sleepwello'nights

don't forget travel expenses to meet tenant and ensure any repairs needed are reported and attended to. Do you not make regular inspections? There may be other journeys directly related to the Land and Property business. As your claiming 10% wear and tear allowance the property is furnished, its amazing how repairs and replacements mount up. Especially as tenants treat their landlords property with such little respect! (Not my experience mind, only going by what posters on this forum say .)

I understand prostitution is legal in Germany, don't know about France or Italy. However do they include drugs and prostitution in their GDP calculations? If they do why the dispute over UK including them in GDP?

A discussion I had with a senior officer at a local hospital raised a similar point. Government receipts were conditional on being used for specific areas of treatment. Usually knee jerk reactions to the latest scandal being highlighted. No doubt well intentioned but it would have the effect of disempowering management and staff, we all know how efficient central government is at getting money spent wisely and resources being used effectively and efficiently.h

I'm lost as to why oil, and consequently, lower petrol and diesel prices for motorists in the UK is bad for the economy. Lower fuel prices for me means I save roughly £15 every time I fill up. That gives me extra money to spend. If every motorist gets that saving surely it will boost the economy? I recall a while back when fuel prices were increasing not only did we have a fuel blockade, I remember lots of stories in the press and on radio of why higher fuel prices were damaging to the economy and tales of low wage workers unable to afford to drive to work. Why will fuel falling in price cause damage to the economy?

Well the donations in the supermarket collection points are probably sent to Trussell Trust food banks in most towns anyway. I googled the Trussell Trust and had a look at their accounts, all available on line just a few clicks away. From their accounts Salary and wage costs are £790k for about 40 paid staff. Deduct say 12% for Employers National Insurance and your left with an average salary of £20k. No employee (that includes directors) receives more than £60k. It looks to my eyes as a relatively egalitarian organisation. I don't see what's wrong with their employees being paid for the work they do. The Trust must do a great deal to organise, train help set up and run food banks across the country. I'm sure there are independent voluntary food banks with sincere and hardworking volunteers scattered around the country but surely the need for a systematic and organised approach will give a better outcome. In the youtube clip of New Cross food bank they make a point stating that they pay their employees a living wage. After reading through the comments on Reddit that Baroness, let them eat porridge, Anne Jenkin provoked I will be donating to them.

Identical to a scheme introduced in Salemi, also in Sicily, in 2008. Village was deserted after an earthquake. Might be a good idea to get some insurance quotes first.

Thanks for the link. I've started reading it, so far only as far as the description of what happened. Which corresponds, as it would of course, with "When Money Dies". What I shall be looking for is an understanding of what causes hyperinflation. My understanding of inflation is that it is under capacity, or demand higher than capacity if you want to look at it from a slightly different perspective, that is its cause, not expansion of money supply. But like I said I'm no expert and have now looped back to where I was when I first took an interest in the explanations given my posters on this site about economics. I thought I understood, but perhaps I haven't, that money printing was a symptom of inflation, not a cause.

Surely it created the credit bubble so it could pay the reparations? As I read it the increased economic activity was due to the falling value of the Reichsmark against other currencies making german goods less expensive relative to other currencies. I'm no expert I'm trying to understand how the phenomenon occurs and how to relate it to the economic situation we are living through. So far, thankfully, there has been no appreciable fall in the standard of living I've experienced. Nominal prices of food has increased, as has a tank of fuel, VAT is higher. Other than these nominal price changes life has gone on much as before.

So what will be the catalyst that starts the crash. The hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic was caused by the excessive reparations that had to be made for World War 1. Zimbabwe experienced hyperinflation because of the policy of government instituted reforms to redistribute land from the white landowners to the black farmers to remedy the injustices of colonisation. High house prices?, globalisation?, immigration?, unfair benefit system? banking crisis?

But isn't that the issue, there is subdued demand for credit. The only demand for credit is from those that the banks don't want to lend to because they won't be able to pay it back. Hence the artificial stimulus from the Help to Sell Buy scheme, to entice buyers to borrow so the lenders can generate some interest income. Would interest rates really be a bit higher for savers if there was no stimulus. I'm more convinced that HR Dent is correct in his predictions for the US and global economy. I wish he wasn't as I've hung on to my gold despite him forecasting it would fall, as it has done. I've just listened to his youtube presentation for 2014 .

I bought some items from Lidl last weekend. Some apples, quite large but tasteless and watery. Don't think they will keep very well. Some "Italiamo" chocolate filled croissants, more like chocolate filled bread rolls, not very enjoyable. Doughnuts, dry and powdery jam filling was more like jelly than jam. Can't remember what else we purchased, oh some mushrooms they were ok. I would have bought a wet suit but they didn't have any, the nebulizer at £20 was very reasonably priced, doubtful about the quality.Overall don't think I'll bother saving a few pounds and eating tasteless food. I really don't understand why they get such good reviews. Tesco, like them or not, have the scale to fight back and recover. I'm sure the recent accounting scandal is little more than the new CEO throwing everything in including the kitchen sink to get as much of the bad news he can out of the way to flatter the results under his watch. Why is it such a national trait of ours to sneer at successful businesses when they do well and then rejoice when they falter? Given my second experience of Lidl's offering I'm quite glad that Tesco are failing to emulate them.

I know, but I've picked up lots of money saving advice from other posters on this site.Cold showers, move the house to face south, long bus trips around town during the winter, visits to the library (if its still open), buying groceries from the reduced shelves just before closing time, the list goes on and on.

I don't think I'm going to like living here then, but as I'll be almost 120 years old I'm not going to worry about it too much.

What I'm planning is to keep income below the personal allowance and top up income to the personal allowance with pension withdrawals. The balance of income I need will be taken from savings. Eventually my savings will be exhausted but by then personal allowances are likely to have increased and I can then withdraw larger amounts from my pensions. The value of my pensions will, I hope, continue to have increased.If I need to withdraw any amounts that would take me over my personal allowances, I will at the very least have minimised any tax I have to pay.

A good tax planning opportunity. If you can keep the amount you withdraw each year and the total of your other income at or below your personal allowance then your top marginal tax rate will be nil. If you have other savings you can use to cover your living costs whilst withdrawing your pension fund then you may be able to withdraw your entire pension without paying any tax on it. I'm sure some of you frugal gits on here could manage to do that. I'm working on ways to do it.

I still wish I'd brought the 500 needed to qualify for a 25% discount once a year back in 1992 or thereabouts when they were 12.5p each.

Its only the low end Tag Heuer watches that you are aware off then. The Monaco chronograph that was one of the watches I looked at in 2008 have more than doubled in price to just under £10k now. They do have some cheaper ones that are now around the £2-3k mark. They're not as nice though.In the end I went for a more refined Patek Philippe.

Well I tend to agree with Mrs Bear that living in England now is better than living in England back in the 1950s. We are immensely privileged to live in this country compared to many other countries in the world. All my life I have had enough to eat, I have never gone hungry, I've always been clothed and sheltered. My standard of living has increased steadily year after year. I've been well educated, I've been well cared for medically since childhood. No I'm not being smug, as I was recently accused. I've been able to bring up my children in a safe and secure environment, like my parents did with me. My children had fewer disadvantages than I, and are materially better off, as are their children. My brothers and sisters, friends, work colleagues, neighbours and pretty much everyone I know and see are decently clothed and not suffering from hunger and other obvious forms of hardship. The few beggars I see on the street are clothed and don't appear malnourished, even their dogs seem healthy. More a lifestyle choice than a course they have been forced into. I've never suffered the deprivation and hardship of war. I've never been coerced into military service, if I'd wanted I could have chosen to. Materially there is no question we are far better off than earlier generations. Most of us have never experienced real hardship, sure we may not be able to afford the house we want, the car we want or whatever material acquisition we feel will make us happier or that we feel we deserve. We take so much for granted, yet we are for most of the time able to go wherever we want without fear of being harmed, robbed or imprisoned. We are able to leave our homes when we want secure in the knowledge that when we return nothing will have been disturbed. Yes we see and hear on the news of atrocities being committed around the UK, have many of us actually been involved or witnessed them? Generally we are safe. The major risk most of us face on a day to day basis is a road traffic incident. Yet our roads are amongst the safest in the world. Are we happier, who knows, that is such an ephemeral emotion, it can change from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day. Perhaps we are complacent that our basic needs are so well met that they always will be, who knows, times can change. Give us more credit than being mindless morons happy to watch xfactor with our needs sated. I've not travelled that extensively but I have visited many other countries and I'm more than happy to return to England. As BigPig observes "Saw "The commonwealth on Film" on the telly. It was funny seeing the emigrants to the colonies saying things like "nothing worth staying for, this country is going to the dogs" back in the 50s and 60s." Seems we've always been an ungrateful lot.

Irony is definitely lost on Americans.

Such bitterness, how sad.

That's not too bad £8 million rental income, £4 million interest, voids couple of £100,000, 6 tradesmen on the payroll to cope with repairs @ £30-£40k each, bit of advertising, couple of admin assistants. It would give me enough to live on. A lot better than the income of the average wage slave I guess. Tell me Joan of the Tower how much do you earn a year?

As savings account yields are so low now I'm looking at alternative ways of saving. Purchasing ground rents is an investment area I'm considering, at the moment the yield looks to be about 5%, but if you purchase some where the landlord is able to collect other costs, insurance for example, then the yield can be higher, some I've looked at are around 20%

Well for one I don't know of any major house builder whose shares yield 10%. I take it you haven't lent any money through them. Maybe I should look harder for a plot of land and build a house myself. Using the old rule of thumb, 1/3 land, 1/3 build, 1/3 profit then the return is much greater than any savings account or company share.

I'm looking around to see where to get reasonable interest and came across Relendex on the Money Advice Service website. They're advertising interest of up to 10% payable quarterly. If anyone has invested with them what are your opinions of them?