Cost of Living - How are you handling it?

Tomous wrote:Our weekly shop at Aldi is usually somewhere around the £70-£80 mark which is for me, my wife and a 3 year old. She is a vegetarian and we don't buy booze which helps I guess.

That's quite good for the three of you even at that.

Squinty wrote:

Tomous wrote:Our weekly shop at Aldi is usually somewhere around the £70-£80 mark which is for me, my wife and a 3 year old. She is a vegetarian and we don't buy booze which helps I guess.

That's quite good for the three of you even at that.

Yeah, we don't tend to buy much processed stuff and try to bulk cook which I think helps a lot.

Rubix wrote:I bought Tesco Beans for 45p instead of the crazy Heinz £1.50 a can price and you know what! they aren't that bad at all.

Years ago, supermarket-branded beans were bloomi'n awful, but now they're decent enough. I always get Tesco beans, too!

Just got my Green Flag Breakdown Cover renewal for nex year. We have actually used the service this year and have no complaints there. The £66 premium is reasonable and offers peace of mind.

They are, however, adding a £25 "Administration and Arrangement Fee" to this. It's sort of like when places like Ticketmaster charge you a booking fee. Surely admin costs are on the business side of things. With Ticketmaster, why do we pay the business a fee for booking a ticket, when the purpose of the business is to sell tickets.

It's a completely blatant scramble to bleed customers of cash at any opportunity.

Parksey wrote:Just got my Green Flag Breakdown Cover renewal for nex year. We have actually used the service this year and have no complaints there. The £66 premium is reasonable and offers peace of mind.

They are, however, adding a £25 "Administration and Arrangement Fee" to this...

It's such a con, isn't it? Make the "headline" price look reasonable... and then whack on a 38% "administrative" charge.

Parksey wrote:Just got my Green Flag Breakdown Cover renewal for nex year. We have actually used the service this year and have no complaints there. The £66 premium is reasonable and offers peace of mind.

They are, however, adding a £25 "Administration and Arrangement Fee" to this. It's sort of like when places like Ticketmaster charge you a booking fee. Surely admin costs are on the business side of things. With Ticketmaster, why do we pay the business a fee for booking a ticket, when the purpose of the business is to sell tickets.

It's a completely blatant scramble to bleed customers of cash at any opportunity.

The reason we have to pay additional fees with Ticketmaster is basically they were allowed to merge with LiveNation and form an absolutely absurd monopoly completely unchecked.

Yay capitalism!

Parksey wrote:Just got my Green Flag Breakdown Cover renewal for nex year. We have actually used the service this year and have no complaints there. The £66 premium is reasonable and offers peace of mind.

They are, however, adding a £25 "Administration and Arrangement Fee" to this. It's sort of like when places like Ticketmaster charge you a booking fee. Surely admin costs are on the business side of things. With Ticketmaster, why do we pay the business a fee for booking a ticket, when the purpose of the business is to sell tickets.

It's a completely blatant scramble to bleed customers of cash at any opportunity.

I had the same thing with the Odeon. I booked tickets to see a film. Each ticket added a £1 booking fee to the total. I checked to see if I could avoid this fee by booking in person instead of online. Nope.

So that's not a booking fee then is it? It's just part of the ticket cost but separated out to make it look better.

A booking fee for a cinema is absurd isn't it? Charging me to buy the only thing they sell.

Winckle wrote:

Parksey wrote:Just got my Green Flag Breakdown Cover renewal for nex year. We have actually used the service this year and have no complaints there. The £66 premium is reasonable and offers peace of mind.

They are, however, adding a £25 "Administration and Arrangement Fee" to this. It's sort of like when places like Ticketmaster charge you a booking fee. Surely admin costs are on the business side of things. With Ticketmaster, why do we pay the business a fee for booking a ticket, when the purpose of the business is to sell tickets.

It's a completely blatant scramble to bleed customers of cash at any opportunity.

I had the same thing with the Odeon. I booked tickets to see a film. Each ticket added a £1 booking fee to the total. I checked to see if I could avoid this fee by booking in person instead of online. Nope.

So that's not a booking fee then is it? It's just part of the ticket cost but separated out to make it look better.

A booking fee for a cinema is absurd isn't it? Charging me to buy the only thing they sell.

Yeah it’s ridiculous. I remember the whole booking fee thing came in when you could book tickets over the telephone but if you brought them at the cinema there was no fee. Same for football and other events. It get why they do it as the lower face value may pull you in and when you realise you’ve got to pay a bit more you just do it as you have already made the decision to go.

Semi related to cost of living but I just heard back from Barclays that my old car finance agreement did include a "discretionary commission arrangement" so I should hopefully be due some money back. Imagine I'll be waiting a while to hear back definitively but nice to know I might get something back in these shitty times.

I've cancelled my Disney+ monthly sub (£7.99)... but started a Netflix monthly sub (£10.99).

I tend to switch between the two every now and again; I grew a little tired of Disney and there are some things I want to watch on Netflix.

Thank strawberry float I don't give a gooseberry fool about Easter eggs beyond Cadbury's at £1.50, because the price of them this year is crazy. £10, £15, £20...

Who knew fancy packaging and a mould were so expensive.

Grumpy David wrote:

<]:^D wrote:how much can management companies increase service charges by?
L&Q just sent through the price rise for 2024 (Apr) 30% increase with no explanation as to why

Different freeholder for me but last year mine went up by 22%.

Dreading the letter confirming 24-25 service charges, I already pay £165 a month.

Got the letter today, just under a 25% increase.

New monthly payment of £205.86. Any NICs reduction from April will be consumed by that 1 rising bill alone.

The freeholder is a not-for-profit organisation too. Not that it sounds believable given that I was paying £97 per month back in 2017.

Lagamorph wrote:

Qikz wrote:

twitter.com/MartinSLewis/status/1755592255216275772

Not sure if this will help anyone, but dropping here just in case!

Huh, might need to take a look at that. My previous car was on finance taken out around September 2020.

Did you follow up on this? Barclays Partner Finance have confirmed that my car finance did include this clause and they have logged a complaint. But I now won't hear anything until the FCA have concluded their investigation, which is currently scheduled for September. But I'm thinking I could be owed back anywhere between £1500-£2500.

Grumpy David wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:

<]:^D wrote:how much can management companies increase service charges by?
L&Q just sent through the price rise for 2024 (Apr) 30% increase with no explanation as to why

Different freeholder for me but last year mine went up by 22%.

Dreading the letter confirming 24-25 service charges, I already pay £165 a month.

Got the letter today, just under a 25% increase.

New monthly payment of £205.86. Any NICs reduction from April will be consumed by that 1 rising bill alone.

The freeholder is a not-for-profit organisation too. Not that it sounds believable given that I was paying £97 per month back in 2017.

Similar scenario. I get some birthday money for turning 35. Of course, I am grateful and everything helps. A £ is a £.

Now, I don't know what people do with their money. Maybe they travel, or buy nice things. It gets a bit miserable once you drill into the impact of virtually any reasonable some of money during a fiscal crisis and a recession. It'll cover my electricity bill for a few months. Or three quarters of a month's rent. Hooray! I realise a lot of people are worse off and don't get cash gifts, but I was hoping to maybe invest a little in my life (i.e. gooseberry fool I actually want to do), maybe some musical equipment (I can justify that, having practised guitar for 28 years), rather than just exist without being below freezing in winter. Depending on how I attribute income, instead it is mostly spent on "compensating" someone who is likely to be much richer, if not literal billionaires.

Any kind of "windfalls", return on savings, investments, gifts, below inflation pay rises (NI reduction, minimal wage increase), whatever, depending on where you are in the socioeconomic make-up (I perhaps need to point out I receive virtually none of these things, and if at all, very sparsely), barely make a dent in essential utilities or other rising costs of living.

Can feel 10x worse that you're somehow ungrateful this "boon" is not enough (I'm not, I'm never like that), as if it's somehow every individual citizen's fault that gooseberry fool is so expensive. It is not. It's nothing to do with grace or graciousness or gratitude, it feels shitty that "ups" have less of an impact than they should have, because almost everything is going "down".

Feel like I'm really fixated on money at the minute. I'm really lucky that I can live comfortably but there's a desperation for more than that. Like everyone, I just want to live without having to worry about it. And this feels like probably a selfish thing to complain about but my parents have enough money to pay off both mine and my brother's mortgages but they choose to sit on it, like dragons, making absolutely no use of it. I'd be less bothered if they were spending it all on lavish holidays or something but they just sit in their house on a pile of money that brings no help or joy to anyone. They have a very Tory outlook I think "strawberry float you, got mine".

Grumpy David wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:

<]:^D wrote:how much can management companies increase service charges by?
L&Q just sent through the price rise for 2024 (Apr) 30% increase with no explanation as to why

Different freeholder for me but last year mine went up by 22%.

Dreading the letter confirming 24-25 service charges, I already pay £165 a month.

Got the letter today, just under a 25% increase.

New monthly payment of £205.86. Any NICs reduction from April will be consumed by that 1 rising bill alone.

The freeholder is a not-for-profit organisation too. Not that it sounds believable given that I was paying £97 per month back in 2017.

have they justified it?

<]:^D wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:

<]:^D wrote:how much can management companies increase service charges by?
L&Q just sent through the price rise for 2024 (Apr) 30% increase with no explanation as to why

Different freeholder for me but last year mine went up by 22%.

Dreading the letter confirming 24-25 service charges, I already pay £165 a month.

Got the letter today, just under a 25% increase.

New monthly payment of £205.86. Any NICs reduction from April will be consumed by that 1 rising bill alone.

The freeholder is a not-for-profit organisation too. Not that it sounds believable given that I was paying £97 per month back in 2017.

have they justified it?

There's a breakdown of what the payment goes to but it doesn't show the previous years figures (and I probably threw out the letter last year) so I can't see what has specifically spiked upwards and there isn't a specific explanation in the letter either just some rubbish about "We're trying our best to keep costs down" almost as if we should feel sorry for them inflicting a 25% rise on us.

The costs that stood out as particularly expensive were:

Pest Control - £3,578.30 - no memory of a pest problem in the communal areas in 23-24 tax year (just searched my emails and there was an email in 2019 about this) and this seems ridiculously expensive if it's contained to a handful of flats.

And

Communal Repairs - £10,838.14 - the only communal repairs I can think of might be replacing some lights and possibly some repainting of the hallway but that might have been the 21-22 tax year before as I vaguely recall an email about social distancing whilst the painting took place.

None of the other costs (12 including the above) seem particularly expensive for what they are but 12 small payments adds up.

Grumpy David wrote:Pest Control - £3,578.30 - no memory of a pest problem in the communal areas in 23-24 tax year

Seems to be working, then.

SEP wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:Pest Control - £3,578.30 - no memory of a pest problem in the communal areas in 23-24 tax year

Seems to be working, then.

SEP wrote:

Grumpy David wrote:Pest Control - £3,578.30 - no memory of a pest problem in the communal areas in 23-24 tax year

Seems to be working, then.