Feeling the pinch?

[Nick]

How's everyone doing with the cost of living?

 

Starting to see the pinch now, driving to work with diesel prices at £1.90+/l around me, food seems more money across the board, simple things like frozen pizzas seem daft money to what they were a couple of years ago.

 

Fortunate to have disposable income to absorb most of it but already having to cut back on holiday plans next year. Our trip to Canada a couple of months ago was ludicrous in comparison to when I've been before. Not really looking forward to what next year brings, especially if energy bills spike as much as they say.

[Lone-wolf]

we are okay so far and i do have a slush fund if things get bad but im with you on rising food costs, tempting to get an Air rifle and go back to old days, a rabbit or Pidgeon for the pot

lucky i choose to run economical car and work is fine

[Mr Fro]

I don't like the price of fuel much doing 300 odd miles a week.

 

@Lone-wolf - I suggested the odd rabbit or pheasant to the wife during the shortages... She wasn't exactly enthused. Mind you, the price and availability of pellets is a bit silly still.

[Alex97]

I've just brought my first house and when we spoke to our broker in April the rate was sub 2%, now it's just under 4%. That increase hurt a lot in terms of our monthly expenses. I'm fortunate that I've got a decent job and part move includes a new job which is a decent pay rise however the moving costs have eaten into a good chunk of that. Since we worked out our monthly out goings earlier this year they went up by a good 20-25%. 

[Stormbringer]

im glad i have a petrol car which is bad enough to fill up but diesel is over 20p a litre more expensive 

[GMballistic]

1 hour ago, Stormbringer said:

im glad i have a petrol car which is bad enough to fill up but diesel is over 20p a litre more expensive 

Petrol/fuel is always a hard pill to swallow I find as the cost in the UK just seems so OTT compared to other countries especially as we are fairly self sufficient with making our own petrol.
I believe most Diesel is imported so that could be part of why that's so much more expensive?.
Obviously crude oil being more expensive is part of it plus the war in Ukraine causing higher prices but I just feel we are over taxed in this country. 

 

[Stormbringer]

yeh agreed we are way over taxed on anything we buy here 

[m4inbrain]

7 hours ago, GMballistic said:

Petrol/fuel is always a hard pill to swallow I find as the cost in the UK just seems so OTT compared to other countries especially as we are fairly self sufficient with making our own petrol.
I believe most Diesel is imported so that could be part of why that's so much more expensive?.
Obviously crude oil being more expensive is part of it plus the war in Ukraine causing higher prices but I just feel we are over taxed in this country. 

 

Not quite true. 

 

If we take europe as a whole, our diesel is comparatively average in price. As an extreme example, in sweden the litre of diesel is 2.52 euros. That's £2.20. On top of that, in countries like germany, diesel engines are vastly more expensive to tax. 

 

Sure, we're considerably more expensive than Poland, but in those cases you have to take buying power into consideration (people in poland earn lots less than in britain, so relatively speaking, the prices are higher). In regards to import, it's around half that we import. Loads less than most european countries. 

 

Crude oil is an interesting one: while it's true that crude went (back) up in price after OPEC decided to be (even worse than usual) pricks, crude went down quite noticeably in price for a while, it just wasn't reflected at the pumps (and then went up when OPEC decided to pump less oil to artificially increase the price for crude). This has nothing to do with taxes like Stormbringer claims; it's profiteering by oil companies. Price increases for food etc are directly tied to this, too - since a big ticket item on the balance sheet for supermarkets is transport. Transport is done by trucks, which run on diesel, you get the picture. Of course that's not solely the reason, but it's a big part of it. Tax in the UK is within reason, be it VAT or other taxes (for now, depends on what Wishy-Rishi is gonna do now). 

 

You just need to look at the balance sheets for oil companies, with some of them doubling their net profits. Billions and billions of extra pounds - and of course they're going to continue to do so. It's their job, they're not welfare, they're companies founded to make money. No issue there. The issue to me is the egregious reluctancy to tax them on those profits (windfall tax). It's absolutely mind boggling that tories (and make no mistake here, it's tories and ONLY tories that are arguing against windfall taxes) have the gull to argue that this would have detrimental effects on the economy, what a load of bull. You could tax them 75% extra on their profits and they'd still have (extra) money to pay boni to their investors, CEOs and what not. Their expenses didn't grow, just their profits. To argue against windfall is immoral on a level that i simply can't comprehend, when at the same time poverty is skyrocketing. We're looking now at cuts to services as well as tax increases to average joe, while they're raking it in. It's infuriating beyond belief. 

 

To be clear, it's not taxes that makes stuff expensive. It's the government being unwilling to reign in price gouging/profiteering, on top of rampant inflation - which again, is easy to ignore by politicians since they barely notice it, getting paid £400.000 to show up and eat a kangaroo knob while simultaneously still getting paid as an MP. It's not taxes, it's 12 years of the most incompetent politicians in europe, lining their pockets as well as those of their bootlickers. That's why the immigration debate is so moronic too - Cruella Cowardman angrily arguing that our immigration system is broken - news flash, there's only one party in power for the last 12 years - and with a vast majority for the last four. 

 

Ugh, sorry for the rant, but this genuinely makes my blood boil. The brazen corruption, the gull to blatantly lie despite literal evidence to the contrary, just gets me going big time. But here we are, taking it up the rear like the good people we are. In that regard there's zero difference between germans and brits. Bending over and taking it dry. Man that makes me angry, but obviously, as much as anyone else, i'll just stew in my own juices and wish for someone else to fix everything.

 

On a happier note, after now almost exactly one year (nov 10th), VW finally decided that it's time to build our Golf GTE, maybe. Build week 46 (around the 14th), and then a few weeks from there if we get lucky. Not that having a PHEV is that much cheaper now, but every little helps. Should cut around £700 a year in petrol (down from £1500 when we ordered). Of course we were already warned that there could be delays between any of the eight build stages, so.. we'll see. 

[Lone-wolf]

I guess i have to agree with the above post, not so much tax but very greedy companies milking profits for all its worth along with a broken government , the firm i work for pay tax like a company should do and still have a large margin to pay all the workers a substantial bonus, from the floor sweeper to the director's

 

@m4inbrain this is an honest question what party would you choose to replace the Tories if we end up in general election (which the country should be having)

[bertberr]

I've not that long returned from France (early September, when I was paying around £1.70-1.80 / litre here), where unleaded was approx 1.25 / litre GBP equivalent and diesel a few pence less than that. We worked it out that diesel was around 50% more in UK at that time.

[Lone-wolf]

Im in the early process of trading the old Honda to get a Skoda Fabia estate 1.2 or 1.0TSI the way i drive i should see 65mpg from this car every little helps

[m4inbrain]

3 hours ago, Lone-wolf said:

@m4inbrain this is an honest question what party would you choose to replace the Tories if we end up in general election (which the country should be having)

 

Well.. Lets be clear, i'd vote anything but Tories. I probably would vote tactical, i don't have a preferred Party - i don't agree with Labour on everything either. What i will say is that i can't think of a single reasonably well known party that would do worse than we've got right now. You can put a flock of birds in charge and they'll do better than the mess that we're in right now. 

 

To answer (what i assume is) the real question, i wouldn't have voted for Corbyn either. I don't think he'd have done a worse job than BJ, Truss, Sunak and whoever else had a go - but i don't think it would've been necessarily better either. He's as delusional as BJ/Truss, just the other direction. Some would consider that great - i don't.

 

I'm not a huge fan of Starmer either, but i again will say that he's probably the best choice out there. The UK absolutely needs a "beige" PM, toning down the rhetoric etc. Boring isn't always bad, and after a few years of flamboyant but incredibly inefficient and toxic "personality-politicians", i'll take anyone really. Whoever promises to get rid of FPTP probably.

 

2 hours ago, bertberr said:

I've not that long returned from France (early September, when I was paying around £1.70-1.80 / litre here), where unleaded was approx 1.25 / litre GBP equivalent and diesel a few pence less than that. We worked it out that diesel was around 50% more in UK at that time.

 

They're currently at 1.89, which is reasonably close to parity. Especially considering the hidden cost of the fact that you have to "be in france" to get that price. 😄

 

edit: diesel was £1.87 here yesterday, should probably mention that. Don't know the price in other parts of the UK.

Edited November 4, 2022 by m4inbrain

[bertberr]

And your point is? You mentioned European fuel prices, Sweden etc and I referenced my recent experience in France. Of course that’s of no significance if you live in the uk but that clearly wasn’t implied otherwise.  And what’s more, when I spoke to mum couple of days ago - she lives in Mayenne, e10/95ron was 1.62 euro at leclerc’s filling station there. Which is £1.41… so yeah not exactly parity…

[m4inbrain]

39 minutes ago, bertberr said:

And your point is? You mentioned European fuel prices, Sweden etc and I referenced my recent experience in France.

 

Except i didn't. Not once did i talk about "fuel prices". I very deliberately and specifically talked about diesel prices. And the one sentence where i didn't mention specifically diesel, i mentioned "£1.89" which clearly isn't the price of petrol (.. anymore). In September, btw, Diesel was 20 centimes more expensive than petrol on average in france - not cheaper. Hasn't been cheaper than petrol since end of July. The statistics are easily accessible. 

 

What's more is that you left out one very important bit of information there. In September, the french government paid a flat 30 centimes to every litre of petrol (and diesel!) you bought. That doesn't mean petrol is cheaper, it means that the government paid part of it. Feel free to do the math for today (i did, taking metropolitan leclerc as the yard stick, adding the current rebate of 12.5 centimes to it and then converting it to £ at todays market rate) - it's £1.60. Which isn't far from parity, again. I paid £1.63 beginning of the week for petrol. 

 

My point is, quite obviously, that prices in the UK aren't inflated by tax (well, they are, but it's not the reason for the scalping that we're seeing), but by oil companies profiteering. And the exact same thing happens in france, except there the government decided that instead of cutting 5p of fuel duty that nobody even noticed at the pump, they paid 30 cents on every litre (12.5 since Nov 1st). Their prices only look amazing if you leave out that, again, quite important bit of information. If you take that into account, your argument falls flat. 

 

[Kpowell911]

Im self employed, Diesel  is probably my biggest expense. Ive done 64k miles since Jan 2020. Before the big price increase, I agreed with my contractors and extra £20 on my day rate, just because. Then the fuel prices increased, so that £20 a day has gone in the fuel tank, so Ive not saw it in my pocket, and cant exactly out my rate up again so soon, but I cant really moan. obviously I declare the work related fuel expenses. 
 

I live with my girlfriend. We have a mortgage on a 2 bed Terrace. We both work full time, and have no kids. The mortgage rate  is locked in till 2024. Ive always paid £150 a month direct debit for energy. We were £250 in credit, then got an email sqyimg it was going up to £156 (bare in mine were both out the house 50 hours a week ish) so that should be ok. Only other bill is internet, TV license, council tax and buildings/contents insurance. Im terrible with savings, my Mrs is much better and has her own savings. 

We were looking at a new car, nothing crazy something circa £35k, on finance, but weve knocked that on the head. Interest rates, car prices and uncertainty have knocked that on the head for now. We have 2 vans, a paid in cash car, and 3 motorbikes so we are ok. 
 

On a personal note. Biggest change for me. Holidays. I used to spend every penny possible on holidays. Id go to New York Comic Con, and either Vegas or an international F1 event every year since 2008. That was a massive chunk of my income. My last holiday was Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in November 2019. Weve just been in the UK since. Lots of city breaks  and camping trips. I think we will do a ‘cheap’ holiday next year, but think my ‘big’ holidays are over with the state of the economy. 
 

We (as a family) have scaled back X Mas (£100 each TOTAL spend for every one) and are going to just meet up on the day and cook all together.
 

Feeling the pinch, but appreciate Im not at the bottom of the totem pole. Worst case, the RCs get sold dont they.  

Edited November 4, 2022 by Kpowell911

[BUDFORCE]

Lurpack butter £4.50

 

Mccain frozen french fries, £4 for a 1.5kg bag.

 

Crazy prices.

 

But Bourbon whiskey hasnt really gone up much at all in the last 4 years, so I am soted.

[Kpowell911]

28 minutes ago, BUDFORCE said:

Lurpack butter £4.50

 

Mccain frozen french fries, £4 for a 1.5kg bag.

 

Crazy prices.

 

But Bourbon whiskey hasnt really gone up much at all in the last 4 years, so I am soted.

Just go Aldi and get Norpak and their Skin on Fries. Job done

[Gaz!]

Again its the fuel and food costs that have hit us, our house is still fairly new (4 years old) and quite efficient.

 

my monthly Rc spending money has gone completely now though, not that it bothers me that much, ive got plenty of stuff anyways. I had a chance to finally be able to purchase a Xmaxx or a Udr but that would have meant more lipos and bigger repair bills (5th scale has never really been cheap, although i loved my Losi 5t.) so decided on a slash 4x4 now i can have 1 lot of spares to buy, my current lipos fitmaking it a compromise. 

 

Fuel has gone from £30 a week to £60 a week and food about £25-30 per week more. Soon adds up but we have our heads above water at the minute thankfully.

 

Now finally, yes there is proper turmoil in the government but im thankful for my covid jabs and the recent “help” with cost of living, both of which have really helped us get through.

 

If it has to come to it the Rc stuff would have to go, keeping the kids fed, watered, clothed with a roof over there heads im happy…..

 

we shouldn’t even get to the point of the NHS going on strike, they should be looked after, full stop!

 

again my experience and opinions…..

 

good luck to all struggling and worse off than us, it’s heartbreaking seeing the hardest hit…..

 

[turok007]

I started to buy extra food during the first lockdown  as I could see what was going on.  Saved a lot of money because of price rises.  Shame i couldn't do the same with gas/electric,  lol

And unless a miracle  happens, things are going to get a lot worse.