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Cost of Living


faraway saint

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We lived in the country. Ourselves and around 40 other homes were supplied by Calor Gas. Bills were as high 15 years ago as is being suggested now. Collectively , we said no and prices were cut by a huge percentage. On a large scale, what could energy companies do if we stopped paying? Take us all to court?

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3 hours ago, faraway saint said:

:snore

10%?

1,25% isn't 10%. 

Don't you support the NHS?

What is the tax increase for?

The original 1.25 percentage point increase in NI was supposed to raise £12bn a year. Increasing the point at which people start paying it, will cost more than half of this.

Initially, the extra money will go towards easing pressure on the NHS .

Gave up reading, usual Tory bashing. 

 

I can assure you my NI this year is much more than a 10% rise than last years I'm self employed  

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7 hours ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

I’m just Grumpy coz I’m gonna get stiffed again .

1. My N.I. Contributions will rise.

2. Yet again ,I’m getting stiffed for tax even more for having a company car & for driving a diesel !!

3. what’s the f**king point of PAYE if every year they tell me I’ve not paid enough tax and I start the year owing them ?

I thought the Tories were the party of low taxation ?

I've an idea, move to England, lower tax rate, you'll be rich.

The "extra" 1% we pay in Scotland is really making a difference. :wink:

Got to pay for them ferries somehow. 

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I can assure you my NI this year is much more than a 10% rise than last years I'm self employed  
You should sack yourself, you're costing too much.

Then take yourself to a tribunal for unfair dismissal, don't contest it, get awarded a fortune and retire - easy peasy.

[emoji2957]
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2 hours ago, faraway saint said:

I've an idea, move to England, lower tax rate, you'll be rich.

The "extra" 1% we pay in Scotland is really making a difference. :wink:

Got to pay for them ferries somehow. 

Yes , I could move down south and have :

Higher council tax

pay for prescriptions.

Increased dentist bills …. If you can find one .

Tuition fees I know how much our daughters College fees were down south .

I see how much both my kids pay for things like water bills down south (23% increase last year for my son.) 

Mind you , they’ve got to pay for that track and trace somehow 🙄    Could’ve built 20 ferries that don’t work for the cost of that, which didn’t work 🤔😉

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Slarti said:

You should sack yourself, you're costing too much.

Then take yourself to a tribunal for unfair dismissal, don't contest it, get awarded a fortune and retire - easy peasy.

emoji2957.png

Or he could rehire himself at a far lower wage, thus removing him from the increase altogether . Easy - P&Opeasy😉

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10 minutes ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

Yes , I could move down south and have :

Higher council tax

pay for prescriptions.

Increased dentist bills …. If you can find one .

Tuition fees I know how much our daughters College fees were down south .

I see how much both my kids pay for things like water bills down south (23% increase last year for my son.) 

Mind you , they’ve got to pay for that track and trace somehow 🙄    Could’ve built 20 ferries that don’t work for the cost of that, which didn’t work 🤔😉

 

 

 

Dentists you say?

Aye, it's easy to get one up here, oh wait. 🙄

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1 minute ago, faraway saint said:

Dentists you say?

Aye, it's easy to get one up here, oh wait. 🙄

A lot easier than down there. Both my son & daughter live down south so I do have some experience of their issues . For my part , since I moved back up to this area from Dumfries  , I’ve changed Dentist twice - once coz I didn’t like the Dentist and once when we moved house to Erskine , no problems at all.  

im not saying there aren’t issues up here but everything is relative. 
 

 

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11 minutes ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

A lot easier than down there. Both my son & daughter live down south so I do have some experience of their issues . For my part , since I moved back up to this area from Dumfries  , I’ve changed Dentist twice - once coz I didn’t like the Dentist and once when we moved house to Erskine , no problems at all.  

im not saying there aren’t issues up here but everything is relative. 
 

 

I've very recent experience, last Friday that is contrary to your experience.

Busy right now, long version to follow. 

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45 minutes ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

A lot easier than down there. Both my son & daughter live down south so I do have some experience of their issues . For my part , since I moved back up to this area from Dumfries  , I’ve changed Dentist twice - once coz I didn’t like the Dentist and once when we moved house to Erskine , no problems at all.  

im not saying there aren’t issues up here but everything is relative. 
 

 

Simply put….we now go private.

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2 hours ago, Callum Gilhooley said:

A lot easier than down there. Both my son & daughter live down south so I do have some experience of their issues . For my part , since I moved back up to this area from Dumfries  , I’ve changed Dentist twice - once coz I didn’t like the Dentist and once when we moved house to Erskine , no problems at all.  

im not saying there aren’t issues up here but everything is relative. 
 

 

Jings, the blawhard deceit of it!  :o
 

Aye…

It’s “no problems at all” for those of us blessed to be living in a closed community guided by decent, caring, neighbourly intellectuals such as those on the Stoneybridge council, especially the beloved Morag!

Count your blessings for your postcode bonanza….  :)

 

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13 hours ago, faraway saint said:

Aye, while you can use this method the reality means..............see below.

@stlucifer is only concerned with Boris bashing, anyone who didn't expect a rise after the cost of Covid is not in touch with reality and blaming the government is utterly ridiculous. 

image.thumb.png.a0e3714e91f99524e2007f378731b188.png

Would you honestly defend him with the decisions made? 

Yes Covid has hammered the country and the world but what has his decisions shown us? The UK as a (rich) country, is incapable of absorbing the impacts of the Covid pandemic without making significant, difficult decisions on taxation, support and spending. 

As pointed out, the Tory government have made a conscious decision to address this incapability by hitting the poorest in society instead of the wealthiest. Political views aside, it is massively unethical, inexcusable and extremely concerning on how unable the UK is to handle big impact economic events

The Covid pandemic has exposed weaknesses and strengths in many nations to handle harsh economic events. It is undeniable the UK is one of the nations in the "weaknesses" category. 

As for the NI increase, a 10%+ increase in national insurance is the most accurate. Claiming it is only a 1% increase is looking at the income impact, specifically on NI increase, it's the 10%+ figure. In other words, they have raised national insurance contribution by over 10% 

Edited by bazil85
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Would you honestly defend him with the decisions made? 
Yes Covid has hammered the country and the world but what has his decisions shown us? The UK as a (rich) country, is incapable of absorbing the impacts of the Covid pandemic without making significant, difficult decisions on taxation, support and spending. 
As pointed out, the Tory government have made a conscious decision to address this incapability by hitting the poorest in society instead of the wealthiest. Political views aside, it is massively unethical, inexcusable and extremely concerning on how unable the UK is to handle big impact economic events
The Covid pandemic has exposed weaknesses and strengths in many nations to handle harsh economic events. It is undeniable the UK is one of the nations in the "weaknesses" category. 
As for the NI increase, a 10%+ increase in national insurance is the most accurate. Claiming it is only a 1% increase is looking at the income impact, specifically on NI increase, it's the 10%+ figure. In other words, they have raised national insurance contribution by over 10% 
One saving grace... The furlough scheme did save a lot of jobs. Otherwise, aye.

Sent from my HD1913 using Tapatalk

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7 minutes ago, BuddieinEK said:

One saving grace... The furlough scheme did save a lot of jobs. Otherwise, aye.

Sent from my HD1913 using Tapatalk
 

Yep I agree on that. What I would say on job retention, I don't think there was another reasonable alternative & they binned/ tried to bin it as soon as they thought it reasonable for England (not the UK).

I think all developed nation did some form of furlough/ job protection (open to examples if not) and to my point, we are now seeing what nations were financially strong to absorb such an economic hit and which were weak. Like said, UK are definitely on the weak side. 

We certainly seem to be on the downward slope as a world super power country. 

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27 minutes ago, bazil85 said:

Yep I agree on that. What I would say on job retention, I don't think there was another reasonable alternative & they binned/ tried to bin it as soon as they thought it reasonable for England (not the UK).

I think all developed nation did some form of furlough/ job protection (open to examples if not) and to my point, we are now seeing what nations were financially strong to absorb such an economic hit and which were weak. Like said, UK are definitely on the weak side. 

We certainly seem to be on the downward slope as a world super power country. 

Agree with that but what doesn't help the UK is that we don't really have our own manufacturing industries, meaning UK owned,etc which would help the economy. Unfortunately a lot of it is owned by non UK countries who will manufacture in their own countries to rebuild their own economies as anyone would expect.

 

Just an opinion.

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57 minutes ago, Cumbriansaint72 said:

Agree with that but what doesn't help the UK is that we don't really have our own manufacturing industries, meaning UK owned,etc which would help the economy. Unfortunately a lot of it is owned by non UK countries who will manufacture in their own countries to rebuild their own economies as anyone would expect.

 

Just an opinion.

Back in the 1960’s cars and other manufactured goods from the Far East in particular but also European countries were considered to be sub standard. The oil shock in the early 70’s, demarcation disputes in industries and later in the 1980’s the economic policies followed by Thatcher and Reagan opened up opportunities for putting capital and jobs offshore to places with lower wages, health and safety and less secure employment rights. This led to massive unemployment in the UK which was massaged by putting people “on the sick”. Whole industries disappeared. The Proclaimers caught the mood well. The UK became a place to invest for a quick return before moving on overseas as many USA companies did when the UK became an island base near Europe. Low wages, deteriorating productivity followed. Meanwhile those darned clever “foreigners” took quality to heart and built modern production facilities. Result: High quality. High Volume: Low Cost goods. Only Germany bucked the trend. They went directly for better workers rights. High quality. High productivity and high wages to support better infrastructure and public services. Oh…they also avoided the cost of developing a nuclear deterrent and didn’t have a list of colonies to distract them and they were deeply European Centric. Come the financial crash our attachment to home ownership caused us problems. Too much wealth was tied up in homes and the value of these fell. Curing inflation became the governments big thing again as it had with Thatcher. Flexible hours and zero hours entered the language. Company pensions on final salary schemes started to develop problems and rights to these outside the public sector fell sharply. Austerity became acceptable and is still with us fuelled by Brexit and the current world issues.

Edited by Rascal
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1 hour ago, BuddieinEK said:

One saving grace... The furlough scheme did save a lot of jobs. Otherwise, aye.

Sent from my HD1913 using Tapatalk
 

A furlough scheme that disproportionately subsidised BIG, rich corporations that (in the main) would/should have had ample and sufficient reserves  ready for just such an occasion….   airlines, Banks etc..

once again, those who gained most from this appear to have been those companies that had “kindly” donated to the party in power.

I agree that the principle of the scheme (like the one to provide health protection) was sound.  
sadly its disbursement was as flawed as the PPE one was/is.

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9 minutes ago, antrin said:

A furlough scheme that disproportionately subsidised BIG, rich corporations that (in the main) would/should have had ample and sufficient reserves  ready for just such an occasion….   airlines, Banks etc..

once again, those who gained most from this appear to have been those companies that had “kindly” donated to the party in power.

I agree that the principle of the scheme (like the one to provide health protection) was sound.  
sadly its disbursement was as flawed as the PPE one was/is.

Could add bus companies into your first part 🙄

Sadly the scheme i would imagine was quite frankly abused by some companies who as soon as it was scaled down, folded leaving employees whose jobs were meant to be protected by the scheme out of work. May have been the case anyway prior to covid but were quite happy for someone else to pick up their wage bill.

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1 hour ago, Rascal said:

Back in the 1960’s cars and other manufactured goods from the Far East in particular but also European countries were considered to be sub standard. The oil shock in the early 70’s, demarcation disputes in industries and later in the 1980’s the economic policies followed by Thatcher and Reagan opened up opportunities for putting capital and jobs offshore to places with lower wages, health and safety and less secure employment rights. This led to massive unemployment in the UK which was massaged by putting people “on the sick”. Whole industries disappeared. The Proclaimers caught the mood well. The UK became a place to invest for a quick return before moving on overseas as many USA companies did when the UK became an island base near Europe. Low wages, deteriorating productivity followed. Meanwhile those darned clever “foreigners” took quality to heart and built modern production facilities. Result: High quality. High Volume: Low Cost goods. Only Germany bucked the trend. They went directly for better workers rights. High quality. High productivity and high wages to support better infrastructure and public services. Oh…they also avoided the cost of developing a nuclear deterrent and didn’t have a list of colonies to distract them and they were deeply European Centric.

A lot of good points there.

On the manufacturing point and traditional trades disappearing I had posted a while ago about the big push in West cumbria for these to get going again with quite a few training establishments sponsored by main employers involved, something which myself and @faraway saint discussed. Sadly it took about 30 years to realise this was going to be a problem now we are playing catch up.

 

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23 hours ago, faraway saint said:

Just got the details of the price hike on our gas/electric supply, almost DOUBLED to £2,600 per year.

When you add in the fuel rises, food & drink it's hitting hard.

God help families that are close to the edge as it is, nightmare. 

A quick rough calculation today means the pay rise I got at the start of the years is totally eaten up by gas/electric and fuel. :shockaroony

Add in the cost of food/drink I'm losing money. :thumbsdown

Hope the company are ready for a whopper of a pay rise request next year. 

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2 minutes ago, faraway saint said:

A quick rough calculation today means the pay rise I got at the start of the years is totally eaten up by gas/electric and fuel. :shockaroony

Add in the cost of food/drink I'm losing money. :thumbsdown

Hope the company are ready for a whopper of a pay rise request next year. 

Or pension increase

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2 hours ago, Cumbriansaint72 said:

Agree with that but what doesn't help the UK is that we don't really have our own manufacturing industries, meaning UK owned,etc which would help the economy. Unfortunately a lot of it is owned by non UK countries who will manufacture in their own countries to rebuild their own economies as anyone would expect.

 

Just an opinion.

Agreed, decades of choices have really impacted our manufacturing capabilities. Possibly quite short-term decisioning when we look at the world today. 

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1 hour ago, Cumbriansaint72 said:

A lot of good points there.

On the manufacturing point and traditional trades disappearing I had posted a while ago about the big push in West cumbria for these to get going again with quite a few training establishments sponsored by main employers involved, something which myself and @faraway saint discussed. Sadly it took about 30 years to realise this was going to be a problem now we are playing catch up.

 

I worked with 14 of the then 25 National Training Bodies in South Africa. They seemed to be taking this area more seriously than in the UK where the emphasis was put on Tony Blair’s stated aim of 50% of school leavers going to University. Their Manufacturing Training Agency did an excellent job and they landed investment by BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen  and others who built plants there. Their food industry was also well served. Tourism and Sport were improving and they landed the World Cup during the time I was involved. Still lots of unemployment but we could, as you say, do more here.Trades in particular have been badly impacted and finding a tradesman is no easy task.

Edited by Rascal
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Did anyone ever think everything connected to Covid was going to be free ?

Vaccines/Test Kits / PPE/Furlough/Tax Credit uplifts/Reduced VAT/ No business rates 12 months/Pop up centres/Thousands of staff/Transportation/Storage/R&D/Grants

Everyone bar none, was on the receiving end of this above in one way.

Fuel costs :

Difficult to sell it cheaper than buying it/ Russia/Ukraine conflict

Unfortunately, it is what it is ( many other factors obviously ) but Brexit/Covid/Ukraine one after the other contributing to this

Hopefully fuel prices/ gas/elec come down sooner than later

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