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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be worried about prices going up and up and up

161 replies

AMAZINWOMAN · 20/06/2008 14:15

I am getting scared of the way bills are just rising and rising all the time. Fuel is predicted to rise another 40% this year.

Even though I really am good at budgeting, I can't see a way of compromising any more than what we do now. Our only luxury is the internet, (or essential according to kids and their MSN needs!) which I would be reluctant to give up.

I have looked at loads of money saving tips websites, which is what I already do. I am just worried about the way the economy is going

OP posts:
KatieDD · 22/06/2008 00:35

OMG if you lose friends like that, then consider yourself well rid.
Personally I hope what seperates us from dogs is we share the bones, I hate what the government has done, handing out money left right and centre is the undeserving nobody would see a family who needs help go without, well nobody I want to be around anyway.

I really, really hope the buy to let brigade get hammered and start to pay business tax, because that's what they are a business, none of this pretend you live at the address for 6 months to get around capital gains tax, like the bloody Blair's have done.

shatteredmumsrus · 22/06/2008 09:27

Timewaster - Sorry for your situation ut they have been told that they will be offered a bigger house. She lives in a 2 bed with a 6 year old girl and a teenage boy, house paid for by council. He lives in a 2 bed flat with his 8 year old boy. Yes thats right they are together and have 2 properties paid for by the council!AHHH!They are expecting another baby and have been told they will get a 3 or 4 bed when aby is a certain age. Are they playing the system or what? At one point he was living with her and renting the flat out? I cant stand him btw cause of the way he lives. There is no reason he cant work, he is only 40, just a lazy bastard!SOrry it makes me so mad!

kerryk · 22/06/2008 09:43

shatteredmums, i think we all know of a couple like that. what really pisses me of is that they give other people who deserve/need to be on benefits a bad name.

for example a girl i went to toddler group with had a good job and owned her own home with her husband, he cheated on her and the marrage ended. she had no choice but to go on benefits till she sorted herself out but the amount of abuse she had of "friends" was unreal.

thats why i think the basic amount paid in benefits should be just enough to live on and no more (bearing in mind people on benefits already get free dental tratments/prescriptions, school dinners and help with school uniforms ), if people are going to be worse of working then where is the incentive for lazy people/people with less morals to go out and do a days work.

likewise i think that in many cases disability allowence/ carers allowence should be much higher.

there will always be exceptions to any rules but there seems to be so many people in this country left struggling while others manage to play the system and come out of it very well of.

timewaster · 22/06/2008 11:37

I am not on benefits though and our council flat is paid for by ... US... we pay the rent every week and the council tax etc etc just like everyone else (although people immediately assume if you live in a council home then you must be a scrounger)
the reason we don't private rent is cost of the bloody deposit, and the exorbitant rents that people like bloody mulberry bush charge (greed that's all it is) and there is no way we can afford to buy a place.
I am a nurse, so I work and earn my money, but it's all these buy-to -let tw*ts that have put us in this position.
I am probably not very articulate., sorry, but I feel quite desperate to think that I will live in this shit hole until my baby is at school and don't want to have more kids until we are more settled (and don't want to wait too long as then I'll be getting on a bit). Think I will take my qualifications abroad.

nametaken · 22/06/2008 11:51

Please don't flame me but I know that a lot of people buy a house to let which they then use as finance for their pension in old age. This relieves the burden on the taxpayer. If people don't provide for themselves in their retirement, it's just yet another burden on the taxpayer.

Don't know what the answer is though.

timewaster · 22/06/2008 11:53

Pay into a pension scheme?

bluefox · 22/06/2008 11:58

Buy to let investors have hoovered up all the properties that should have gone to first-time buyers. I would like to see them taxed into oblivion.

bluefox · 22/06/2008 11:58

Buy to let investors have hoovered up all the properties that should have gone to first-time buyers. I would like to see them taxed into oblivion.

bluefox · 22/06/2008 11:58

Sorry - double post

nametaken · 22/06/2008 12:00

The Robert Maxwell pension scheme?

HereWeGoRoundTheMulberryBag · 22/06/2008 12:07

Message withdrawn

Rachmumoftwo · 22/06/2008 12:09

Bluefox, sometimes it is worth saying something twice! I live on a new development and more than 50% of proeerties are buy to let. No-one seems to care who they rent to, or ensure that the houses are kept looking nice, without lots of rubbish outside or 4 or 5 cars to a house taking all the parking because there are so many single people living there.

timewaster · 22/06/2008 12:11

Stop trying to justify yourself when nurses, midwives, teachers, soldiers, nursery workers etc can't afford to house themselves and their families. many people find work that does not directly take the roof from over the head of others.
Why should this be your income. Why can't you get a job like everybody else.

nametaken · 22/06/2008 12:12

Oh come on rachmumoftwo, you were single with a car once surely! Where did you live and park?

BandofMothers · 22/06/2008 12:13

Colditz, what sort of people are you friends with. We're all in the same boat lovie, you'll still have the friends who matter
Would love to know who you're refering to.

findtheriver · 22/06/2008 12:15

Mulberry makes a fair point in a way. It's easy to take a pop at buy to let investors, but any kind of trade takes advantage of supply and demand. I have just paid what I think is a totally exorbitant amount to an electrician for some fairly straightforward but essential work. I wasn't paying for the high level skill required - I was paying through the nose because a) the job needed to be done by an accredited electrician, and b) there are very few around here so they can hike the price up! This is just one example - there are countless others. You could say that a lot of people earn a living through ripping other people off - what about the solicitors who charge huge sums of money for conveyancing? Estate agents who take thousands for a bit of glossy brochure marketing? Dentists? - my last check up, all of 5 minutes cost around 35 quid I seem to remember.

Rachmumoftwo · 22/06/2008 12:15

Actually, I never had a car until I had kids. But the point is that people will rent out a house to 8 single people instead of a family, in a quiet residential street and not monitor how their proerty is used or how this affects the localiy as the long as the money is coming in.

Rachmumoftwo · 22/06/2008 12:17

*property

Rachmumoftwo · 22/06/2008 12:17

Oh bugger my spelling is really going to pot today!

nametaken · 22/06/2008 12:18

timewaster I'm not trying to justify anything (if you mean me anyway). I agree it's an absolute disgrace that many people have grabbed up properties for buy to let, and many key workers are forced out of the housing market.

But the people to be annoyed with isn't the person living in one house and letting out another house to get retirement funds - it's the greedy bar stewards who buy job lots of flats and then sit back counting their effing money.

BouncingTurtle · 22/06/2008 12:18

Unless you get personal pension, which aren't that great you have to rely on your employer providing a company pension. I believe fewer and fewer companies are doig this and they are less favourable than they are.
While I agree to some extent to benefits being limited to absolute necesseties, it can be hard for lone parents with young children to find work because they may not always have access to free or low cost childcare. And if they are low skilled with few qualifications, they end up in some dead end job which would barely cover the childcare! For people in that situation, I totally understand why benefits are preferable! Why bother to go out and work, pay for someone else to look after your kids, if you aren't going to see any extra cash at the end of it?

nametaken · 22/06/2008 12:21

And what's wrong with renting accommodation anyway?

Rachmumoftwo · 22/06/2008 12:24

I think I see what you mean Colditz. We are struggling at the moment, and can't afford to go out when our friends do. I find I am now not invited to things, as I have had to say no before. An example of this being that we were invited for a weekend away and had to decline to be told 'Of course you can afford it, it's only £100.' Some people really don't understand what it is to not have disposable cash. You need more understanding friends, but then so do I!

findtheriver · 22/06/2008 12:31

Rach - it is hard, but I think you have to harden yourself and just accept that if these people really don't understand, then it's their problem, not yours.
A lot of this is about adjusting. There are ways to find enjoyment without having to spend a fortune - picnics, walks, joining the National Trust, etc In some ways, this pushes us all into being more creative with our thinking. When we were really strapped for cash (late 80s - which was honestly so bad, it makes interest rates etc of today pale into comparison!) we had to adapt our lifestyle a lot.

HereWeGoRoundTheMulberryBag · 22/06/2008 12:36

Message withdrawn

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