{"id":430781,"date":"2026-01-26T12:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/430781\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T12:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:38:09","slug":"weve-had-to-cut-back-on-the-middle-class-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/430781\/","title":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve had to cut back on the middle-class spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

Antonia Medlicott with her family<\/p>\n

I was halfway through a humble chicken stew when it hit me. Not the thyme. The symbolism. The recipe was from Save with Jamie, cheap, filling and vaguely virtuous. And I realised we have quietly stopped cooking from Ottolenghi\u2019s Plenty altogether. Not because we\u2019ve fallen out with aubergines, but because a \u00a330 shop of interesting ingredients now feels like a decision that needs a board meeting.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just the cookbook. In our house subscriptions have been cancelled, we\u2019ve got rid of a car, the heating is turned down, and we do not \u201cpop to the shops\u201d for fun any more. Takeaways have become occasional. Meals out are planned well in advance. Spending has narrowed to what we need, not what we fancy.<\/p>\n

Do the kids notice? Probably not. They\u2019re happy enough with Jamie\u2019s chicken stew. But the point is, this is the opposite of lifestyle creep. It\u2019s a lifestyle retreat. And if our household is doing this, it\u2019s a fair bet we\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n

An awful lot of families are having the same conversation: \u201cWe\u2019re earning more on paper, so why does it feel like we\u2019re going backwards?\u201d<\/p>\n

The data backs up what many of us feel around the kitchen table. Barclays\u2019 consumer spending figures show that overall card spending fell 1.7 per cent in December compared with the same month in 2024, with discretionary spending particularly weak. Retailers have reported one of the most subdued Christmas trading periods in years, and profit warnings from mainstream names are increasingly framed around \u201ccautious consumers\u201d.<\/p>\n

That is not a nation splashing out. That is a nation bracing itself. Retailers are feeling it too. The business advisory firm BDO reported that high street discretionary sales in December were down 1.4 per cent on the previous December and the weakest monthly performance since November 2024. The British Retail Consortium, a trade body, described a drab Christmas, with total sales growth of 1.2 per cent, well below the previous year.<\/p>\n

So yes, it\u2019s showing up in the sales trackers and the profit warnings. But the bigger story is why it\u2019s happening. We\u2019ve heard the phrase \u201cfrozen thresholds\u201d on repeat, but it is one of those policies that quietly rewires household behaviour.<\/p>\n

When income tax thresholds are frozen, pay rises push more of your income into higher tax bands without parliament ever putting up the headline rate. It\u2019s stealthy, and it\u2019s effective. The official term is fiscal drag. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) has warned that freezes drag millions into paying higher rates. It forecasts that 5.2 million will be dragged into paying income tax, and 4.8 million more into paying the higher rate of income tax by 2030-31. <\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2018We don\u2019t want a pay rise\u2019 \u2014 the curse of the six-figure salary<\/a><\/p>\n

And once a household tips from \u201ccomfortable\u201d to \u201ccautious\u201d, it tends to pare back spending in just the areas that the economy needs \u2014 discretionary goods and services. Eating out, clothing, days out, home improvements: the little luxuries that keep thousands of small businesses alive.<\/p>\n

Consumer spending is the engine room of the UK economy. Household spending is about 60 per cent of GDP. So when households collectively decide to retreat into Save with Jamie mode, the economy doesn\u2019t just slow a bit. It changes shape.<\/p>\n

\"Jamie<\/p>\n

Jamie Oliver\u2019s Save with Jamie recipes can help to keep costs down<\/p>\n

Your cancelled subscription is someone else\u2019s revenue line. Your decision not to replace the sofa is a retailer\u2019s weak quarter, then a supplier\u2019s reduced orders, then fewer shifts in a warehouse, then less overtime, then less money spent in the caf\u00e9 near the warehouse. This is how a rational household choice becomes a collective problem: it\u2019s the same action repeated across millions of kitchen tables.<\/p>\n

Britain already appears unusually cautious compared with other countries. It has been reported that since the pandemic, UK consumers have curtailed spending more than any other G7 nation, with real household spending barely rising overall, and falling per person. <\/p>\n

This feeds back into public finances too. When spending slows, VAT receipts are down. When retailers discount harder, margins shrink and profits fall, which hits corporation tax. When businesses stop hiring, income tax growth slows. Economists have a phrase for this: the paradox of thrift. This means that what is sensible for one household (cutting back, getting financially resilient) can be damaging when everyone does it at once, because it reduces demand across the economy.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The age of the rich retirement is over<\/a><\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t mean you should heroically buy a new sofa for the good of the nation. It means that policymakers need to understand what frozen thresholds and prolonged squeezes do to behaviour. They don\u2019t just raise money. They change how people live.<\/p>\n

When families discover that life functions perfectly well with fewer subscriptions, simpler meals and less shopping, it is hard to persuade them to return to old patterns. Austerity, when it is self-imposed, can become sticky. It\u2019s good for your long-term finances, but awkward for an economy built on you not doing that.<\/p>\n

As for our household, Save with Jamie is doing what it was designed to do: keeping the plates full, the budget intact, and the national mood captured in a single, humble stew. And if that stew is becoming a staple across the country, we should all be honest about what it means \u2014 not just for our grocery bill, but for the economy we all share.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Antonia Medlicott with her family I was halfway through a humble chicken stew when it hit me. Not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-430781","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}