Price rises 2022 ?

[Bill]

I think your over thinking things Con. The micro setup I’ve just ordered is nothing like the larger solar setups we’re used to seeing, it’s almost a diy plug and play thing so no need for teams of workmen but I’ll know more in a couple of days. For sure it won’t boil a kettle; I use the grid for that, but it will reduce my overall electricity usage by 50% which is the point of this exercise. And if it does work as I hope, then I'll be getting an annual return of £300 on an initial investment of just £212 which is even better than any internet scam.

 

Bill 😊

[Latchford Locks]

The way prices are rocketing  I sadly think Martin could be right and this may be a possibility.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/martin-lewis-warns-of-civil-unrest-amid-worsening-cost-of-living-crisis/ar-AAW3i7j?ocid=uxbndlbing

I hope not and pray common sense will prevail and Sunak and company will give pensioners and all people on low incomes the ability to survive next winter without having to resort to walking the streets with banners. They should not need to for such basic requirements.

But with his and his wife's joint massive wealth it make's them totally detached and oblivious of normal peoples needs to live a normal life..

And Boris and his cohorts had best remember that even the Iron Lady came unstuck trying to ignore normal peoples deep felt thoughts and opinions with the Poll Tax

It was Margaret Thatcher's biggest political misjudgement - and brought her career as prime minister to an ignominious end.

 

I have always voted blue but am very inclined to give Labour a chance as they are the only ones with an understanding of ordinary folks needs

Love or hate her Angela Rayner has her finger on the nations pulse due to her own working class roots

 

 

[Latchford Locks]

And on the same topic I was appalled at Claudia Winkelman in the national press wearing a jumper worth over £2,300 that is a sure way to rub peoples noses in the mud... She plays the persona of a normal working person then pulls a stunt like this ?🥴

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/style/strictly-presenter-claudia-winkleman-wears-a-colourful-2-370-jumper/ar-AAW2Eiv

[Observer II]

Latch, your dreaming if you believe that the Labour hierarchy has any relationship to the "working class";  they are now a London centric, middle class woke liberal elite, that can't even say what "a woman" is.   They've relied for decades on the working class vote, while parachuting Uni created woke liberals, with zero experience of life in the world of work, doing their own thing in Parliament (like supporting the EU), contrary to the majority view of the Plebs, who they regard as knuckle dragging racists, sexists ands transphobes.  The worst of a bad bunch.    😠

[Bill]

I don’t think it matters who’s in power when the problem is widespread across the entire planet. The bottom line is that we’re all in a mess and maybe need to tighten our belts a bit rather than looking to others to do things for us. Help those who genuinely can’t help themselves, but the rest of society will just have to take the hit to their pockets.

Here’s a good tip to save a few pennies, especially for the poorer in society or even just pensioners like most of us. The likes of Farmfoods or Iceland do ready meals for £1, and at that price they’re not quite as good as a M&S chilled meal but some of them aren’t half bad. Last week I had chicken casserole with dumplings. The instructions said to microwave it for 18 minutes; I gave it 20, only to find a carrot in the middle was still covered in ice.  🥴 

Now here’s how to save money from a frozen carrot. The meal is already cooked when you buy it, so it only needs heating up but because the average freezer is set to minus 18 degrees, it takes 25 minutes to heat.  My microwave uses 1.5KW so the cost of heating just this meal is about 20p or £73 a year if you had one every day. So, take the meal out and defrost it in your fridge and it’ll only take a fraction of the time to heat, and as an added bonus, being so bloomin cold, your fridge won’t need to use any power at all while it’s thawing out. It's a win win solution.

 

Bill 😊

[Latchford Locks]

3 hours ago, Bill said:

I don’t think it matters who’s in power when the problem is widespread across the entire planet. The bottom line is that we’re all in a mess and maybe need to tighten our belts a bit rather than looking to others to do things for us. Help those who genuinely can’t help themselves, but the rest of society will just have to take the hit to their pockets.

Here’s a good tip to save a few pennies, especially for the poorer in society or even just pensioners like most of us. The likes of Farmfoods or Iceland do ready meals for £1, and at that price they’re not quite as good as a M&S chilled meal but some of them aren’t half bad. Last week I had chicken casserole with dumplings. The instructions said to microwave it for 18 minutes; I gave it 20, only to find a carrot in the middle was still covered in ice.  🥴 

Now here’s how to save money from a frozen carrot. The meal is already cooked when you buy it, so it only needs heating up but because the average freezer is set to minus 18 degrees, it takes 25 minutes to heat.  My microwave uses 1.5KW so the cost of heating just this meal is about 20p or £73 a year if you had one every day. So, take the meal out and defrost it in your fridge and it’ll only take a fraction of the time to heat, and as an added bonus, being so bloomin cold, your fridge won’t need to use any power at all while it’s thawing out. It's a win win solution.

 

Bill 😊

In all honesty Bill

In 2022 Britain this kind of action should not be required.

Whatever happened to the Land of Milk and Honey promise made over 100 years ago as an excuse for the pointless wholesale slaughter of our nations youth.?

And even now it hasn't happened.

And before any of our more controversial posters(no names no pack drill 😉) chirp in; it isn't due to recent events that doesn't excuse the other 90 odd years.

[Bill]

I think that’s a very odd take on the current situation Latchy. What was promised 100 years ago won’t do anything to help people to pay their bills tomorrow will it?  And in any case, as you brought it up, those that died in the wars did so to defend our freedom and way of life and I doubt we’d have done any better living under the rule of someone like Hitler. But look, that’s all just history and most of today’s problems stem from those who hold on to events of the past and refuse to move on.

I’m not suggesting we go silly and start doing things like living on porridge, but some considerable savings can be made by just thinking about where our energy goes. Just by turning three things off at night, I’ve managed to get a 100% guaranteed saving of £63 a year which will help reduce my bills. Anyone can do this and it’s no big inconvenience.

 

Bill 😊

[Observer II]

Notice Rishi Sunack isn't worried.   😉

[Confused52]

Latch, who made that promise? ISTR it is a biblical reference to the land of Israel as the promised land.

Having energy prices as a small fraction of a household budget would be needed to make energy frugality not needed. I remember we were promised Fusion reactors with 50 years in the 1970s and we are currently still promised that they will come in 50 years. When the rebuild of the electricity grid is completed for renewables if Fusion power turns up they will have to rebuild the grid once again. Fusion would be very green indeed, massive and ultra cheap (possibly)!

[Bill]

 

I think fusion is still so far away from becoming a reality we can forget it because it’s certainly not going come in our lifetimes and probably not in our children’s either. The electricity grid will need strengthening as we move away from gas, but I reckon the transition process will take far longer than planned as people try to hold onto their gas appliances. What stands more chance of breaking the system in the shorter term is the rapid uptake of electric vehicles, unless we get a lot smarter with the charging technology.

All that aside, we have to deal with the situation as it stands now. The massif price hike only occurred at the beginning of the month so most of us haven’t felt the impact yet, unless anyone’s using a pay meter. We can call political leaders until we’re blue in the face or discuss long term plans like nuclear and tidal but none of these thing will help to pay the bill at the end of this month.

So, what do we do about it? Well, we could go onto a forum and rant about it or write to our MPs telling them how hard life’s become. We could even organise a protest march but it’s all a bit of a waste of time because we all know nothing will get done.  

 

Bill 😊

[ninearches]

We need a reintroduction of Ted Heath's threshold payment where every percentage rise in inflation  triggered a government funded payment to everyone of working age. At the time it was 40p'/ percentage point & finished up being close to £8 which was consolidated on everybody's basic pay when inflation peaked.

[Latchford Locks]

12 minutes ago, ninearches said:

We need a reintroduction of Ted Heath's threshold payment where every percentage rise in inflation  triggered a government funded payment to everyone of working age. At the time it was 40p'/ percentage point & finished up being close to £8 which was consolidated on everybody's basic pay when inflation peaked.

Spot on....👍

[Observer II]

Thought the Ted Heath system was based on a flat rate rise, rather than percentage; which means the worst off get a bigger rise in percentage terms ?   

[Confused52]

3 hours ago, ninearches said:

We need a reintroduction of Ted Heath's threshold payment where every percentage rise in inflation  triggered a government funded payment to everyone of working age. At the time it was 40p'/ percentage point & finished up being close to £8 which was consolidated on everybody's basic pay when inflation peaked.

I think you refer to Stage 3 of the Prices and Incomes policy. It wasn't government funded rather it was the pay rise that was permitted by an employer without having to prove it wasn't a breach of pay policy (the Code). Beyond that threshold an employer had to prove it met conditions of the policy to the Pay Board. If the RPI threshold did not permit the increase it was 7% of the pay bill per head or £2.25, the choice of the limit was for the negotiators and not Government.

The details are still available uksi_19731785_en.pdf (legislation.gov.uk) paragraph 176! (Or 118 for Obs' version)

Today the employers would not pay and the Government has no money to pay

[ninearches]

Whatever, it still gave a hefty pay rise when a good wage was £40+/week.

[ninearches]

18 hours ago, Observer II said:

Thought the Ted Heath system was based on a flat rate rise, rather than percentage; which means the worst off get a bigger rise in percentage terms ?   

It was incremental depending on % point rises in inflation, Obs.

[Confused52]

19 minutes ago, ninearches said:

Whatever, it still gave a hefty pay rise when a good wage was £40+/week.

Very true.

[Observer II]

Given the panic on the news over the effect on the lowest paid, I would think a flat rate system is called for; and while their at it reinstatement of triple lock for pensioners, who've been robbed of their savings with nil interest, during the inflationary spiral.   😠

[Confused52]

54 minutes ago, Observer II said:

Given the panic on the news over the effect on the lowest paid, I would think a flat rate system is called for; and while their at it reinstatement of triple lock for pensioners, who've been robbed of their savings with nil interest, during the inflationary spiral.   😠

The law removing the triple lock ceased to have effect for the purposes of benefit up-rating calculations on the 6th April this year. Next years calculations will be on the Triple lock but based on CPI increase from September 2021 to September 2022 and wages from July 2021 to July 2022. You can expect nothing on interest rates.