Cost of living!

[Chillidoggy]

14 hours ago, C8RKH said:

In other good news, Tesco are doing their special green and yellow "Lotus" seats again...

Ta. Looks to be a nice colour combo, I’m having a pair of those.

[C8RKH]

2 hours ago, Chillidoggy said:

Ta. Looks to be a nice colour combo, I’m having a pair of those.

Yup. I got one last year, it's been great. You save a fortune as it is not "branded", they'd be £50-60 each if Lotus branded, but you'd also never get them as they'd be forever on back-order.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Just got my annual Anglian Water bill. It kind of goes under the radar because it’s a monthly direct debit and they only send it once a year and you have no opportunity to shop around.

Anyway, despite my total DD payments for the period being only £22 short of the total due, they are now going to increase my monthly DD from £70 to £91, so up 30%!

For reference the April 2024 price increases were bad enough:

Water used: up 8.2% per cubic metre

Sewerage: up 9.9% per cubic metre

Standing charge water: up 12.4% per day

Standing charge sewerage: up 6.5% per day

For comparison, today’s bill is 37% higher than 5 years ago. Next years bill is expected to be 14% higher still. UK inflation rate is now about 2%. Funny how the water companies continually claim poverty.

[Chillidoggy]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/07/09/thames-water-warns-it-will-run-out-of-cash-within-a-year-in/

The price of failure.

[Sparky]

Would it still run out of cash if it withheld dividends and bonuses?

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, Sparky said:

Would it still run out of cash if it withheld dividends and bonuses?

Unfortunately yes. Macquarie raped, pillaged and burned the house down when they owned Thames Water. It was obscene in my very humble opinion.

However, the previous CEO and Board should be holding their heads in shame too. A modern scandal that the UK Government, the Regulator, and the Board and it's NED's allowed to happen, and did not put the right strategies in place to encourage recovery, from.

[pete]

How much is the interest on 15billion debt

[C8RKH]

From what I can see, current yield on Thames water bonds is 7-17%, so that would be 1,050,000,000 to 2,550,000,000 GBP.  A lot of money.

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

23 hours ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Just got my annual Anglian Water bill. It kind of goes under the radar because it’s a monthly direct debit and they only send it once a year and you have no opportunity to shop around.

Anyway, despite my total DD payments for the period being only £22 short of the total due, they are now going to increase my monthly DD from £70 to £91, so up 30%!

For reference the April 2024 price increases were bad enough:

Water used: up 8.2% per cubic metre

Sewerage: up 9.9% per cubic metre

Standing charge water: up 12.4% per day

Standing charge sewerage: up 6.5% per day

For comparison, today’s bill is 37% higher than 5 years ago. Next years bill is expected to be 14% higher still. UK inflation rate is now about 2%. Funny how the water companies continually claim poverty.

Apparently average water bills could reach £535 by 2030. So how come last year I paid £935 and next year the bill will be about £1070? Am I paying for my next door neighbour as well?

[C8RKH]

58 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Am I paying for my next door neighbour as well?

That's why it is called the "average" bill price. You're obviously not "average".

So for £1.47 a day, the "average" household gets all the clean water they need to drink, bathe and cook with. Hell, they can even use some of the cleanest water on the planet to wash their cars, water their gardens, power wash their drives etc.  That doesn't seem so bad to me, especially when that also include taking away all their shite and pee too!

Even at £1070, that's still just £2.93 per day for all of that.

For comparison, let's look at the average price, in the UK, of:

one coffee is £3.40

one ltr bottle water is £1.15 (compared to 0.1 pence for tap water per litre). If you buy from a "convenience" store or station, services, etc then that rises to £1.50 per 500ml. 

one pint of beer is £5.17 (£6.57 in London)

one litre of fuel is £1.52

 

We can cry all we want, but in the UK, and the Western World in general, our clean drinking water and waste processing costs us peanuts. In many parts of the word, the lack of clean water, and waste processing, costs thousands of lives every day.

[Chillidoggy]

@C8RKH 

Bad news, it looks like your account has been hacked by the chairman of Thames Water.

[pete]

3 hours ago, C8RKH said:

From what I can see, current yield on Thames water bonds is 7-17%, so that would be 1,050,000,000 to 2,550,000,000 GBP.  A lot of money.

Is that accounted for in their 154 million profit🥴

[C8RKH]

1 minute ago, pete said:

Is that accounted for in their 154 million profit🥴

No. That yield will be paid BEFORE the profit figure is calculated. It's not great @pete as really I would add those "yields" to the dividends to show just how much the leeches have sucked out of Thames Water.

4 minutes ago, Chillidoggy said:

@C8RKH 

Bad news, it looks like your account has been hacked by the chairman of Thames Water.

Not at all. Those points are FACT based as opposed to lies, damned lies....

However, it does put it into context doesn't it?

Most people, especially on here would think nothing of buying one, two, even three coffees' a day. But they begrudge spending half the price of one coffee, or a third of the price of a pint of beer, for all the water they need and all their shite to bve tsken away. Just think about that.

I think it's time they stopped whinging, and realised how lucky they, and we, are.

But that does not mean that the inefficiency, the prolific waste, and the ongoing financial raping, is condoned by me.

[pete]

Not sustainable then

[LotuStuart]

Its not all bad though is it?

"Having just finished 2023 with 10 days in Cape Verde, thoughts turn to 2024. Already have a couple on the go: Off to Zimbabwe/Zambia for 10 days on the 10th Jan. Visiting some investments - a possible new one in Zambia and a current one in Zimbabwe. 2nd trip is in the planning stages for after Easter - a 10 day road trip in the Eastern USA visiting potential universities with my daughter. Looking to hire a Dodge Charger or similar."

[C8RKH]

Agreed @pete. So the financial raping needs to stop, but the buck for that surely stops with the Government, and its water regulator, OFWAT. Sadly, both have been inept and asleep at the wheel in my humble opinion.

[tim_marra]

OFWAT and the EA are toothless against the Utility companies.

[Chillidoggy]

Then what purpose do they serve?

[C8RKH]

They provide well paid jobs to people who would otherwise not survive in a real world, commercial, setting.

[Chillidoggy]

Ah, a government department. Where would we be without them, eh?

[C8RKH]

Looks like Labour are gearing up to carry on where they left off, by screwing people's pensions. The word is they are looking to move to make the state pension means tested. Remind me again what I paid in for for 42 years and counting...

[Barrykearley]

It was always coming @C8RKH. The system has always favoured those who don’t bother. With Labour in power this will only get worse.

 

[Frickin_idiot]

15 hours ago, C8RKH said:

Looks like Labour are gearing up to carry on where they left off, by screwing people's pensions. The word is they are looking to move to make the state pension means tested. Remind me again what I paid in for for 42 years and counting...

This is totally unfair but entirely inevitable. Those that have sponged from the state their entire existence will continue to receive pensions yet those who have made provision privately will be penalised. 

2 hours ago, Barrykearley said:

It was always coming @C8RKH. The system has always favoured those who don’t bother. With Labour in power this will only get worse.

 

Labour hasn’t been the party of “the workers” for some time. They are now the party of the shirkers.

[Chillidoggy]

And Labour’s class war - AKA the politics of envy - will continue to gather strength.

[pete]

No mention of child poverty here

"I grew up living in state housing and never once questioned my parents income, it was never a discussion.

We didn’t eat a lot of take away because it was considered a treat, not a food group.

We ate homemade meals consisting of meat, potatoes and vegetables - (which were not an optional choice). No vegetables, no sweets!!!

We grew up during a time when we mowed lawns, pulled weeds, babysat, washed the car, stacked firewood, hung the washing, helped neighbours with chores to be able to earn pocket money.

We by no means were given everything we wanted.

We went outside a lot to play, kick the footy, play cricket, hop scotch, ride bikes, run with friends, play hide and seek, climb trees, looked for frogs and tadpoles, or went swimming.

We rarely just sat inside.

Bottled water was unheard of.

If we had a coke, it was in a glass bottle and we didn’t break the bottle when finished.

We saved it and cashed it back in at the shops for a bag of lollies.

After school, we came home and did homework and chores, before going outside or having friends over.

We would ride our bikes for hours.

We had to tell our parents where we were going, who we were going with and be home when the street lights came on!

You LEARNED from your parents instead of disrespecting them and treating them as if they knew absolutely nothing.

What they said was LAW and you did not question it and you had better know it!

We watched what we said around our elders because we knew if we were rude or ill-mannered to any grown-up, we would get a real telling off, it wasn’t called abuse, it was called discipline!

We held doors, carried the shopping and gave up our seat for an older person without being asked.

You didn’t hear swear words on the radio in songs or TV.

“Please and Thank you”, were part of our daily vocabulary!

And we were never ever ever ever bored.