Middle England is Becoming Poor

Something interesting is happening shopping-wise across middle-class Generation X (those in their 40s and 50s). Instead of graduating like their parents to shopping at The House of Bruar or OKA, they have discovered Vinted, TikTok Shop, Aldi and even Cash Converters as more economically useful ways of buying stuff. Some might call it a sign of the ongoing immiseration of the middle classes, others may welcome the middle-classes finally living sustainably like those with less money. Whatever reaction, Rach from Accounts will find growth even more elusive if the middle-aged middle classes are no longer choosing to buy – or are unable to buy – expensive or even moderately priced things. As Rachel Long has observed in the Washington Post, the US economy is ever more reliant on top – not middle-class – earners and it looks as if the same might be happening here.

The middle-aged Investor Relations researcher was wearing a beautiful pair of ecru palazzo trousers and a navy top with geometric crochet edging. She would have looked perfect on the Riviera. As it was, we were having dinner in a friend’s farmhouse kitchen. It was impossible not to say: “You look lovely.” When she unexpectedly replied: “It’s all Shein. Top to bottom £14.99,” the conversation was set for the rest of the evening.

This woman, who once shopped at Reiss and Whistles explained: “My daughter was buying bits and pieces from Shein and the TikTok shop so I thought I’d have a look – and wow! If I’d have bought this from the old boutique in town I would have spent over £300.” One by one all the women in their 40s and 50s began sharing things they were wearing that had been bought on Vinted or from charity shops. The men got involved and said, that’s all very well but they wouldn’t be buying any clothes from such places. One wife pointed out that the bottle green Massimo Dutti jacket her husband was wearing, she’d bought for £19.99 from Vinted. Another admitted her husband’s chinos were from Primark as were all of his holiday polo shirts. Someone had bought their son a GShock watch from Cash Converters (£48) to replace a lost one bought from a shop two years previously (£112). One woman trumped everyone else by saying she was eight months in to buying nothing new at all this year.

Incidentally, the ‘old boutique in town’ has been replaced with a charity shop.

Now I know this sounds like a disgustingly complacent slice of Middle England, discovering ‘cheap things’ – welcome to the real-world morons – but Britain’s growth relies in part on Middle England shopping. What if we won’t – or least not in the same way that we used to? The latest Consumer Prices Index rose by 3.1% in the 12 months to June 2025 – is it any wonder that 81% of Gen X have reduced spending?

All of us at dinner – boringly middle-aged, middle-class people trying to do the best for our children – have come under financial strain in the past few years. A dispiriting number of redundancies and mortgage increases (for us, £480 a month rise last summer) have forced wholesale changes in spending habits. And once changed, it’s difficult to return to the expensive arms of John Lewis, when a lovely burnished bronze lamp can be bought from Dunelm for £11.99. As a friend (53) explained: “When my husband was made redundant, I switched from Waitrose to Aldi. After six months, he’d got another job I returned to Waitrose, walked in feeling flush, saw that a punnet of blueberries cost £3.99 compared to Aldi’s £1.79 and walked straight back out again. I will never return to Waitrose (apart from for saffron).” (Don’t be mean about her, she was also working two jobs.)

None of this comes as a surprise to our children, the Gen Zers who are fully onboard with circular fashion (buying and selling on Vinted and Depop) and shopping at charity shops is de rigueur in a way it wasn’t when I was growing up in the late 80s early 90s. It’s estimated over 50% of Gen Zers shop regularly at charity shops; Mintel reports that 25% of the youngest Gen Zs are buying fewer fashion items overall, and growth in the clothing market is expected to remain flat for 2025 thanks to weak consumer confidence and unsurprising cost pressures.

If Gen X are losing the habit of spending significant money on things, and Gen Z is not adopting the habit at all, how will the economy grow?

Perhaps the Chancellor’s growth agenda will begin take effect and Generation X will remember the spending habits of the Boomers who seem to be the only ones now able to afford to shop and lunch in garden centres or John Lewis. Or perhaps this nation of shopkeepers will become an ultimately impoverished nation of jumble sale stall holders.