disney, Spotify, games consoles, and other entertainment platforms
- Holidays, whether at home or abroad
- New clothes, unless bought from TK Maxx or similar
- Buying meals, whether eating out or takeaways
- A home occupied only by you and your immediate family
- Anything made by Apple
- Bitcoin (I’m joking! Mostly)
These lists are clearly not exhaustive. They’re just an attempt to divvy up the non-negotiables of modern life.
That won’t stop the disagreements, of course. Perhaps a few of you old-timers will still argue you don’t need a mobile phone or the Internet? (Really?)
On the other side, maybe you live far from public transport and you say your car is a must. You either can’t or won’t move somewhere more convenient.
But mostly these are edge cases. There’s a pretty clear distinction between needs and wants these days – yet conversations about living standards often talk as if there isn’t.
Your margin is their opportunity
A few days ago I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole and binged a certain kind of FIRE video1, though the speakers didn’t always use that lingo.
The algorithm sent me instance after instance of videos that followed the same template.
Essentially, a 50-something white- or grey-haired man with a working class accent, apparently single, said he’d had enough of the grind and so he was going to quit and move onto a boat / live in Spain / sell his house and rent a studio / travel the world / sleep in a van.
Their message wasn’t that they’d scrimped and saved and run the numbers and worked out they could retire.
It was that they knew they weren’t rich, as they put it – and that they knew they’d never be rich.
But they’d decided to anyway call time on trying to change things, and instead accepted their fate.
The videos often referred to comments on earlier videos that scolded them for not having sufficient money to retire. Mostly, such feedback seemed to ignore the retiree’s aspirations, and reflected instead the commenter’s own vision of a happy life.
Goodbye to all that
I’d link to a video but I don’t want to call out anyone in particular – I’m not criticising their decisions, but it could be perceived that way coming from a blog like Monevator.
The truth is I’ve no idea if their plans are right or wrong. But I understand their motivations.
I do think many of their critics in the comments were wrong though. They’d list things these people were giving up, which they deemed unacceptable. But it often wasn’t even clear the would-be quitter had those things to give up anyway. And they all admitted life would be spartan.
Would these underfunded escapees be going without? I don’t think so, based on the information they presented. At least not anytime soon.
They’d be doing without, certainly. And they were probably condemning themselves to a pretty tight old age.
But they seemed resigned to that fate anyway. Life was getting too expensive, work wasn’t worth it anymore, and they wanted to live differently while they could.
Most Monevator readers can empathise with that – even if we’d far rather get out with an arsenal of financial assets at our back.
You get what you pay for
I recently heard a property developer on a podcast recount some tough times on his journey to a ten-figure real estate portfolio.
He said that he and his wife would share a meal when they went to a restaurant. As in one would get the plate first and eat most of it, and then the other would mop up what was left.
It seems outlandish. Why not cook for two at home or at least go somewhere cheaper, rather than suffer through this baroque ritual?
But then I thought perhaps they truly loved fancy restaurants? Maybe it was motivating for them to eat out – to help them focus on what they’d once enjoyed and were striving to get back? Or maybe they just really missed the experience?
They could do without a full plate each, but maybe they could not go without eating out?
Another example – a friend of mine takes her dog to be professionally groomed every fortnight. My girlfriend – who hasn’t got a dog but wants one badly – guessed the treatment cost £25. I’d flukily estimated correctly that it cost £80 but I was still astonished.
It adds up to £2,000 a year. My friend is not Lord Sugar. It must be 5% of her post-tax pay.
Of course she says this grooming is essential, whereas I think it’s a luxury. We had dogs growing up and I can’t remember them even getting a bath. Maybe a hose if they splashed in the mud.
It’s 2025 though and dogs must be fluffy and allowed onto the furniture and even to sleep on the bed at night. My friend kisses hers on the snout. I hope it has a good dentist, too.
Some young people will tell you that their expensive gym membership is essential. I say get a £25 chin-up bar that fits over a doorframe. They say working out in public is for them what clubbing and partying was for my generation.
Talking about my generation, many consider a few bottles of good red wine a week a must. But the young adults I know barely drink, and almost none wine.
It’s all personal, then. Not a newsflash I know.
Your future self wants a word
My co-blogger The Accumulator covered this ground years ago, writing:
Regular reflection upon and discussion of our true values are necessary counter-measures to materialistic pressures. This strategy can make a big difference to your saving while maintaining your quality of life.
But first you have to work out the difference between what makes you happy, and what you’re told makes you happy.
TA wrote that in the midst of his journey to becoming financially independent. His thinking was all about doing without today in order to have more tomorrow.
That’s the usual way to think about doing without. But those guys on YouTube who are forsaking many of life’s luxuries remind us that there’s another way.
Which is to give up more tomorrow in order to live the way you want today.
In recent years the Retirement Living Standards Survey has emerged as a touchstone for understanding the level of income you’ll need to achieve different standards of living.
This year’s updated figures look like this:
Source: Pensions UK’s R.L.S. website
The figures look reasonable to me, yet they always cause controversy. Readers invariably debate this or that aspect of the spending as either too lavish or too stingy.
For instance here’s a single-person’s food budget – from Minimum to Moderate to Comfortable:
In a fanciful violation of the laws of physics, I can almost hear furious keyboards being bashed even before the results appear in the comments below.
What’s clear though is nobody is eating salt and pepper sarnies on these budgets.
With or without you
Rising markets have fattened our portfolios for a decade.
But inflation has put up the price of our appetites, too.
Work doesn’t pay like it did – frozen tax thresholds and a stagnant economy have seen to that – which makes pulling the ripcord ever more attractive even for those who maybe shouldn’t.
There’s never been more publicity about FIRE. Yet relatively few people have substantial savings or assets to put towards achieving it.
Given all this, it’s not surprising that if more people catch the getting-out bug, then it can only entail more frugality for them – either now or in the future, and probably both.
But I’m not convinced this needs to be a sob story.
My father and my grandmother went from what would now be seen as near-poverty conditions post-War to modest middle-class comfort by the early 1990s.
Yet the comfort of those decades would seem frugal by today’s standards.
Are people really being reckless if they choose to accept that previous level of lifestyle in exchange for more time and freedom in 2025?
I don’t think so.
By doing without – without having to go without – maybe more of us can find a compromise that works for us.
- Financial Independence Retire Early. [↩]
Interesting post. I’d sum up the choices those guys are having to make as This is what decline looks like.. Living standards are falling in the UK for people in the lower parts of the income bracket. Both due to the cost of essentials (housing, power) increasing faster than their wages, and the invisible problem of less of a supportive human network – people move more for work.
> doing without – without having to go without
It took me a while to parse what the difference was 😉 IMO you’re wrong. Living like your father or grandfather did is easier coming from more strapped times into better times as they did. It’s harder doing it coming down from better times. I left the middle class for three years to save enough to get out, no holidays and relatively frugal eating, and drinking homebrew FFS, never again. It was a worse experience than doing similar earlier in my working life when I had less but the direction of travel was up. I was an anomaly, everyone around was living well on their pay without saving hard, and it stuck out. Plus I was doing without, in your terminology, but it felt more like going without, because I had the recent comparison of more sunlit uplands.
I’d also counsel against some of the presumptions of locking in frugality, because as you get older you get less inclined to do some of the rufty-tufty stuff that saves money. I am fortunate enough to still be in decent health, but I am seeing that hit an increasing number of my peer group. Even for me, I used to chop my own firewood, I pay someone to do that and bring it in a tipper truck now. Our days of camping together are gone because Mrs Ermine sleeps more lightly nowadays. I am still happy to use the campervan on my tod, but as a couple we do AirBnB and eat out.
More people are opting out, it is true. You see more people living in vans – the diagnostic is the heat stove vent pipe. I guess in London you will be seeing more rough sleeping.
> a 50-something white- or grey-haired man with a working class accent, apparently single
There’s a hidden diagnostic in those videos. I put you in your 50s, is your hair white? I am a fair few years older, most of my hair is still its original colour. What you are seeing are the results of stress. Could be working like that, could be divorce, could be finding themselves on the scrapheap at 50, I was that guy, but had the grace of God to have enough resource and tail winds to fly the damaged craft to a safe landing. Not everybody gets those breaks.
I wish these guys well, but it will probably be a tough life as they get older.
I think I’m familiar with the YouTube channel you’re referring to. I watch it with a car crash rubber necking fascination. Fair play to them. Living in a camper van at 54 might seem ok but that’ll soon get old at 64 never mind 74.
Of course they’ll be looking to claim pension and income top ups from those who worked when they get there.
There’s a certain sadness about it that probably speaks to the current labour market and the fact that many over the age of 50 can’t find a role that brings satisfaction and a reasonable salary. The UK Govt of any colour think that they can tinker with pensions whilst not making commensurate changes to the labour market. The two are tied. When the French recently changed their pension law they made offsetting changes to their labour market.
It seems if you’re under 25 or over 50 in the UK you’re out of the employer Goldilocks zone.
Funnily enough one can go the opposite way and over save, ending up with more cashflow than one needs…….reminds me, must buy another toy to entertain me in my early retirement *sigh*
(but) Seriously, not everyone is wired the same way to be a serious saver/passive investor….are we like parents obsessing about the academic record of their children, and often the children end up doing ok anyway – despite their parents.
I’ve been pondering this with housing: could opt for more house and x more years of work, or go for something modest (or relocate) and be FI tomorrow
Great article, but I would argue that getting your dog groomed is more essential nowadays due to more designer breeds being commonplace now.
Traditional breeds such as labs, greyhounds, bulldogs, boxers etc don’t really need grooming due to their short hair (although benefit from getting their nails clipped and shed hair brushed out).
Crossbreeds such as cockapoos, golden doodles or cavachons absolutely need regular 6-8 weekly grooming or their wool coat ends up horribly matted causing them discomfort and even pain. In extreme cases their eyes can be matted shut, or their genitals matted to their legs.
I am a dog groomer and these breeds make up around 60% of my client base. They’re getting even more common.
Even collies and cocker spaniels can get matted and require professional grooming. I imagine there were a lot of neglected dogs that could have benefited from grooming before professional groomers were a thing.
If you are considering getting a dog and don’t fancy spending £45-100 every 2 months grooming it, please avoid anything with a wool coat! Get yourself a labrador instead!
“In general, survival is the only road to riches. Let me say that again: Survival is the only road to riches.” Peter L Bernstein, financial historian, economist, educator and populariser of the EMH.
Sometimes you have to go without to have the luxury of choosing subsequently to do without.
Throughout all but the most recent sliver of history, the great mass of humanity has had to go without. And even now, in a world that overall produces 50% more calories than needed, many have to go without due to wars and misgovernance.
As for the choice of doing without in the future to enjoy the present, rather than doing without now to enjoy the future, well you can’t live other peoples’ lives. As the Levellers put it, there’s only one way of life, and that’s your own. At the end of the day, you just gotta be grateful for what you’ve got and the experiences you’ve had.
Good article, it is astonishing how living standards have changed within the course of our lifetimes. I remember in primary school doing a survey of the school car park as a project, the teachers cars were all Ladas, Polski Fiats and similar. I live next to a primary school now and the car park is full of SUVs.
I was well into my 20s before I lived in centrally heated accommodation (except for the first year halls at uni – luxury…) As a child we went out for food maybe a few times a year, though we did always have a holiday, either camping or self-catering, and we always had a car because my dad needed one for work. And I would have said we had quite a middle class upbringing, though as I am reminded often in these pages, the term middle class appears to cover a lot of ground.
The RLS figures do always seem high to me, but maybe its good that way to encourage people to save? I know our figure for the last FY as a couple was £26k, of which £6k was holiday/ travel and £3k charity/gifts to family.
There’s an argument that the average American today is richer than Rockefeller in 1913 who was then the richest man in the world.
But expectations naturally shift over time. Air travel is a good example where people agonise about which class they travel in, seat pitch, window vs aisle etc when the real miracle is that you can travel at 550mph in an aluminium tube at 35,000ft.
If you’re grateful for that then you don’t care about the rest but it’s easy not to see it, like the fish asking what water is, or not realising that you’re licking the earth.
Limitations can also create abundance. Limitations in sport create games of infinite depth.
My point is whether something is lower or higher depends on where you choose to stand and that even then, aiming down can be a way of aiming up. That doing without doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re missing something but gaining something.
“To be given everything, give everything up” – Lao Tzu
Great article and great comments.
Surprised no one has mentioned the glaring error – did you mean Tesco rather than TK. max? Looking at their website:
“TK Maxx’s mission is to provide customers with a constantly changing selection of branded and designer merchandise at prices up to 60% less than the Recommended Retail Price (RRP)”
It’s clearly a luxury establishment – and is excellent for men’s Holidays shirts and everyday clothing. OR, possibly, I’m a cheapskate!
Having said that I have progressed to £10 wine
With the exception of our beds all our best furniture is second hand. We can remember where we got it too: this came from Aunt Betty, that came from our favourite scrapyard, while the other came from a university sale of surplus furniture, and our greatest favourite we bought from a young couple whose flat had been compulsory purchased by an arm of government. (Naturally it then stood unoccupied for a decade. The bastards!)
A couple of useful bookcases came from the kerb, having been put out for anyone or the rubbish men to collect.
We don’t have “Netflix, Disney, Spotify, games consoles, and other entertainment platforms” nor have I bought new clothes in years apart from knickers and socks. I’m losing weight so old clothes now fit me again.
With age come new expenditures: many jobs we used to do ourselves are now physically beyond us. We pay for help with cleaning and gardening, a handyman, a decorator, a window cleaner … I’ve done nothing to the car in years but happily we use a good garage though that business will become vulnerable if Weird Ed gets his way.
People you relied on retire or die: GP, dentist, vet, plumber, builder, electrician,… Just you wait, young man!
@ Larson
> the term middle class appears to cover a lot of ground.
I find the definition between middle class and upper class a bit meaningless. I have always considered myself middle class, but I can’t quite work out what would need to happen to mean that my children were upper class. Buy a castle, get made a Lord and have £100m worth of land perhaps. I’m not sure even then we would be an upper class family, just a middle class family faking it.
Not sure about the salt n pepper sandwiches, perhaps he was “middle class”. I certainly remember “bread n dripping”, where the fat from the Sunday joint, if you were lucky enough to have one, was collected, poured into a basin, where it semi hardened, (no fridges), with the jellified gravy underneath. This was spread on bread, with perhaps a sprinkling of salt. I know that some used to have sugar sandwiches too.
In most local “Caff’s”, around 10am, visiting trades would call in for “tea n two of dripping”.
It was deadly for the cardio system, but superior to the rock hard margarine that had to be put under the grill to soften it, sold by the Good Ole USA, but banned by the US FDA for home use. Oh, and buying half a cooked sheep’s head in Hoxton market for 10d / 4p.
There’s been no mention of the cost of “opting out”. Only yesterday a parliamentary group called for a strategy on pensioner poverty. One such policy asking for more benefit take up of all things. So it begs the question around incentives. If significant numbers of people are choosing to “do without” work or another large group choosing to not “do without” life’s luxuries or the inverse corollary to then “do without” adequate savings provision during their working lives, why should the tax payer then be asked to underwrite these life choices?
The state is creaking at the seams at it is. After a full working life, if people have decided purposefully not to provision for their later years, is it fair that that others should underwrite those choices and if so, where is the incentive for people to provision for themselves? The state pension, whilst not generous, through the NI link, seems to be the only state benefits that tries to incentivise self provision. It seems there are elected representatives working to even undermine that.
Do you not think alot of the issue is an unrealistic expectation of what lifestyle a certain level of wealth provides? I think social media plays a big part of this
I often chuckle at posts extolling the ‘millionaire lifestyle’ when in many parts of the south at least a millionaire lives in a modest semi.
People earning 100k plus have an expectation that they can afford the finer things :- private education for their kids top hotels and business class flights.
The reality is you either need wealth (not income) to afford those things and alot more of it than you think
Perception plays a big part of this and I did read an interesting post the other day that said that how much you have in comparison to your social group matters far more in your perception of how well off you are than the actual number itself.
I see this in myself living in a modest 4 bed 1 bathroom semi in reading . Our friends are generally less wealthy than us and always comment on how nice our house is . By contrast my father comes to visit and comments that as my child gets older we’ll ‘need’ a larger house with a second bathroom for our family of 3!
I know my dad thinks I’m bonkers that we haven’t moved somewhere nicer with our net worth but to me at my level you can either have a nice house or more liquid wealth to spend and invest and I choose the latter
There was plenty of going without in my upbringing as both parents were unemployed for a long spell in the last half of my childhood. It was pretty desperate at times, despite their best efforts. Must have cast a long shadow as finally, as although I was essentially FI a decade ago, I no longer think about every penny or even pound when shopping, or spend time waiting for the bargains to be put out at the reduced section.
There is probably still too much in the doing without category, but also plenty of luxuries too. I don’t see the point in scrimping on a computer, for example. Sure I could do my most of my work and play on a 5 year old and secondhand chromebook or 10 year old PC, but I choose an M4 Macbook Air. Unlike all of my friends, I still fix my own bike – but I’m increasingly aware of the opportunity cost of bodging stuff with unsuitable parts from my parts bin rather than simply buying new good ones. I fix fewer inner tubes these days, for example – partly because the missus uses them to tie up plants in the garden.
I don’t overly object to the distinction between “go without” and “do without” although I’d question whether those in the lower tiers of go without are really getting veg & the right protein or not running up debt to bridge the gap and capture some of the things they could do without.
I have sometimes at my most stressed/unhappy at work reflected on could I walk away now and the answer regardless of my progress to FI was usually yes – I could find contentment in things that didn’t cost much if anything at all. So I can see the Van man attraction – reality is those guys will pivot into something whether it’s monetising socials, handiwork, some form of crafts or casual labour that becomes semi permanent.
There’s many ways to live a life and at the end we’re all weak and powerless just the same. That said I’m next month splashing out on a fairly costly holiday (for me) – while still trying to be sensible on the things that seem somewhat egregiously priced.
@Fatbritabroad – the recent Meaningful Money podcast with Dr Daniel Crosby covered exactly that social benchmarking point you refer to.
& yes while there still seems to be some (popular?) view that being a millionaire is still rich – if that’s in a SIPP it only translates to a SWR of £30-40k pa – maybe enough to get you somewhere comfortable-ish per the RLS tables but not exactly oysters and champagne every day. I’m wondering whether the real aspirational target for FIREers to be futureproof needs to be somewhat more of a stretch.
@Larsen
“ I remember in primary school doing a survey of the school car park as a project, the teachers cars were all Ladas, Polski Fiats and similar. I live next to a primary school now and the car park is full of SUVs.”
I’d hazard that the teachers owned the Ladas etc outright. Leasing is much more prevalent these days, and another great example of wants vs needs. I know plenty of people struggling each month but handing over hundreds to fund their new SUV.
@CF
Indeed there is all sorts of subscription/cashflow based lifestyle that provides no reliable indication of the absolute level of wealth of the person.
I do note however that some of the “that must be proper expensive” houses I pass often have something like a Corsa and an old Volvo in the driveway. I take that as an indicator that the house is largely bought and paid for possibly a long time ago. Late plate Range Rover and M Series not so much though clearly there are exceptions.
> Indeed there is all sorts of subscription/cashflow based lifestyle that provides no reliable indication of the absolute level of wealth of the person.
That’s one of the weird things these days. When I see subscription, I just switch off. No. Not doing that. f’ristance
> Netflix, Disney, Spotify, games consoles, and other entertainment platforms
Eh? Wassat? Let’s hear it from Thoreau – “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone” and this motley crew is summat I can do without. I’ll make the exception for Netflix with the cheesy garbage that is Emily In Paris, but now she’s had a kid by proxy, that’s probably ended.
> Furniture that’s not secondhand or from IKEA
Gulp. You London crew with all your airs. Our furniture is s/h or from IKEA. Because we don’t care enough. I could buy replacements from Harrods tomorrow but I don’t give a shit, so hell, no, I’m with dearieme 😉 I’ve probably got a better camera than you and a better hifi, though it’s ~30 years old, and I have more house, detached, because l’enfer c’est l’autres. But Homes and Gardens, pfft. Your coffee machine is far better than mine…
A friend of ours had to give up her middle class job in her 50s. Because: stress – it seemed to be hitting Mrs Ermine’s cohort that is about 10 years behind me. They bought a nice kitchen, and a bathroom. But she is now out of options, and has to wrangle the DHSS, or whatever it’s called now.
This is why you do without, to have options. I am not saying these friends did wrong, they have had health issues I didn’t have. But wrangling the DHSS does your nut in. This is why you have savings, to give chiselling shits like that the big eff off.
I made the elective option that I would not claim six months jobseeker’s allowance once I realised my career was lost. Because it’s a headfuck – the last time I troubled the benefits system was in Thatcher’s era. I have put money behind others to save them from that shit, 6 months JSA is only worth about £2k, and sometimes you need time. I’ve bought that time for people, because I have known the grace of God.
To fall back and fall back and drift until the engines restart. It’s worked three times now, once for me and twice for others, to get enough of your shit together to fight another day. I detest what we do to the unemployed, I do not have Vic Mackey #13’s purity of vision. I was that guy. I opted out. I have sometimes surprised business owners. I have capacity, I can still engineer solutions. But I choose not to, because freedom is more important than power.
A long time ago I was one of these not-quite 50 guys. And I put it all on red, I know the feeling. If I were ATC I would now clear my younger self to take off, not enough, the point of no return falls too short.
So yeah, I’m with these guys. I know what it’s like to feel that you gotta roll it.
Haha
> I would not clear my younger self to take off
is what I meant. But sod it. Nowadays I would say go young mustelid, hit it …
Those figures from the RLS are interesting – my partner and I spend £32k between us in total living in London, including rent. So almost halfway between minimum and moderate, and I already feel like I live a very comfortable lifestyle! We track essentials separately and we could live on minimum wage in London and still save money (not much) if we had to… although in that case we’d relocate.
Although we spend around £80 a week on groceries (s0 more than the comfortable category) but less than the minimum category on restaurants and takeaways. £55 a week on groceries would be quite a sparse diet.
I agree that videogames are a luxury, not an essential, but after living on minimum wage for 2 years after graduating university, there aren’t many hobbies that are cheaper (you can’t beat that Steam summer sale…). Videogames and a £20 a month PureGym membership were my only hobbies, I’ve still got the PC I built back in 2015 although it’s not the powerhouse it once was.
I have the opposite problem now – I’m trying to ‘do without’ less as my savings rate is creeping up to 60%.
I thought it interesting that your lists of essentials didn’t even consider the costs of healthcare. That stuff is very costly, but currently covered by the state in Great Britain.
Well, I’m with @Barney. My parents still talk about sending my Dad off to work on a salt n pepper sandwich – the dripping version was a special treat following the weekend roast! As kids we were regularly packed off to school with a lettuce & sugar sandwich – or even better – a golden syrup soaked one. Can you imagine the outcry today! But young me thought they were delicious .
Fwiw, whilst I get the difference you mean – I do think a lot of people seem to feel deprived very easily whilst others will be more than content with half of what they see others having. Personally, I rarely feel like I am going without but have and spend far less than any of the oft-quoted figures/lifestyles. I could afford it if I wanted it, I just don’t feel that urge that so many seem to. And perhaps that’s why? When you can have it, it loses it’s ‘temptingly out of reach’ allure??
Thanks for the article and, as ever, thoughtful comments.
I haven’t come across these ‘van men’ videos. But it reminds me of a fascination I have with the itinerant lifestyle of one of my mate’s dads.
About ten years ago, in his 60s, he sold his house on the south coast (he’s single now) and used the cash to drive around Europe. He used my mates’ address as his home address so every now and then my mate would a parking ticket from Bologna or something.
He had to go to ground and rent a flat during the lockdowns but is back at it again. Failing eyesight will put his touring days to bed soon. Not sure what he will do when he runs out of cash.
I’ve always thought it crazy but kind of admired his guts at the same time. My mate must have been annoyed that whenever I saw him one of my first questions was ‘how’s your dad?’!
I feel these 50 somethings are, in their own way, the mirror image of FIRE. As TI says, they are borrowing from tomorrow to fund today, the opposite of FIRE orthodoxy. At the same time, they have a radical, long term plan to get off the damn hamster wheel and are executing it. Good luck to ‘em.
Wow, what a deluge of excellent comments. Please do keep them coming!
Just on the beef dripping aspect — which a reader also mentioned on email — my understanding was that this was actually pretty fancy (fancier than salt and pepper sandwiches!) and in fact it was reserved for the man of the house, being my granddad, on account of his demanding work as hard labourer in the week.
On the other hand saturated fat was a magnet for my dad (unfortunately) so perhaps there was an extra dose of longing and envy in his recollections 😉
I think I know the youtuber you refer to, there are a few in similar vein but one seems to be promoted on a daily basis even though each episode is essentially the same.
Tbh the income spent living on a French caravan site seems higher than council tax and house maintenance fees, but I guess if you are not mortgage free by your mid 50s and don’t have much of a pension pot then you have to compromise somewhere to escape the rat race.
Who are we to judge though? I wouldn’t post negatively on the guy’s channel and he makes valid points about healthy life being finite.
If he has paid his 35 years NI then I won’t begrudge him using the NHS if he pops back to Britain, and drawing a state pension.
On a personal basis I am now into “just one more year” territory and certainly weighing up what I can do without to make FIRE stack up.
My Dad and Step-Dad-In-Law had condensed milk sandwiches. Don’t tell me these were upper class luxury? 😉
There is a scene in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk when jam sandwiches are handed out to the men rescued from the beach. Definitely seems like the 1940s Waitrose option in comparison to salt and pepper.
@ Vic Mackay – I guess the “opting out” you’re thinking of is not going to be much of a problem in the case of people who are prepared to gamble on a new life. How many people are we actually talking about? What percentage of them end up back in work some time later? Or pick up work along the way? Or just find a way to permanently live on less? What percentage would have dropped out of the workforce and ended up on sickness benefits if they just stayed in their current rut?
People have always rolled the dice this way. I don’t think it’s anything new. Although the blend of courage and desperation it takes is always remarkable.
TI’s description reminds me of the film Nomadland. It’s an amazing film.
Low Cholesterol is disastrous for human health outcomes (not high, as the MSM/State/NHS will have you believe).
And it’s extremely difficult to get to safe (high enough) levels without Saturated fat intake.
I think you’ll find it’s the increased seed/vegetable oil intake responsible for the ever increasing rate of cardiovascular/metabolic diseases.
Enjoy without guilt your Beef Dripping.
So this is the monty python “Four Yorkshiremen” post/comments section 🙂
Some points:
Just because the state pension is effectively paid by todays tax payers does not mean people don’t deserve it. It seems to be a running theme on this blog and comments recently that those claiming state pensions where it makes up a large proportion of their annual income, particularly if they chose not to be maximising their economic utility or even leaving the workforce, are somehow abusing the tax and pension system and bleeding the state dry. Sorry, the guy on minimum wage all his life who then gets close to 10k state pension (not even close to half the median salary) from age 67, is not responsible for the large cost of the pension system. The guy salary sacrificing so he gets full annual tax benefits every year, reaches the lifetime allowance and then strategically withdraws to minimise tax, AND claims the state pension he is perfectly entitled to – he is.
There is a serious point about these scenarios – van living, opting out of the rat race and selecting a minimalist life etc, and even the idea of “giving up” and just not caring where you end up – it all stems from structural inequality and systemic failures in government, and I am not even pointing at any party or any type of politics. I expect the state to look after its people, and personally believe in this day and age no-one should be rough sleeping (accepting that some homeless need medical/social/life intervention, and being homeless is just part of much wider problems), but it does raise the question of where does the state spend its resources? Sure, yes, state pensions, and they should be enought to reasonably “get by” on, other pension relief – nope, not necessarily needed, do your own thing if you want more in retirement. On the other hand, the idea of “get by” needs defined, and in reality, everyone – whether rich or poor should expect the state to only provide what is genuinely needed, which means living on way below what the figures shown in this post suggest.
Nobody likes to admit it but the state is far too generous in its spending in many areas but not even close to being generous/supportive enough where it matters (e.g. ermines point – getting ground down by the system to even be considered for some likely short term employment benefit). Similarly, we do have enough money to change course but it may indeed involve real hard decisions being made, not just spoken about. Arguably, governments have been doing this in some regards such as cutting foreign aid budgets – I am not saying this is right, but it is an example of putting your money into priorities, wherever you decide they are. Nuclear weapons? – we could abandon nuclear subs and save enough money to fund all sorts of things? – trump might be wrong about a lof of things too but if we are keeping our weapons, is europe/NATO taking the UKs nuclear capability and cover for granted and not paying its fair share meaning the UK state is providing nuclear capabilities whilst other countries get to spend the “saved” money on their own citizens? Alternatively, we could go full “madman” and abandon all conventional warfare expenditure and simply fund nuclear and say “we will nuke any country that attacks the UK”. Both extremes are silly, but the UK has money to save in many areas if it chooses to set priorities and remove funding from programs it does not support. It is a question of priorities and deploying resources accordingly. The family that grew up and worked in the UK for 20 years experiencing hard times should always be near the top of the priorities to get right.
I could not even consider voting leave in the brexit vote simply because I viewed it as being somewhat borderline racist and a vote on immigration etc. However, like the above points on choosing where to save money, I now can see and even understand WHY some previously extreme views are becoming almost accepted as reasonable views – when the state can barely cover its annual costs, should the UK be supporting people arriving from perfectly safe countries in the same way we support UK nationals?, or should we be housing them in secure minimal camps and rapidly processing them to determine what to do with them? I dont have answers but when people think their best choice is to give up and accept a poor existence, you can see why somewhat intolerant views emerge on people who are perceived to be “abusing” or depleting the funds of the system.
This post might be about a small but non-negligible minority of people sort of opting out of ‘normal’ standards of living, but the real questions of interest are the fundamental reasons why they feel they need to. The famous youtube folk are only a biased snapshot, and probably an unrepresentative one.
I am not going to give my yorkshireman poverty example to add to the mix, but I bring up this sketch because I guess most on this blog are more likely to end up like one of the four yorkshiremen instead of the very people this post is about. Not a criticism of anyone, but go rewatch that sketch on youtube if you have no idea of the reference.
“in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk when jam sandwiches are handed out to the men”
Do you know the old David Niven story?
“Sarn’t, are the men grumbling?”
“Aye, Sir, they say the bramble jam tastes of fish.”
Niven had just lashed out and bought his men some caviar.
#20 Ermine – struck a chord for me as an early 40’s type in the middle (I hope?!) phase of the FIRE “grind”. Especially the reference to kitchens and bathrooms.
I have personal experience of the friction between a spouse with clear interior design and home improvement plans and my own ability to see that those ideas could easily equate to a 5-10 year delay in reaching FI !
It also immediately brought a tune to mind – doubt the Genre suits the average Monevator reader but the lyrics might hit the mark: https://lyrics.lyricfind.com/lyrics/architects-even-if-you-win-youre-still-a-rat
@dearieme – I hadn’t heard that one 🙂 Also, can’t blame ’em. Caviar is rank.
I once met a design draughtsman who’d “had enough”, so he and his wife sold their house and bought a camper van from which he set up and sold his hobby, Watercolour Seascapes, on the south coast. The problem was, that it took him 3 weeks to replace each watercolour sold, so he switched to photography. He had a small lock up nearby, which he returned to each evening to print the replacements for those he’d sold that day. He’d also row 2/300 yds from the beach, and photograph the cliffs, giving his photos a clear scenic advantage.
In October they would pack up and drive to Portugal, staying at a campsite in the Monchique mountains, returning the following March or April for another season on the coast.
Sadly, his wife passed away, but he continued as they’d both done before. He told me that his BEP to pay for everything was £4k, and I guess that he had a pension to look forward to in due course.
Visiting that area, I looked out for him just before the Covid lockdown, but couldn’t locate him. Hopefully, he’s still about and I’ll make contact again.
That’s my idea of “getting out”, enjoy it while you can, as his wife unfortunately proved.
@Barney – that is moving. Hopefully you’ll find him again.
@TA, hopefully yes, I’ll look out for him again soon.
Although I had the wherewithal, I lacked the courage to do likewise, plus some commitments too, but as it’s often written, it’s better to do something and fail, than regret it later. To quote Omar, “the moving finger” etc.
Very enjoyable article.
You’ve reminded me of my Grandmother who lived on just a state pension in a council house (this was in the 60s ). She was amazing at money management and had a collection of tins where she put aside cash for each upcoming bill. They even ran a small second hand car. They never went on holidays but neither of my grandparents ever did.
I never saw them as poor or doing without. It just seemed normal. As a small child they always had a bit of money to give me treats. Although living in a village we were very aware of the rich people in their big farm or manor houses.
I dread to think what they’d make of my money management although some of it has probably come through to me.
I have a pretty clear idea of costs that are essential and discretionary, having had a couple of spells out of work. I find it reassuring to know how little we could live on if necessary.
Touch wood this won’t be necessary and the downside is that I risk of not spending enough.
@PC: Touch wood this won’t be necessary and the downside is that I risk of not spending enough.
And there’s the rub.
Following a house purchase admin error, we moved in with my widowed father for initially, three weeks. But it became apparent that although he was in excellent cognitive health, his laid-back outlook made him accident prone, as in balancing an old-fashioned grill tray on an upturned plate to raise it towards the flame, (because he’d removed the wire grill supporting his burgers), whilst underneath, was a hot chip pan bubbling away, as he sampled a glass of Chianti.
We stayed for six years, a move which I never regret for one minute.
As an old school upholsterer from the east end, he never made use of his exceptional skill, he was happy to “jog along” just getting by. After moving in, he was content to let me move his very small savings into the best paying accounts, 6.25% as I recall. However much I tried, I couldn’t get him to spend a penny on himself, so I made sure that he was the best dressed late octogenarian in the area.
I’m at that stage now, and seem to have inherited his lack of materialistic yearning. So, I’m wondering, is it me, or does everyone eventually acquire this attitude sooner or later, because it would make a big difference to what is deemed necessary to survive in your later years.
PS, after he joined my mother, I called the unnamed phone number in his diary to inform them, and discovered that the small “gifts”
that he occasionally brought home, came from a silver haired, well-preserved grannie. Jokingly, I remarked that she could have been my mum, “don’t think it was for want of trying” she replied. Still waters Eh!
@Random Coder #30
” The guy salary sacrificing so he gets full annual tax benefits every year, reaches the lifetime allowance and then strategically withdraws to minimise tax, AND claims the state pension he is perfectly entitled to – he is.”
Is this fair? I ask not just because I’m trying to be that guy. My philosophy is that the SP is an important part of my retirement strategy as it is the only “guaranteed” baseline income I will have and the thing that enables my SIPP ISA etc to be invested for rest of lifetime needs.
Could I live without it? Hopefully so.
Should I live without it? Not if we continue to have a national fiction that NI contributions buy you “entitement” rather than being just another tier of income tax. I’ll have more than paid for my meagre SP drawings in my working lifetime without it ever troubling the level of e.g. US social security income that I might be entitled to under their scheme.
Do I “need” it? I’d argue yes, if only for the peace of mind that it is one thing I can’t screw up by a sub-optimal decision or bad luck. Obviously I’m vulnerable to state capriciousness so it’s far from a perfect hedge but it ought to provide me with a few tins of beans before I shuffle down to the library each day to enjoy the central heating/air con.
@ Steve B
“I have personal experience of the friction between a spouse with clear interior design and home improvement plans and my own ability to see that those ideas could easily equate to a 5-10 year delay in reaching FI !”
I’ve often seen it reported in some of the more attitude coaching retirement studies that the best predictor of retirement financial security is alignment and common beliefs about money between spouses. I guess both understanding SWR type principles is part of that
: that £50k kitchen makeover is worth maybe £2k income to us forever except it’ll be old and tired in less than 20 years.
@BBBobbins Thanks for engaging in constructive discussion about this. Before I reply I should say I am much closer to the guy getting maximum tax benefits out of the pension system, than I am to the person who “needs” the state pension, so this is not about whether that approach is valid or even the system “working as intended” (as it is).
With the above out the way, yes, I am effectively suggesting a few things that require viewing the pension cost problem in the way all government expenditure should be. The state pension is also one of the rare state costs that has some degree of ‘earning’ it even if it is just through paltry levels of earning for 35 years – the idea of folk coming to abuse the state pension and such matters are largely nonexistent in the same way free NHS treatment can be.
The fact that there is no ‘fund’ is a complete distraction to the state pension cost and the future of it, there is no fund to pay for our future NHS treatment, or any other state benefit we take advantage of. It is a simple matter of do we, as a country think that those who work their whole lives here, then retire here, should be able to live at least a minimal existence (not yet defined) reasonably comfortably? Most reasonable people I would guess would say yes, so ignoring all the special cases and edge cases, I am content with the position that people who work their whole life here (35+ years) and retire at a normal retirement age (not yet defined), should be able to receive a state pension. A further matter is universal entitlement but lets just go with it – I actually think a universal entitlement for state pension is fine/desirable. I would go as far as saying looking after your own is a high priority of the government – and there is no racism or implied criticisms here by saying “your own”, basically I mean anyone who lives and works here enough to get a full state pension.
Now, what is a ‘fair’ state pension level? The truth is I don’t know, but not even being half the median income suggests as it is today is not ‘generous’. The argument seems to go back to the view that we can’t afford the triple lock. My view, the triple lock is another distraction and indeed it seems stupid to set an increment function that in the limit probably is going to lead to values that are not sensible (and high), so from a pure mathematical point of view (and being sensible), it needs reviewed, but not because the value today is too high or it is becoming too high anytime soon. Folk have already suggested good things on this blog, like tie it to increase in average earnings, I personally would say set it to x% of the median income once the ONS gets its act together and actually gets a fuller picture of income. Regardless, the summary of my position of the state pension is it probably is too low today (as a percentage of median income), but the triple lock probably can also be binned in favour of something that behaves well in the limit and is well understood. So, my point fundamentally is state pensions only are unaffordable if we view them through the narrow lense as many do today. There are other ways, and one that would hit me hard, and probably hit you and many other of this blog is to simply remove most of the pension breaks for the future – yep, I am saying that. Why? For one, the cost of giving a decent deserved state pension – I actually find it somewhat amusing the number of people who are happy to do away with the triple lock (because we “can’t afford it”) whilst the state pension is as low as it is, but are happy with taking all the other pension breaks that most people that we all depend on cannot take advantage of because of their income. Those teachers that teach your kids?, that midwife that delivered your baby?, that cleaner that cleaned your office? – they are no less deserving of a minimal decent retirement than you or me, and they will never be in a position to extract the maximum pension tax breaks from the system. So yes, I am suggesting that the ‘state pension affordability problem’ is really only a problem if your space of solutions involves nothing but tinkering with the structures already in place and not looking at what we are funding in the pension space and more generally. We also have not even considered, nor do we have time to, the survival distribution of those who have the greatest pension income vs those who do not (and most often do some of the most dangerous work), which would muddy the current situation considerably. However, even as someone who benefits greatly from the benefits of salary sacrifice, I understand that the pension system is basically an essential benefit that needs to be reasonable for everyone who lives and retires here, and it needs paid for – I am suggesting the tax breaks on pension contributions and such are one place to look.
Unlike many of the people you may know who request additional state support from the government, I should say I probably am just as sure that we need to cut from places (my whole priorities discussion previously). I could give many examples that would be bound to upset many people (so will try refrain) but the state does have some choices in what it funds and what it does not. Going back to my early point in my previous post, we need to select our priorities and fund them, that also means what we do NOT fund, and that means cutting all sorts of things that may not go down well to the specific individuals or groups that care about them greatly. Quite simply, as every party is pointing out, money is tight. Regarding the state pension – yeah, get rid of the triple lock if they want but tidy it up to something that people will support and can be justified, and fund the resulting decision by cutting the pension tax breaks elsewhere. Doing this might add a few years to my working life – fine.
I fully understand the whole tax/NI system is a mess and what I am suggesting is basically an additional tax on wealthy people (as they no longer can do easy maximal efficient extraction of totally untaxed and no NI payment pension contributions, in later life), but cleaning up the wider tax and NI system is a bigger problem. We need to accept the tax and welfare (and pensions) system for what it should be – almost like an insurance system and minimal living standards system, that is largely paid for by those who do not need it. It is priorities, a minimal decent existence for every retired person is near the top of my list.
I hope this reply has came across as reasonable.
Youtube has fed me the same gentleman/men and I watched the videos with complex and ambivalent feelings. It’s strange, comforting, and unnerving to see all the other posters here sharing the same feelings.
One of the feelings that wasn’t expressed by others was a sort of strange pride/guilt in realising the mountain I have climbed and the knowledge I have gained, and yet also appreciating the luck involved in getting to that point and a certain “there but for the grace of god”.
To one posters comment, these chaps have probably completed their 35 years of NI contributions and I don’t begrudge them a SP, especially when so many others contribute so little and receive the same benefit. I’m also nearing 35 years of NI, and looking back on it I feel like I’ve made my contribution to society and paid my dues. 35 years of work and taxes is a long time…
As ever, Ermine hits the mark with his comments.
I really like the line “Regular reflection upon and discussion of our true values are necessary counter-measures to materialistic pressures. This strategy can make a big difference to your saving while maintaining your quality of life.”
Perhaps asking what you would give up for a few more years of freedom, instead of work, is a pertinent question for many working longer than they’d hoped.