I have always known money does not grow on treese but I have been feeling quite significantly over the last few years that I have less money to spend on luxuries than ever before.

Do you feel like that too?

I have been reading this article Does Disposable Income Exist that is actually pretty scary. It explains how research has proven the at whilst wages have gone up so has inflation and energy bills. Our disposable income has not actually increased but rather it had decreased!

Disposable income has reached one of its lowest points in years

The Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Thee report I was reading states that

Since2007, the figure (for disposable income) has fallen from £17,300 in 2010 to £16,900 in 2013.

This doesn’t seem to have affected everyone equally:

What’s more is that the richest fifth of households have seen the greatest increase in disposable income, and yet the lowest fifth have seen the slowest, creating a much wider gap between the poorest and wealthiest fifth of Britain.

This is a real shame. Our country has always had disparity in distribution of wealth and it saddens me greatly to think this gulf is rising. However as we see the increase in food banks for example it is evident that times are very hard for the poorest in this country.

The richest tenth also now have 31% of total income whereas the poorest tenth have just over 1%,

It’s a sad state of affair s when standards of living are decreasing and the gap between the rich and poor gets wider.

What can we do

Now more than ever people need to understand good money management; cooking on a budget, avoiding waste, sharing skills, mending, reusing and recycling, keeping track of their money and saving for a rainy day. Children need to be educated into jobs, we need to encourage less materialism  and financial eduction young is a must.

We need to help each other..sharing what we have and what we know, lift sharing passing on clothes, books and toys, wisdom, advice and bargains.

We need to change our attitudes towards pre-loved items, staycation-ing and saying NO!  With all these factors in place we  would all have less debt and perhaps a bit more money left each month.

collaborative post