Cost of living!

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I’m not a regular supermarket shopper by any means, but I found this in our fridge and was shocked when I asked my wife how much it costs:

[C8RKH]

@LotusLeftLotusRight tell your wife to get to Aldi to get this, £2.19 and tastes identical to Lurpak. I  love it on a freshly toasted tea cake. Wonderful.

[Chillidoggy]

What's going on? No-one has mentioned beer, yet.

[Kimbers]

Well the wine we both absolutely love that used to be £14 is now £21.99

[Sparky]

BTW @Chillidoggy we're running dangerously low on Shiraz.  Just sayin'.

[Chillidoggy]

4 minutes ago, Sparky said:

BTW @Chillidoggy we're running dangerously low on Shiraz.  Just sayin'.

 

I called you this afternoon, you never answered the phone.

#justsayin'

[Sparky]

Too busy drinking wine.

[Chillidoggy]

#pisshead

[Kimbers]

I have had to bow to the pressure (on our bill paying account) and up the amount I pay in for the first time. I used to pay enough in to build a £200 a month comfort zone for a rainy day but sadly that has been used up AND I have had to increase my payment by £200 a month. So £400 a month worse off than a couple of years ago. 

We really need to look at our country and the taxes we pay. People say we pay our way with PAYE and National Insurance, which for me and many of you will be 40% + 11% so 51%. And that's fine, I am happy to contribute 50% of my wages to the economy (not really but hey ho).

However where our system needs to be looked at is the taxes on the taxes on the taxes. 

We pay another 20% on virtually everything we buy. Hell, if you want to keep warm you still have to pay the additional 5% tax on your fuel. We are taxed to register a car annually, which we bought with taxed money. We invest our taxed money and then get Taxed again on the interest. If you buy a house with your taxed money and sell it you pay Stamp Duty, another tax on already taxed income. 

Then we have the big ones. I consider Council tax a Tax on taxed income. Mine is already £3312 a year.

Then what about Taxes you have to pay? Insurance Premium Tax of 12% on your car, household etc insurance. You can't drive the car without insurance so surely thats just another Tax on already taxed income?

Arg, I'm depressed now. Gonna go buy something to make myself feel better. And pay more tax.

 

[Rambo]

You just need to buy more charity shop stuff and antiques and you won't need to pay any tax 👍

[exeterjeep]

27 minutes ago, Kimbers said:

And pay more tax.

And then finally IHT.

[phil flash]

31 minutes ago, exeterjeep said:

And then finally IHT.

Don't wort about IHT, you can't pay it as you have to be dead for it to be due - it's on your estate. 

Just make sure you spend everything above £375,000 before you kick the bucket.  If a house is involved that limit rises to £500,000.

IHT is 40% so just start spending to ensure none is due, just think "it's only costing 60% and the Taxman is paying the other 40%"  🤪

[Kimbers]

Yeah my Dads a SKI parent so I know how this works

Edited March 27, 2023 by Bibs

[exeterjeep]

I did the probate for my parents estate after my mum died almost 3 years ago, so as I did it myself without the hindrance of a solicitor I saved a sizeable sum.

My parents had put some money in a separate trust that was set aside to help pay IHT, but as the limits had increased - did not need to use it for that.

When some solicitors did my father in laws estate back in Hertfordshire  they made several cock ups and they paid 8k too much IHT due to their incompetence. (got back later) But it helped having a copy of all the IHT forms that they had done.

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, phil flash said:

Don't wort about IHT, you can't pay it as you have to be dead for it to be due - it's on your estate. 

Just make sure you spend everything above £375,000 before you kick the bucket.  If a house is involved that limit rises to £500,000.

IHT is 40% so just start spending to ensure none is due, just think "it's only costing 60% and the Taxman is paying the other 40%"  🤪

If your married your kids benefit from double the IHT limit as what rolled over from the first deceased is carried to the second, if you get my meaning (poor explanation, sorry).

The other thing to remember is that all your pension advice re what to do with it is usually aimed at protecting the pot from IHT (pensions are exempt) - fook that, I am spending my whole pot and the kids can split the house value and anything left. That's a damn sight more than I will have ever got and will be enough to pay off their mortgages and have a few great holidays. It's not my job to provide for them AFTER I have died!

[Kimbers]

Totally 100% agree with this. Wendy is so concerned at my due diligence in spending every penny before I croak that she has left provision for the kids in our will. I don't intend to have anything left and we had a mahooosive row over it and didn't speak for a whole week!

Edited March 27, 2023 by Bibs

[C8RKH]

Sounds like bliss (not speaking to the wife for a whole week that is!).

I can see both arguments and points of view. However, handing your kids a big wad of cash when you die is not the answer. You have one life. Live it.

Like you @Kimbers I have and will support my kids whilst I am working. We bought them both a car. They both got very healthy deposits for houses. We paid for everything for my daughter through Uni so she would not have any debt etc.  But I'll be buggered if I am not going to enjoy my retirement after working for it for some 45+ years.....

I've been telling the wife I'm buying a Ferrari for the past 8 months. She thinks it's a joke. But when I do it, eventually, and turn up with one, she won't be able to level at me that I did not tell her first!   It's a strategy that has worked with Two Evora's, a VX220 and a Merc E cabriolet. It's tried and tested hahahahaha

[Kimbers]

Get a new Emira and keep the other £150k!!

My intention, and like you Wendy thinks I'm joking, is to buy a place in Cyprus and spend 6 months a year out there (where it's substantially cheaper to live as well!). 

I will rent it out July Aug & Sept (when its too hot anyway) and even a 2 bed Apart is getting £450 a week. But the intention is just family and friends for about £250-300. That means they get a saving and the 3 months pays the utilities for the year!

[C8RKH]

It won't be a new one @Kimbers, I fancy a nice well sorted 328 GTS or a Dino GT4. Not looking for the fastest but the 328 has always been a looker and the the little Dino GT4 is a superb handling wee car, and, I actually quite like it's looks and both cars will be ideal for touring the UK with the mistress, I mean missus.  My Evora and VX220 will be just for fun.

[ChrisJ]

AIM shares are the way to go to minimize any IHT - after 2 years invested, they drop out completely. Almost, but not all, companies on the AIM market qualify.

[drdoom]

The 328 has always been simple eye candy, just a joy to regard. The 308GT4 on the other hand is nicely understated, with agreeable interior treatment and those aspects have grown on me over time.

We could launch an incendiary thread on the very legitimacy of the economic system as it stands, given the nastiness coming to bear on the yet-to-be-made worldwide. Yesterday caught news out of Portugal, of all places, where masses are in the streets over atrocious housing costs. Here in Van, many prefer to blame offshore investors ( read China there ) for stunning rise in these over the past decade but in my view it's quite simply the widely predicted outcome of prolonged absurdly low interest rates. Seems we teeter along the precipice from time to time over the course of history. I've viewed some of the critical junctures in Lotus' own history through a lens calibrated in terms of global economic policy upsets.

Cheers 

[Steve V8]

Ain't it great, a topic about the cost of this that and everything else finally gets back to what we love, cars.

308 GT4, just do it @C8RKH, I wish I'd have bought (invested) in one when they were readily available for less than 10k. 

Same with the 308/328 GTB's, my mid life crisis kicked in around 2012, I needed a Ferrari, but by the time I'd convinced the wife to let me buy one, they'd doubled in value, and I could no longer afford one.

Snooze you lose.

 

 

 

[C8RKH]

But then you do have a lovely Esprit to console yourself with @Steve V8. Top job.

An Esprit is half the price of a 328 of the same vintage so sorely tempting. The 308 GT4 is about 30% more than the Esprit  The car would be used for UK touring with the wife, so it's about the experience and not performance per se.

I love the looks of the 328 but the little GT4 has a charm all of its own.

[drdoom]

I recall the wheelbase is significantly longer on the GT4, and it rates as a better motorway car in the reviews.

As @Steve V8 observes we are discussing cost of living concerns coached in terms of Ferrari purchase options. Oh dear, our First World trials ! 😁

[MPx]

Sorry I'm completely blinkered on this - if you're going to have a Fezza it needs to be Pininfarina not Bertone...and Red/Crema (Yellow/Nero at a push).  Anything else is not the full monty....so stick to 308/328 GTB/S please!