Cost of living!

[Frickin_idiot]

14 hours ago, C8RKH said:

over the past 20 years how many councils have built themselves large, swanky, new offices in prime positions? At what cost and value are they building palaces for their many managers and directors?

The council for my area has always been Labour. They have presided over a mass exodus of businesses and capital. This area was a manufacturing powerhouse but all we have left is derelict buildings and a fabulous air conditioned council office.

12 hours ago, PaulCP said:

Let’s not forget the £m poured in to fund under performing final salary pension schemes every year and in one off top up's. This figure should be a mandatory declaration on the annual bluff that all councils provide to their CT payers.

No wonder council workers never want to leave their jobs, although looking at how many of them currently perform I doubt that they would last long in the outside world.

I did read somewhere that the final salary pension schemes cost us 25% of our council tax bill. Scandalous. There is a reason why private companies don’t offer these schemes so widely anymore

[Kimbers]

On 01/11/2023 at 16:13, PaulCP said:

You are 100% about holding councils and the public sector accountable for their decisions. 

Here's a classic Example. Gained by Tender, but despite every other computer system supplier telling them this system was not fit for purpose and their own tech guys saying it is the cheapest for a reason, they still went with it! Original Cost £9 million I think. So far spent £13 million and now needs another £4 million to work.

The funny thing is the tenders turned down were all good proven systems costing between £10-12 million.

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/23320599.norfolk-county-council-slammed-computer-system-millions/

Now been told the cost has to be added to Council Tax bills adding another £53 a household. 

[Chillidoggy]

It makes me wonder whether they have an in-house Procurement Department. I've had experience with these. They used the same tick-box metrics and measurements for the purchase of a building, or a tea cup, and without fail, they never sought views from those individuals who were going to have to use whatever it was they were purchasing, and always bought the cheapest old rubbish they could find that ticked all the boxes. One of these tick-box wonders was a software system. I'm not an IT specialist but it was utterly dreadful. They then expected the employees to get it to work, which it never did. This was a very large company, which demonstrates that the malaise isn't restricted to the public sector.

To be fair to the local councils, they're damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they buy a software product that is cheap but doesn't work, they get caned. And if they buy a more expensive package, they get caned when some council-monitoring zealot finds out they could have got a system much cheaper. Which they will round these parts, because there's a former councilor who seems to dedicate most of his time to just that kind of pursuit.

[Kimbers]

34 minutes ago, Chillidoggy said:

It makes me wonder whether they have an in-house Procurement Department. I've had experience with these.

Its not just computer system. In my previous life I won the Council tender for Hybrid vehicles (well before most companies jumped on the bandwagon). It was worth just over £1 million as a minimum. More if people signed up to them as company cars as the £1 mill was for pool cars.

Mr Smug here was the most expensive but only one other company put a tender in and they cocked it up so it was rejected!

Frankly, I was lucky to get it as I only found out about it the week before it was due. Have you seen the paperwork you have to do? Took me a week! And also the reason no other company could be bothered.

[Chillidoggy]

6 minutes ago, Kimbers said:

Its not just computer system. In my previous life I won the Council tender for Hybrid vehicles (well before most companies jumped on the bandwagon). It was worth just over £1 million as a minimum. More if people signed up to them as company cars as the £1 mill was for pool cars.

Mr Smug here was the most expensive but only one other company put a tender in and they cocked it up so it was rejected!

Frankly, I was lucky to get it as I only found out about it the week before it was due. Have you seen the paperwork you have to do? Took me a week! And also the reason no other company could be bothered.

 

Yes, I've seen a fair few tender documents. And a lot of the questions inside them don't relate to what they're purchasing!

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68353627
 

I switched from standard tariff with EDF to Ovo 1 year contract in early January, ending December 2024. I knew that the cap prices would fall from April, but I decided that it would be too late to wait until then considering how much more energy we use in January, February and March, compared to April onwards.

These are the unit prices I pay:

Electricity Ovo 25.81p. UK cap now 28.62p. UK cap from April 24p.

Standing charge Ovo 35.1p. UK cap from April 60p.

Gas Ovo 6.42p. UK cap now 7.42p. UK cap from April 6p.

Standing charge Ovo 14.83p. UK cap from April 31p.

 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Royal Mail at it again. 4 hefty stamp price increases in 2 years. They’d had numerous above inflation increases in the years prior to that anyway. Just like the railway companies. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68447820
 

[exeterjeep]

15 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Royal Mail

my special delivery letter to an office in Paddington, posted 30/10/2023 still has not got there.

A new local young lad postie keeps delivering some of our post to our neighbours or another house with the same name (different road and post code) about 1 mile away.

And they want to charge more!!!!!!!!!!!!

[C8RKH]

Your inconvenience means he gets his round done quicker so more time on social media.

[Kimbers]

Well I must admit a mix of increased cost of living, my wife retiring and all that tying in with a huge issue in our industry meaning someone like me, who gets paid on numbers bought and sold, losing 2/3 of my commission, which is 66% of my wages, means I have been struggling for the last 6 months. Added into that is my sons depression stopping him working so I am down on his contribution as well.

This has led to me using my savings and credit cards to pay the bills.

Looking at our industry I have at least another 6 months of this level of wages and My car insurance, RFL MOT and Service are all due.

So it looks like after years of soul searching about keeping the Evora, its gonna have to go on money grounds. I frankly just can't afford it. 

We are also looking at down sizing the house with the big garden to a smaller house which will enable us to pay off the mortgage as my fixed rate of 1.75% finishes in May 2025 and even with the best will in the world it will at least double.

It's not a bad thing. I have collections (Wendy says hoarding) coming out of my ears, from Lotus memorabilia, WW1 postcards, Star Wars books and Cards, WW2 memorabilia, antiques and collectable everywhere! 

May be time to thin things out a little!

[C8RKH]

I'd love to buy her back @Kimbers as I absolutely loved that daft little plastic shitbox of a car!   Timing just not right for me with the new business ventures.

However, @johnpwalsh, now may be your time lol? 

Keep your pecker up Tony. I'm confident as we go through 2024 things in general will pick up, they couldn't get worse and if they did it would likely be nuclear Armageddon so we'll all be dead anyway. Tell Wendy she needs to up her productivity and get more pictures out there sold!

 

 

 

[Kimbers]

Thanks Andy. her business is doing great but when she makes a profit she just reinvest's it in payment for new shows and stands (£1700 a time).

You can see some of my Unique Lotus items for sale now in the Lotus forums shop. To be honest I need an excuse to sell a few, I have so many!

[pete]

inflation rate is down again but doesnt look like the bank of england is going to lower bank rate as they say it is still above their 2% target, but is that really acheivable in todays economies. very few countries have a 2% or lower rate. seems to me it suits bankers to set a targetthat is too low so they can have an argument to keep bank rate high.

Now Rachel Reeves has started saying that a new govenment will inherit the worst economic crisis since WW2,economists dont seem to agree but sets the tone for what labour are goingto say when they win the next election

[C8RKH]

I take it that our Rachel has conveniently "forgotten" the legacy Labour left behind when their turn in power last came to an end:

Notorious letter - "good luck, the cupboards bare, we've spent it all" left on the Treasury desk

Sold off a huge chunk of our gold reserves at a huge loss

Unleashed the banks and freed them from financial strings, obligations and regulations, in an act that was a huge contributor to our financial meltdown in 2008

Fooked over every single private pension in the UK, costing trillions in lost pensions, whilst safeguarding public sector and MPs pensions from the same hit

I think she has some cheek with her comments, however, it is not to be unexpected that a newly incoming Government paints a grim picture so they can, in their first term, be seen as the heroes who delivered us from all evil so they can bask in the power and the glory.

 

I've been doing some reading up on our Rachel and actually, of all the potential cabinet members in Labour, she does actually seem to be the most impressive. She has a very good reputation with the bankers, financial institutions and the credible economists. I think her biggest challenge will be reigning in the rabid Raynor and a few of the lunatics that have escaped the asylum like Miliband.

[C8RKH]

This makes interesting reading for all those who complain that cost of living today is too high. If that is the case, why is our disposal income (adjusted for inflation) so high?  Could the issue be that people have just been spending too much, frivolously, on luxuries - cars, holidays, watches, designer clothes, etc etc?  Financially, the last 5 years have been my best ever, but I have sunk a huge amount of that extra money into pensions, ISA's and ensuring I have zero debt. I don't think I own anything from a "designer" label though. Choices, choices, choices....

The BBC's "factcheck" service has looked at Reeve's points - in short, she was lying, at best, just doing what politicians do and painting a picture...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68535073

[pete]

Trouble is her supporters and labour voters will believe her. And as soon as they get in it will be worse than they thought and a lot of their promises will be unaffordable. By the way I am not sure designer clothes come in xl. 😜😜

[C8RKH]

You mean 

[pete]

[MPx]

14 hours ago, pete said:

inflation rate is down again but doesnt look like the bank of england is going to lower bank rate as they say it is still above their 2% target, but is that really acheivable in todays economies. very few countries have a 2% or lower rate. seems to me it suits bankers to set a targetthat is too low so they can have an argument to keep bank rate high.

Interesting thoughts Pete but I see it differently.  From what I've read the expectation is that Inflation will actually dip below the 2% target over the next quarter before bobbing back up.  The worry for me is the Bank reacting too late.  There's always a lag - the witch doctor bit is knowing how long - between interest rate changes and anything at all noticeable happening in response.  If they keep rates too high for too long they kill growth and prosperity for no reason.  If they drop too soon inflation bites back before its beaten and we all get poorer again.  Its likely they'll be too conservative (delay reductions) because they're central bankers so it comes with the job but having been severely panned for taking too long to raise them after all the QE they may just get goaded into coming down too quickly. 

[C8RKH]

I think we need to be more realistic re interest rates. We had a run from aroun August 2008 to Sept 2022 were the BoE rate was consistently under 2%.

But, show me where that was the case in the 100 years before.

Realistically, the interest rate has been 4-6% apart from during the 80's when for a period it was 8-16%.

The fourteen years between 2008 and 2022 have conditioned us to believe interest rates at their historically lowest levels are the new norm. Why should we believe that?

[exeterjeep]

At least us older folks who are mortgage free and have savings etc are getting a better (but still not great) return on some investments. Does put my tax bill up though.

Can remember the higher rates in the past, so those who maxed out in recent times with a huge mortgage at a low APR, should have been mindful that rates would be likely to go up from the abnormally low figures.

[pete]

Yes historically interest rates have been higher but we didn't have banks making billions on the back of it, this is what has to change 

[C8RKH]

Yes we did. Banks made great profits in the past too, and made great profits from 2008 to 2022 when interest rates were low.

The billions are being made by the investment arms are they not, largely thanks to Labour removing many of the shackles up to the meltdown.

 

[red vtec]

I spoke to my wealth manager the other day. Inflation is predicted to keep coming down and interest rates are expected to level out at around 3% which would be more normal, thane what we have had, also said a Labour Government will make little difference. 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

23 minutes ago, red vtec said:

I spoke to my wealth manager the other day.

Is that your wife?