Almost twenty years since the financial crash, each crisis has made life harder for nearly everyone

Ed Stubbs

In 2024, recognising that the spiralling cost of living was causing significant problems for individuals and families, poverty alleviation charity Splott Community Volunteers, reached out to their local authority to explore ways in which they could help their community, resulting in the delivery of a series of “Cooking on a Budget” and latterly “Shopping on a Budget” courses.

That they have proved hugely popular will not sound surprising because most people are cooking and shopping on a budget, certainly a tighter one than before the pandemic. With a significant hike in food prices and the UK is nearly 20 years into a living standards squeeze.

One beneficiary of the classes said: ‘It’s a valuable service, without it I wouldn’t have made new friends and know the local community. I feel less alone. When money is tight it has helped me with my weekly shop’.

By organising courses for the community and sharing advice and tips on how to save money, Splott Community Volunteers hope to make a positive difference to people’s finances and their wellbeing. That’s what “Cooking on a Budget” and “Shopping on a Budget” are about.

More than a hundred members of the Splott Community have benefitted over the last two years from advice on how to cook, and shop, to get the best out of a budget, and have been practically helped through distribution of air fryers and supermarket vouchers.

These courses are needed because food prices have gone through the roof. Conversations with service users and volunteers often turn to the specifics, the cost of everyday items like coffee, orange juice, oil, butter, and vegetables.

In the last five years, food prices have increased by almost 37%. Compare that to a 4.4% rise over the previous five-year period. This shocking statistic doesn’t even capture some of the steepest increases: for example, beef has gone up 24% in the last year alone, a senior leader in the housing sector recently said to me “mince used to be an affordable meal”.

‘Out of control’

Lynne Thomas, our Splott Community Volunteers’ Chief Executive, summed up the situation perfectly on her hyperlocal InkSplott page: “I’ve been thinking for a while now that prices are out of control, but I genuinely nearly fell down when I saw the price of coffee in the local shop last week (£7.50 for 200g, and that was the ‘on offer’ price! It’s usually £9!). Who on earth can spend £7.50 on a jar of coffee?”

This is not just an issue for the very poorest or those on fixed incomes. Very few households across the UK have escaped a significant dent in their living standards. If you want to understand why there is such malaise these days, you don’t have to look far beyond these price statistics and the rising cost of other essentials like housing and energy.

Almost twenty years since the financial crash, each crisis has made life harder for nearly everyone, and many who never imagined it possible are now on the brink of food poverty, or simply unable to maintain the standard of living they once had.

41% of people in work are financially insecure according to research written about in the guardian last year how many more are just above this line. It is difficult if not impossible to overstate the impact this squeeze in purchasing power has had on every aspect of our society – from mental health to culture and of course politics. This is not just an issue in the UK but across the world.

We often talk in the UK about the cost of interventions to help people who are struggling to buy the basics, whether that’s welfare, free school meals, or breakfasts.

We saw this debate play out when the two-child cap was lifted, taking 500,000 children out of poverty. Many rolled their eyes, as if lifting it was a failure to be tough enough and questioned whether the UK could afford it.

These critics often call themselves “economic realists”, accusing people like me of being soft-hearted. What they may not realise is that poverty comes with a price tag, and a huge bill for the government and the tax payer’.

Mental and physical health 

Living in a constant state of struggle has a massive impact on physical and mental health, leading to shorter life expectancy and significantly more medical and other state interventions. Healthy life expectancy measures health-related wellbeing and represents the average time an individual is expected to live in “very good” or “good” general health.

In Wales, women living in the most deprived areas have a healthy life expectancy of 53.3 years compared with 70.2 years for women in the least deprived areas.

Research by Trussell finds that public finances and the UK economy could benefit by up to £75 billion each year if people were protected from hunger and hardship. This staggering amount demonstrates the real cost of poverty.

We cannot solve these policy questions at Splott Community Volunteers, but we can continue to support our friends and neighbours in these difficult times, providing food where needed, as well as company.

As always I write this column in a personal capacity and not on behalf of Splott Community Volunteers.