The 'likes' above are the opposite of course!
I'm not that keen on the 'heating versus eating' meme being punted around by the press and the BBC etc., as I would hazard a guess that if one also considers the huge mobile phone, the Sky subsriptions, two cars per family, takeaway food etc., even fags., which are all looked on as 'necessities' by some, then it becomes a matter of priorities, of which cooking and eating at home should be up there with heating, as definite 'firsts'!
Sounds a bit post-WW2 I know, but millions of families certainly kept to all those principles then! They just had to!
Our electricity bill has gone through the roof, as have coal bills at around £150 per month now, so it's down to extra jerseys and big fat soups to equate the balance! The soup works out at around 50p per meal for two, (OK, yes we chuck in a lot of leeks from the garden), and surely nobody has to be a Delia Smith to make that!
Family pressures are such that all the 'extras' above are multiplied with so many more children coming along, and of course, they must come first, but there has to come a time when there's a realisation that we're all in this together! Had the covids not appeared, it would be a different story I suppose, but there'll always be another moan on the horizon!