Like many mothers Jessica Keplinger, 38, is having to make changes because of the rising cost of living, changing her childcare arrangements, her car and her shopping habits.
Keplinger, from Kingston upon Thames, in southwest London, is thinking of getting an au pair to help look after her three-year-old son, Teddy, which will cost about £10,000 a year, rather than a full-time nanny, which is more like £40,000.
She and her husband, a hedge fund manager, are also planning to give up their Audi A3, which is mainly only used for the school run, and considering hiring a Tesla, which will cut costs and help the environment.
Other changes include ditching her £18 veg boxes and using Ocado and her local farmers’ market instead, ironing her own clothes and stopping regular takeaways from Hakkasan, the upmarket Cantonese restaurant.
“I would look at my bank balance and think, crikey, that’s a lot of money to be spending on frivolous things.”
The Keplingers moved home last summer to be nearer the German School, where Teddy is a pupil. It costs about £4,300 a term. Keplinger, an interior designer who is retraining to be a health coach, would like another child but is wondering if it is affordable.
“We have had to think twice about this. It is increasingly important that we prioritise what is really important,” she said. “Food costs are one of the biggest expenses. In Austria, where my husband is from, shopping in Aldi and Lidl is much more common, and is cheaper.”
They are cutting back on spending after paying huge sums to move from a three-bedroom flat in West Hampstead to a four-bedroom house with a garden and driveway.
Keplinger had planned a kitchen renovation and extension, but building material and labour costs have soared, meaning it is now going to be beyond their £100,000 budget.
One thing she is not cutting back on is her self-invested personal pension, which she holds through the wealth manager Interactive Investor. She said: “I have no workplace pension so it is important I keep this going.”
**‘We’ve overhauled our spending habits’**
Sarah Bryer, 40, and her husband, Lee, 37, are “super-planning” their meals and ditching expensive days out to create a savings buffer for their family.
While they used to shop for food in an ad-hoc manner and go out to eat — which Sarah said unnecessarily increased their food costs each week — they are saving leftovers, bulk-buying and doing online shops to cut their spending.
They are also reducing their meat consumption by having at least one veggie day a week, trying to buy reduced-price food and freezing extra meals. They expect the changes to save them at least £40 a week.
The rising cost of food and drink is one of the factors pushing up inflation. Last year the Food and Drink Federation warned that hospitality companies were seeing “terrifying” price rises in food and drink, and that this would have a knock-on effect on consumer prices.
In September food prices increased for the first time in six months and it is estimated that the cost of Christmas dinners rose 3.4 per cent.
The Bryers are swapping trips to the zoo or theme parks for cheaper activities such as swimming or baking at home and have curbed the amount they eat out. They estimate that this will save about £100 a month.
“It’s more of a ‘just in case’, but it’s good to know I can flex my thrift muscles when needed,” Sarah said. “We are very lucky in the life we have, but if I was in my twenties on a much lower income I would fear there would be fewer ways to cut back.”
The next step for the Bryers is to review their debt, make sure they get a good remortgage deal and discuss which subscriptions, such as Netflix and Spotify, they actually need.
**‘We are making going our for a meal a real treat, like it used to be years ago’**
Like any family with three older children, a large part of Mandy and Pete Dineley’s spending is on food and energy bills. Their children Elliot, 24, Lilianne, 22, and George, 16, still live at home, so there are often at least four people around the dinner table.
They have decided to make little changes to get their finances ship-shape for the impending rise in the cost of living. The first step is to shake up their food shopping habits, and that means changing the supermarket they use and planning meals better.
Then they will think about selling some unwanted stuff online and curbing the amount they spend on holidays. It’s nothing drastic, but just enough to make their finances more robust.
They will be switching to supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl, rather than Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, and hope to save up to £200 a month. They will leave the more expensive shops for treats once or twice a year.
The way they shop will change too. Rather than ad hoc trips, they will bulk-buy and make sure that they cook food that can be saved, frozen or eaten the next day.
“We are a family of five, sometimes more when the children’s partners are here to eat, so there are many hungry, big-eating adults to feed,” said Mandy, 57, who is a writer. “It is often hard to know who is eating with us, so we are trying to get into a pattern to make it more economical and organised.”
The Dineleys, from Fleet in Hampshire, are concerned about the rising cost of energy. Although they live in a seven-bedroom detached house, it is well made so the heating is effective, and they make use of a real fire in the living room. They are choosing to cut down other costs, such as food, rather than try to reduce their energy use.
Bills have soared because of the increase in the cost of wholesale gas. This is being passed on to consumers: the price cap — which limits how much energy firms can charge customers for gas and electricity — rose from £1,223 to £1,370 in October and is expected to rise to what works out as £2,000 for the average household in April.
The couple are also selling old furniture and musical equipment on eBay, and old clothes on local sale sites and companies such as Vinted. They will also save thousands of pounds a year by cutting their holidays from three to four trips abroad to one UK-based holiday each year.
Mandy said: “We also used to go out with the children and friends, say once a week pre-lockdown, but since the cost of living went up we have cut right back, and now we see going out for a meal as a real treat as it used to be years ago. Life can change in an instant. We need to protect what we have as much as we can for our future and our children’s.”
Is this fake, someone at the Sunday Times taking the piss, or are they trying to get these people lynched?
Here I am, having to do maths to see if I can afford to put the heating on.
Oh no! The poor dears are so hard-up they are having to lower themselves to an _au pair_. They must feel so much shame at the school gates, especially in last year’s A3.
Is there a GoFundMe to help this struggling pair? I am sure if we pull together we can help lift them out of the abject poverty they are sliding into.
Or maybe they could just get an attitude adjustment and realise how monumentally privileged they are and how far out of touch the are with the reality which is terrorising most of us.
I have zero sympathy or compassion for them.
Now that’s tired and unoriginal parody if I ever saw… my God, it’s real
Christ, next they’ll be telling us they had to put the deposit down on the cheaper Lamborghini.
There’s the other half of the country are “heat or eat”
Oh look at the metropolitan student elite of this sub looking down their noses at these struggling working class people just trying to do what’s best for their family.
Yeah I feel that, I have just had to weigh up if i can afford the full years car insurance so that I can get the cheaper price than paying installments. Turns out I can’t afford the £400 one off payment. We’re all in this together!
So, what we’re saying here is that even the well-off have been failed by the Conservative Party?
Where do they get their au pairs from now that immigration and work visas from the EU is all but impossible?
> Cost of living squeeze
> Swaps one luxury for another, saving most people’s entire annual salary
Is this article meant to elicit sympathy? Maybe I’m just too much of a peasant to understand the struggles of these poor poor rich people who are forced to take such drastic action as doing their own ironing, putting on hold spending £100,000 on a kitchen, and having to hire a commoner’s car like a Tesla. It sounds so much worse than the very real prospect millions of people face in having to choose between heating and eating.
I’ve swapped shopping at Lidl for raiding the bins behind Iceland. I’ve stopped using the bus and walk my 30 mile round trip to work instead. I don’t wash anymore and I save money on water. It’s just simple changes that can really help
13 comments
Like many mothers Jessica Keplinger, 38, is having to make changes because of the rising cost of living, changing her childcare arrangements, her car and her shopping habits.
Keplinger, from Kingston upon Thames, in southwest London, is thinking of getting an au pair to help look after her three-year-old son, Teddy, which will cost about £10,000 a year, rather than a full-time nanny, which is more like £40,000.
She and her husband, a hedge fund manager, are also planning to give up their Audi A3, which is mainly only used for the school run, and considering hiring a Tesla, which will cut costs and help the environment.
Other changes include ditching her £18 veg boxes and using Ocado and her local farmers’ market instead, ironing her own clothes and stopping regular takeaways from Hakkasan, the upmarket Cantonese restaurant.
“I would look at my bank balance and think, crikey, that’s a lot of money to be spending on frivolous things.”
The Keplingers moved home last summer to be nearer the German School, where Teddy is a pupil. It costs about £4,300 a term. Keplinger, an interior designer who is retraining to be a health coach, would like another child but is wondering if it is affordable.
“We have had to think twice about this. It is increasingly important that we prioritise what is really important,” she said. “Food costs are one of the biggest expenses. In Austria, where my husband is from, shopping in Aldi and Lidl is much more common, and is cheaper.”
They are cutting back on spending after paying huge sums to move from a three-bedroom flat in West Hampstead to a four-bedroom house with a garden and driveway.
Keplinger had planned a kitchen renovation and extension, but building material and labour costs have soared, meaning it is now going to be beyond their £100,000 budget.
One thing she is not cutting back on is her self-invested personal pension, which she holds through the wealth manager Interactive Investor. She said: “I have no workplace pension so it is important I keep this going.”
**‘We’ve overhauled our spending habits’**
Sarah Bryer, 40, and her husband, Lee, 37, are “super-planning” their meals and ditching expensive days out to create a savings buffer for their family.
While they used to shop for food in an ad-hoc manner and go out to eat — which Sarah said unnecessarily increased their food costs each week — they are saving leftovers, bulk-buying and doing online shops to cut their spending.
They are also reducing their meat consumption by having at least one veggie day a week, trying to buy reduced-price food and freezing extra meals. They expect the changes to save them at least £40 a week.
The rising cost of food and drink is one of the factors pushing up inflation. Last year the Food and Drink Federation warned that hospitality companies were seeing “terrifying” price rises in food and drink, and that this would have a knock-on effect on consumer prices.
In September food prices increased for the first time in six months and it is estimated that the cost of Christmas dinners rose 3.4 per cent.
The Bryers are swapping trips to the zoo or theme parks for cheaper activities such as swimming or baking at home and have curbed the amount they eat out. They estimate that this will save about £100 a month.
“It’s more of a ‘just in case’, but it’s good to know I can flex my thrift muscles when needed,” Sarah said. “We are very lucky in the life we have, but if I was in my twenties on a much lower income I would fear there would be fewer ways to cut back.”
The next step for the Bryers is to review their debt, make sure they get a good remortgage deal and discuss which subscriptions, such as Netflix and Spotify, they actually need.
**‘We are making going our for a meal a real treat, like it used to be years ago’**
Like any family with three older children, a large part of Mandy and Pete Dineley’s spending is on food and energy bills. Their children Elliot, 24, Lilianne, 22, and George, 16, still live at home, so there are often at least four people around the dinner table.
They have decided to make little changes to get their finances ship-shape for the impending rise in the cost of living. The first step is to shake up their food shopping habits, and that means changing the supermarket they use and planning meals better.
Then they will think about selling some unwanted stuff online and curbing the amount they spend on holidays. It’s nothing drastic, but just enough to make their finances more robust.
They will be switching to supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl, rather than Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, and hope to save up to £200 a month. They will leave the more expensive shops for treats once or twice a year.
The way they shop will change too. Rather than ad hoc trips, they will bulk-buy and make sure that they cook food that can be saved, frozen or eaten the next day.
“We are a family of five, sometimes more when the children’s partners are here to eat, so there are many hungry, big-eating adults to feed,” said Mandy, 57, who is a writer. “It is often hard to know who is eating with us, so we are trying to get into a pattern to make it more economical and organised.”
The Dineleys, from Fleet in Hampshire, are concerned about the rising cost of energy. Although they live in a seven-bedroom detached house, it is well made so the heating is effective, and they make use of a real fire in the living room. They are choosing to cut down other costs, such as food, rather than try to reduce their energy use.
Bills have soared because of the increase in the cost of wholesale gas. This is being passed on to consumers: the price cap — which limits how much energy firms can charge customers for gas and electricity — rose from £1,223 to £1,370 in October and is expected to rise to what works out as £2,000 for the average household in April.
The couple are also selling old furniture and musical equipment on eBay, and old clothes on local sale sites and companies such as Vinted. They will also save thousands of pounds a year by cutting their holidays from three to four trips abroad to one UK-based holiday each year.
Mandy said: “We also used to go out with the children and friends, say once a week pre-lockdown, but since the cost of living went up we have cut right back, and now we see going out for a meal as a real treat as it used to be years ago. Life can change in an instant. We need to protect what we have as much as we can for our future and our children’s.”
Is this fake, someone at the Sunday Times taking the piss, or are they trying to get these people lynched?
Here I am, having to do maths to see if I can afford to put the heating on.
Oh no! The poor dears are so hard-up they are having to lower themselves to an _au pair_. They must feel so much shame at the school gates, especially in last year’s A3.
Is there a GoFundMe to help this struggling pair? I am sure if we pull together we can help lift them out of the abject poverty they are sliding into.
Or maybe they could just get an attitude adjustment and realise how monumentally privileged they are and how far out of touch the are with the reality which is terrorising most of us.
I have zero sympathy or compassion for them.
Now that’s tired and unoriginal parody if I ever saw… my God, it’s real
Christ, next they’ll be telling us they had to put the deposit down on the cheaper Lamborghini.
There’s the other half of the country are “heat or eat”
Oh look at the metropolitan student elite of this sub looking down their noses at these struggling working class people just trying to do what’s best for their family.
Yeah I feel that, I have just had to weigh up if i can afford the full years car insurance so that I can get the cheaper price than paying installments. Turns out I can’t afford the £400 one off payment. We’re all in this together!
So, what we’re saying here is that even the well-off have been failed by the Conservative Party?
Where do they get their au pairs from now that immigration and work visas from the EU is all but impossible?
> Cost of living squeeze
> Swaps one luxury for another, saving most people’s entire annual salary
Is this article meant to elicit sympathy? Maybe I’m just too much of a peasant to understand the struggles of these poor poor rich people who are forced to take such drastic action as doing their own ironing, putting on hold spending £100,000 on a kitchen, and having to hire a commoner’s car like a Tesla. It sounds so much worse than the very real prospect millions of people face in having to choose between heating and eating.
I’ve swapped shopping at Lidl for raiding the bins behind Iceland. I’ve stopped using the bus and walk my 30 mile round trip to work instead. I don’t wash anymore and I save money on water. It’s just simple changes that can really help