6.02 /// Six Pounds For A Latte? My Wallet Needs Oxygen...

A festive day out at a grand old house should feel simple: lights, stories, a bit of wonder. Instead, a £35 hour and a £6 machine-made latte opened a bigger conversation about value, habit, and where we draw the line. I share the joy of the visit, the sticker shock that followed, and the uneasy maths that now trails everyday treats—from parking to hot chocolate to the kind of concert tickets that used to be a splurge, not a mortgage payment.

We break down what “worth it” really means when wages and inflation run a tug of war. I unpack why a handcrafted drink feels different from a button-press, how hidden costs stack up quietly, and where consumer power actually lives. We talk about boycotting without bitterness, choosing quality over hype, and the small acts that nudge pricing back toward sanity. There’s a detour through Northern Ireland’s shop culture, where communities still reward service and fairness, and a reflection on how younger generations swap late nights for lattes and gym passes—same budget, new priorities.

If you’ve ever looked at a bill and thought, when did this become normal, you’re in the right place. Come for the Christmas charm, stay for the honest look at everyday spending, from £6 seasonal drinks to £250 stadium seats. I don’t claim to have the fix, but I do believe in voting with our feet, backing craft, and asking better questions about profit and price. Listen now, share your line in the sand, and help more people find the show—subscribe, leave a review, and tell a friend who loves a good value check.

Chapters

• 0:48 New Season, New Setup
• 2:33 Stately Home Christmas Visit
• 5:55 Sticker Shock And Parking Fees
• 10:05 Treats, Coffee Culture, And Value
• 15:30 Concert Prices And Consumer Power
• 19:20 Vote With Your Feet: Northern Ireland
• 24:10 Wages, Inflation, And Everyday Shops

Transcript

Stephen: 0:48

Thanks for joining us again on Infinite Throttle. Successful first episode, I feel. First time video in it with two cameras. So you've got you here and you here. Managed to actually edit that together and record it and put it out there in the same day. So I'm feeling quite proud of myself, you know. Um there's not many times I say that in my life, but I I feel quite proud. And I've also rectified the problem with not knowing when I started recording and how long I've been talking for because I got so used to using my mixed cast that um it just told me because it was in front of me and I didn't have to concentrate on looking at things. Um but yeah, so uh down down here, right down here, uh which you can't see, um I have like a little like kitchen timer so I can see how long I've been prattling for. So how long to keep you um entertained for, I suppose is the word. So yeah, I was just I was just um I was just thinking before I start recording, because I have loads of ideas going on my head and I rarely write anything down. Um and when I do I forget to look at it before I start recording, to be honest. So um really either way, it doesn't really help me because I'm I'm terribly disorganised. I'm like the most organised, disorganised person. Um which um I don't know if that's a thing with you, whether you whether you can be super super organised and then absolutely chaotic at all the times. Apparently it's a sign of creativity and genius, apparently. So I I'm gonna take that, I'm gonna say that I'm I'm um a a creative genius, um as obviously my podcast can can attest. Um yeah, so me and me and Sarah have been out today, and we we always have really good talks. One of the things I love about Sarah is the fact that um not just because I love her and she's fit, like you know, she's my wife, and I find her very attractive. Uh in the UK we we say the word fit as in like a it's a sexy term. Uh it's a very, very kid thing to say, really, like a very young person thing to say. Uh when you when you when you're a kid at school, you say, Oh, like that girl's fit. And um I like to refer to Sarah as that because like she makes me feel young, she makes me feel youthful, and um I think she's fit, she's sexy. Um and I know our brother listens to this, so I'm sorry, Michael. So um but yeah, and we have but what I love about her is that you know she she she treats me right and and you know respectful and we we we love each other immensely. But we have really good conversations, like silly conversations, but also kind of in-depth conversations. And uh there was a couple things today that we were talking about that kind of triggered stuff in my brain, and I think and I think I've spoken about this really before, in some sense. Um and I am rambling a bit to be honest, because I don't know what I'm talking about. But I said I was gonna let it be a bit more organic this season, and we'll see where it takes us. So we went to a um uh a a stately home. Uh so in the UK we have a lot of old buildings, stately homes, um, basically built by the aristocracy back in the day. Uh basically Downton Abbey. So imagine Downton Abbey. So anyone from another country, I'm sure you've seen Downton Abbey. Think of that programme, and that's the UK in a lot of parts, and a lot of them are open up to the public now. And we went there today because they had a bit of a Christmas exhibition on, so they'd basically used the old house and they'd taken some of the normal artefacts out, and they had replaced them with the Christmassy stuff, and it was a lovely day, it was a it was a lovely day. Um but it was expensive, it was expensive, and I think you know I I don't like to get too political on the on on the show, and I don't really like to talk too much about um politics and stuff like that. And I'm I'm gonna veer away from that as much as I can today. But crumbs, is it getting expensive to go out places? I mean it was it was a lovely experience, don't be wrong. Sarah loves Christmas, and I will do anything I can to make her happy. I will probably moan about it as well, uh, because have I said it was expensive? So basically what they've done is the place is called Tatten Hall, and um it's ran by the local council now. I think it's a national trust building, and they've kind of handed it over to the local council, local the local governance system, if you will, to kind of caretake for it. Not really sure, no, I don't really know the ins and outs of it. It used to be a national trust. Now, national trusts are basically like a charity who basically look after a lot of these stately homes like Downton and and and sites of interest and historical importance. Um they have some they have some ties to it still. I don't know the ins and outs of it. There was a guy in one of the rooms today basically saying, Oh, who owns the building? And this woman kept saying, No, it's Cheshire East Council. And then you go, who does the garden? Cheshire East Council. And then she literally said to him, like the whole place is is run by Cheshire East Council, they do this, this, this, this, and this. They went, Oh, do they even do this? And she was like, Yes, everything. And you must have asked her about six or seven times. She had the patience of a saying, to be fair. Um, but yeah, but that they turned like the base of the bottom floor of this old manor house. Uh each room was decorated to a different Christmas themed story. So there was like Charles Dickens, Scrooge, there was the Nutcracker, um, Snow Queen, there was lots of different ones. And it and it was lovely, it was really nice, and they actually put a lot of effort in. It was better than I expected it to be, but it was £15 a person. And start to finish, including walking from the car to the place, going to the toilet, queuing up for a while for a coffee we decided not to get because it was expensive from a coffee machine rather than a barista. Um, it was £15 a person. Now, I'm not sure that equates to in dollars, probably somewhere in the region of $12 or so, which you might think is reasonable, you know, they've gone to the effort of decorating the place. Um, but I thought that was quite expensive. I thought that was an expensive thing. Plus, it was a five at a park, it was five pounds a park. So we were in the place less than an hour, really, or just about an hour, and that includes getting from the car to the place, toilet stop, walking to the building. My wife's got lung issues, so she was on oxygen, so she were walking slow anyway. So I think if I'd have probably been on my own or um I'd have probably been more sprightly, let's say, because I'd have been wanting to just go in and probably go get a coffee. But we we we went in and uh yeah, in and out within an hour for £15 each, uh, plus five pounds a part, £35. Um don't get me wrong, I know the money goes to looking after the place, and it's a beautiful place, but like the cost of living is getting out of control. It's things like that that people can can control a little bit. I think there's there's there's no need to charge that much to make it accessible for people, especially when you've already paid five pounds a park. Um and I sound like I'm going on a bit of a rant, but a lot of things nowadays are I think excessively expensive. And it's I think it's getting out of hand. It's getting it's getting to the point I don't understand how how people can live. And I know there's been like a cost of living crisis, but I think that you it is getting to the point, even I I've I've been really lucky in my life. I I've worked hard for my role, but I've always had like a reasonably well-paid job. But I work hard for what I do, you know, I I I keep my nose clean, I I try to do my best at work, I don't uh shirk off, and I I I put 110% into to everything I do, and I I I I try. Um But crumbs, the the prices of things e is even affecting like like well-paid workers like myself, and I'm I'm I'm not even in the category of like we don't really have two incomes into our house really because Sarah she gets some benefits from the government but she doesn't have a full-time job, she works a few hours a week. Um so we don't really have two full wages in our house. Um so it's kind of a good thing that I'm on probably a little bit more than the average the average wage. Um and it just it just makes me wonder how people can cope because today was a lovely day out, but it we didn't spend anything over the odds. We were gonna have a coffee there, as I say, but then it was it was £5.45 I think it was for a for a hot chocolate. Um and I think you got cream and marshmallows for that, but it was out of a machine, so it was out of like just a push-button machine, um a fancy one, like it looked fancy. They had a they had a few of them. And I said to Sarah, I said, Oh, we I don't really want to pay like £10.90 for a thing a machine's made. I want if I if I was gonna pay £10.90, I'd want someone to actually handcraft it, you know, heat the milk up themselves, you know, you you're kind of paying for a service in that sense, uh, rather than someone just pressing a button and it going to a mug and then screwing some cream on. Uh I don't think there's any skill to that, the machine's doing it all. Um and there's probably a podcast in that in itself, machines taking over. AI. Um and I think I just thought to myself, like, it's so expensive. Well we did go and we did pay it. Obviously, we paid to go out today, and we did pay it. Um but it's one of them things like you can't boycott everything, can you? Like, I I I refuse to pay certain prices. Like I've not been not been to many concert that I've really wanted to see, because I think the price of concert tickets has gone really, really through the roof. Um like just recently, my friend asked me if I wanted to go see the Foo Fighters, uh, and all he could buy was certain tickets because he wanted to take his lad. Uh, and it was £250 a ticket, and he couldn't get hold of me because I was working and he he basically said, I've bought the tickets without you. I didn't think you'd want to pay this much money, and I was like, too bloody right, I don't want to pay that much money. Like, I love the Foo Fighters and I've seen them it's probably the second most band, if not joint first band that I've seen the most. Uh them a nine maiden, um, and but 250 quid. Come on, Dave. Do you know what I mean? And this is the this is the way things are going, and and I think the way, you know, I don't have all the answers, but I think that, you know, commerce and the way things are, and the way people spend the money as well, like, we don't really we as the consumers have that power. We we pay them prices because we think we can't afford it, or it's a treat. But then when you get into the sense that you may be buying a five pound coffee every single day, I know a couple of people that buy a couple of coffees at that price every single day, or close to every single day, and uh and I used to I used to regularly buy takeaway coffees, even though I had a coffee machine at home, and I didn't realise how much money I was spending. Uh and I was thinking, but that was my that was my little treat. Like I when I was on shift work, I was on like working three days a week on 12 hour shifts, uh, maybe doing a bit of overtime, and then maybe I have two or three coffees, and then maybe one on my day off, so maybe in the week I'd have four coffees, um, which is quite a lot from a especially when you have your own coffee machine at home. Um but it never really occurred to me that you know that was super expensive and that was it was a treat, but it wasn't almost a luxury treat. It was still within the means of buying something. Um a few quid for a coffee, that's not too bad. Um, but now like you go Starbucks, and I was I I bought uh an eggnogulate. I love the eggnog glades from some Starbucks. Uh I I probably shouldn't, I don't know why. I feel like it's not the manliest drink. Um but they I feel like they're just delicious. I can't drink a massive one now. I used in back in the day buy a big one. It's I think it's my age now, they kill me. So I buy a small one now. Uh but the small one I had, the small eggnog latte, was £6.10. £6.10. Uh the minimum wage in the UK at the moment is £12 something, I believe. I think. Uh so it's har it's half an hour's wage to buy one of them. And you may think, is is that is that right? Is is that acceptable? Is that in line with how wages have risen? Or are you know are these companies just putting the prices up in in line with wages? And they obviously are because as soon as you raise prices of people's minimum wage, businesses caught onto this and they close that gap. They think we can make a bit more money out of people. Uh and it's but it's a vicious circle, this, isn't it? It's just a vicious circle. So I don't know how to solve it. But people need to I was going back to my comment, it was people need to march and and and and consume with their feet. Um excuse me, I'm gonna have a drink because my my throat's getting um I've got I've got some Pepsi marks, funny enough. Um I've got this little lid on actually, I need to take off it. I bought some like savour lids for Sarah. She can never drink a full can of Pepsi, or any, or any can drink really, and I found them on uh I don't even get this lid off. I found them on uh Amazon and basically just like a silicon lid that go over over your can. Oh, that's a beautiful sound. Beautiful bit of uh cherry Pepsi Max. Yeah, they just go over your can basically so I'm not quite sure how to Alexa kind of chimed in. I don't know why, because you're a sponsor the word computer, so I don't know why she's uh chimed in there. Um yeah, so they just go they just go over your can basically so you can save your save your Pepsi or or any canned beverage without going flat. Anyway, I digress. Uh consumerism, there you see look. Me wanting uh sponsorship off Pepsi I do I do love it though. Um genuinely. It's the best, Michael. Um my brother-in-law have we have this thing about Pepsi and uh Diet Coke, well just Coke generally, not Diet Coke. I think he agrees with me that Diet Coke's a bit of crap. Um anyway, yeah. I think we we we should march uh away from these stores if they're not giving us good value. Um my mum lives in Northern Ireland and I'm half Irish and they're very much uh they still shop a lot inside shops in Northern Ireland. There there is an online thing that they obviously have Amazon and stuff, but they still are very much a we want to go into shops. And their their little towns and villages are still quite thriving, really, I would say. Uh I think more than more than especially my local area is. Uh, and they they have that in their tradition that they like to actually go in and see people, they like they're social, they like to go and talk to people in general. Uh, but they will they will vote with their feet in the sense of consumerism. So if they get bad service from somewhere or they get bad produce or they get bad service in a coffee shop or the coffee shop's gone too dear. Um and there's a lot of competition in Northern Ireland for coffee shops and cafes and bakeries and stuff like that, and they will just boycott places. And I'm not not that I'm saying that's right, but it kind of puts the fear into people and and and business owners to keep that ethos and and and want to be a good business and give your customers something. Uh now I don't mind paying for quality products. I'm not saying that I think everything should be cheap. But I think when you know you go into the supermarket now, and even me when I when I bought my own house, like I was on a drastically different wage, and it probably was in line with what I was on to what I am now. Um potentially. I think I think the I think the the the the consumer prices got up a lot more than wage prices. But I remember being able to go to the the low the local shop, which is normally dearer than a main supermarket because you're paying for the convenience, and you know, you'd be able to get like some chicken breasts and stuff for like $1.99, um and you'd be able to get uh like a four pints of milk for like a quid uh one pound uh for my American friends. Um and yeah, so you'd be able to get these things and and I think most of them things have doubled in price in in 20 years. And and you think to yourself, is is is that something that's good that it's doubled or maybe tripled? Is that something that's just just natural inflation? Um I don't know, I don't know. I don't I I don't think it's it's right, and maybe it's just that thing, because when I used to when I used to work with people uh in my previous jobs, they they used to tell me, and you people are current jobs well, they used to they they'd heart back and go, oh you know, when I was a lad, like I'd go out and get get drunk and get a takeaway on the way home, get some food on the way home, and get a taxi, and it only cost me £10. And you think, wow, that's that's crazy, that's that's that's mad. Even even for me as you know, as is growing up in the 90s and early 2000s going out and getting drunk, um it's crazy that I was like, ten pounds that's that's crazy. That's not a lot of money. But then you look when I was growing up, you could probably do the same for like 30 or 40 pounds, and you'd be you'd be very drunk, and you'd get a very nice takeaway, and you'd get a taxi, potentially their ambar, and you think actually that's it's like four times the amount of money for the same thing. And I would say probably nowadays, you're probably talking you're talk talking double that again, I would say at least, you know, to go out and get a takeaway. You're talking a takeaway is probably £10 in itself now, uh, depending on what you get. A taxi, you're talking £20, there and back, depending on the distance, maybe more £25. So you got £35 before you've even drank anything. And I would say you're gonna spend probably nowadays £60 quid to go out. So I would say you're talking anywhere upwards of like £80 to £100 now to go on a night out, like a proper night out that I used to do. So you're talking it's two or three times what I spent, and it just it mind boggles me really. And I maybe it's just me getting old. That's what I'm saying. Maybe it's me getting old, and all these prices that people are moaning about is just us getting older of our generation, and we're not really seeing that it is there is a problem. But I think there is a problem. I'm very very conflicted in this episode. I I think that generally um the governments and stuff need to act, you know, and you've got Trump putting tariffs on things and you know uh tmu coming in and undercutting people. Um I think I'll do an episode on Timu. I I I have ordered stuff off Timu and it is reasonably good to be fair. Um from what I've from what I've purchased at least anyway. But I just think that you know like when you when you look back on on old school items um compared to today, I certain things seem to have increased normally in certain things. Things don't and I don't know I don't I don't know where I sit with that to be honest. I all I know that it is when you go out and you buy stuff you think wow that's that's a lot of money. But you see the youngsters though, the youngsters just go out and spend it, they're just used to it now. They'll go out and spend their money and they don't think twice about buying a Starbucks or as or it doesn't appear to be. Um but I suppose that's in your psyche, isn't it? It's it becomes a part of who you are in your generation. So in my generation, when I was growing up, Starbucks and Costa weren't really a thing. There was local coffee chains and coffee shops, but they're more like cafes. Um so like a traditional cafe in the UK is somewhere that would sell like breakfasts, like a kind of like a diner kind of place, I would say. Um probably not as nice looking. Um, you know, very ho homely foods and soups and and and bacon rolls and and and all this sort of stuff, and they would serve tea and coffee, and it wasn't like barista style coffee, but then you'd get the odds you'd get the odd like little coffee shop that would sell like proper barista coffee. And it wasn't until like the advent of like Starbucks and that that became a thing for the for the new generation. And I used to kind of avoid Starbucks and Costro a lot of the time. I used to go to a little coff coffee shopping crew uh called Rimini's. Um it was like my cafe Novosa, if I was Frasier, it was my little haunt, and I spent a lot of money in there to be fair, because if I was on afternoons, I would go and have lunch there and have a coffee. But the people in there were so friendly, I got to know them, and it was just a lovely place to go. Um and maybe that's how the young people are now, they don't really go out drinking that much. That maybe that £100 that they would spend on alcohol, they then put into these other activities, such as going and have a Starbucks, and you know, joining the gym because they're very body conscious, and that that money's shifted, so even though I feel like some things are overly priced, they don't feel it because they've known never known any different for one thing, and their priorities are different. Um I've spoken to a few young people who had a few graduates and and and apprentices in work, and they very much aren't the generation of going out and getting drunk. Um which is fine, which is fine. Um probably because it's too expensive, and the nightclub scene isn't there as it was, and the pub scene in the UK isn't there what it was when I when I was at college and and uh in my in my early twenties, and uh I think I feel like that's kind of a shame because like you miss out on that experience, but every generation has their own experience, I suppose. Um and it's it's interesting to me. That whole that whole concept of like how time changes, how his generations shift, and and and like fads that happen odd and off, like the whole fad currently of six seven, no real idea what it means. I don't really care, let them have it. Who knows? Um but they've grown up in a complete digital era, which which I didn't. I I've adapted to digital, but um I was probably probably one of these, as they call uh is it a zennial generation X slash millennial, uh, because I was born in that little time frame. Um yeah, and that's probably how that's affected me, and that's probably how I see this probably consumer kind of world and the cost of living going up. Maybe that has affected me more because I've seen the this the the reasonable cost of living and I'm also living the the rise in the cost of living. Not that I agree with it, it's just how the world is, unfortunately. Um but yeah, I think I'll leave it there. That was a really ramble. That was a so I apologise, but yeah, I hope that you kind of got my flow of my thoughts and what I was actually trying to get at. Uh let me know what you think in the comments. Um do you think that you know there's a solution to the cost of living? Do you think the government should step in? Do you think they should tax bigger companies to, you know, to feed back into the system to make things better? Do you think they should be more stringent with the prices and the percentages of profits that companies are making nowadays? Um because I'm pretty sure when you charge £6 for a coffee, they're making quite a lot of money on that. Um yeah. Let me know what you think. Well, thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. If you're watching, you can watch me on YouTube now. So if you are listening, you can actually watch this episode on YouTube. Probably should have said that at the beginning. Uh anyway, take care of yourself, and remember, keep on traveling. Thanks for listening to Infinite Brattle with your host, Steven. Follow me on the social network at Infinite Brattle. And don't forget to subscribe. Thanks very much.