Food was more expensive then, but far plainer. You simply couldn't get a lot of fruit and vegetables for example, that you can get easily now. During the seventies in 1974, we had the three day week, so it depends when on the seventies. Watch if you can The Family set in 1974, the first reality show in the seventies following a working class family. He was a bus conductor or bus driver, she worked in a greengrocers. They had four children and lived in a three bedroom rented flat above the greengrocers. It is very accurate at showing how working class people lived. Younger people talking about their parents as adults always get the reality wrong. You are writing your novel during a time of social upheaval. Mid seventies is very different from early eighties. Thatcher was elected in 1979 and some areas of the country went downhill. So Leeds at this time had very high unemployment, lots of derelict and uncared for buildings and shops. It was what would be described as gritty but with a good punk and alternative scene. A family would be having a hard time, school roofs would have probably leaked, been sent home during winter because the boiler broke down. London had high unemployment with Brixton riots in 1981, but the city was beginning to boom, so some people had a lot of money. Renting somewhere was cheaper than now. Places like hackney for example were relatively cheap, but much grimmer and more dangerous. Although the middle class were buying houses and taking in lodgers to pay for the mortgage. But there was also much more street homelessness, because although rents were relatively cheap, they were still beyond the reach of some. Eighties was the pool tax that thatcher introduced. Read more about the times, otherwise it's going to be very inaccurate. And don't rely on people on Reddit as you will get some imagined utopia where everyone was buying a four bedroom house in central London on a bus drivers wage. People talk a lot of rot.

And you are right that although there was equal pay legislation, women, especially professionals, typically earned significantly less than men.

Also no childcare vouchers. So only the well off could afford childcare although there were a few charity run nurseries and after-school clubs about. You usually had to be deemed needy to get a place. It's why lots of women didn't work until their kids went to school, or only worked the hours a relative could look after them for free. By about eight kids from poorer working class families were latch key kids. Key tied around their neck on twine and they let themselves into an empty house. And all the old buildings were blackish with soot. This was before the big clean up of older public buildings.

Also in terms of food, certainly in the seventies nearly all working class families had dinner with a pile of bread buttered with Marge on the table. This was to fill you up, because food was expensive so portions were smaller.