Costs for UK families with two children rises by £400 a month
The cost of basic goods and services needed by the average two-child household in the UK has risen by £400 a month, according to an analysis that suggests families are experiencing faster inflation than official figures indicate.
Costs for families with two children have risen by an annual rate of 13%, according to the research from Loughborough University, faster than the 9% rate of inflation found in official statistics – itself a 40-year high.
UK households are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis, as prices rise significantly faster than wages, cutting spending power.
Energy price rises have been a particular driver, with the recovery from coronavirus lockdowns followed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine driving a global price surge. The UK wholesale natural gas futures price was £148 per therm on Friday, well over three times higher than a year before.
Food prices have also increased by 9.3% over the past year, while childcare costs are up 6.7%. The researchers found that families are spending about an extra £120 per month on energy, £90 more on transport including petrol, and £65 on childcare.
The figures form part of research on the minimum income standard (MIS), an ongoing programme to work out budgets for different household types to match people’s perceptions of a “minimum acceptable standard of living in the UK”. They are widely used by charities and government, and form part of the basis of calculations of a living wage.
Families are rationing showers to once a week, giving up milk in their tea and eating cold meals to avoid using the oven to keep costs down, said Peter Matejic, a deputy director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a charity that funds the MIS research.
“Rising prices are affecting all of us but for
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