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longtomsilver

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Everything posted by longtomsilver

  1. I need to start eating and cooking well again for the family. I'll be bringing the slow cooker out of retirement. Food in getting expensive again in the big four supermarkets (especially meets and I too noticed Smoked Salmon has for now been priced out of my basket). MrsLTS sells into the supermarkets (non-grocery) and price rises are coming in July. The 'supermarket' that is trying to protect consumers from price inflation is simply substituting branded Chinese tat (with a whiff of quality) for Chinese tat of no quality at all. She's lost £3million of orders next quarter with them and won't be getting the business back, they've switched to a non-branded line completely. As for Aldi/Lidl, other than fruit and vegetables, and bread products from Lidl the rest of the stuff they sell is carp.
  2. I bought a Skoda CitiGo in November last year and haggled for such a good deal that they paid me £382 to take the car off the forecourt. The minimum deposit was meant to be £500 but I point blankly refused until they agreed to refund all but the first payment. So I paid £500 upfront and they took it off by fudging the options on the finance agreement (filling in a negative cost). How did I afford the first £118? I don't know 0% too and had for a very good price.
  3. I bought £37,500 in the FTSE 250 tracker as mooted here and am currently up £1,100. The original plan was to drip feed and hopefully lower the average but with the index at an all time high should I take profits now to reinvest on a correction. Ultimately, I want to have £75k in here.
  4. If I remember correctly Amazon applied an incredibly sophisticated AI model to automate their pricing and the end result was ludicrous differentials on the same products between themselves and Amazon Market sellers set pricing against each other. Junk in, junk out... in a trading environment i'd expect to see spontaneous boom and busts on steroids when two or more bots inevitably compete in the same space. Financial spam if you like.
  5. Thanks Mrs Bear. You've given me an idea... for some reason I can't edit my comment into your quote. Package care homes.
  6. I got 4% which is like a nominal 10p on top of the NMW but they made us sign new guaranteed minimum hour contracts (tearing up the old one) reducing my hours by one 'block' of 4 so doing 12 hours now and not 16. MrsLTS got the maximum 2% payrise (1% effectively net) and a £17,000 bonus pro-rata'd to the time served at her new company which after tax was ~£4k which we are using to take our children to New York in October. Making cut-backs in other areas of our lives to offset the increased cost of living. Paying down debt (car/car/motorcycle) faster too as the future isn't looking so great.
  7. The wiping my mum's bottom part frightens me. Everything else I think will be doable cometh the time.
  8. 1. Improved safety for both the occupants and those outside the vehicle. What's not to like. The increased weight of all these systems probably deducts 2-3mpg from the overall fuel economy figures which must equate to an additional expense of 0.5p per mile. For me that £7.50 a month extra fuel (1,500 miles) is quite some insurance policy. 2. Using exotic and/or lighter materials would not only eat into the manufacturers profits but also feed into a higher a ticket price. Shaving 20% off the cars weight might improve fuel consumption by 3-4mpg offsetting the losses from crumple zones, airbags etcetera... laws of diminishing returns however would mean that £10 monthly fuel saving more than wiped out by the additional £1,500 (£35x42) purchase cost. These are best guesstimates on my own Skoda CitiGo that returned a real 54mpg using just 28.58litres last week to travel 340miles. My Rover Metro returned 38-40mpg. We have come along way since.
  9. Other than what goes into MrsLTS company pension nearly all our cash is/has been allocated to the children's education. There really is no better investment in an increasingly competitive and globalised workforce. I can imagine a time when only the very elite score highly enough in emigration criteria especially as TSHTF in pockets around the world, afterall it is the elite who set the rules.
  10. I put £15k in Ratesetter a few weeks back. The rate offered for five years was 6%+ and I figured the 1% or so fee for rapid withdrawal still puts me ahead of the shorter term bonds. I'll be happy if it does indeed return me £20k as projected.
  11. That'll be soaked up by the manufacturer. I understood that the profit on a car sale for the dealership is only a few hundred quid and that more money is made on the finance, servicing and sales bonuses. Whatever it is it's a well kept secret as there's nothing definitive on the interweb.
  12. Two anecdotals. My neighbour had a PCP on a Mercedes C class (2012) and was locked in to buying another (year old E class, old shape) for pretty much the same price as we bought our new E class for. He had gone 'way' over the agreed mileage on the C class and the dealership waived the penalty to take out the new contract. On the face of it not a brilliant deal but he felt like he didn't have a choice. He wanted a Jaguar F pace binded to another Mercedes. The used APR is over 7% so I suggested he clear that with a low rate bank loan. I asked for an early settlement on my BMW 120D lease today, got an email with an attachment and the penalty for early redemption was identical to the remaining 6 x monthly payments (£252) and pro-rata mileage (it's at 23,750/25,000). They want £3,800 to take it early, ha no chance it'll be stored in a barn.
  13. I'd say 90% of private schools are ever so slightly selective and filter out perhaps only the 5-10% who are really struggling. Last year we lost 2 pupils and none so far this year. My daughter is moving up from pre-preparatory to the main school in September and the admission process involved an interview and passing the 11+ The majority of pupils at private school are middle achievers who'll excel as they receive a traditional education with solid foundations, small class sizes, a challenging curriculum and in the case of my childrens school text books from the 80s.
  14. Yes it's an ofsted 'outstanding' rated school on paper and is second in county on the league tables. However the difference between that and a good private school is a world apart. 69% 5 GCSEs (A-C) vs 100% and 12% A levels grades AB vs 86%. State schools have set the bar for performance and outcomes so low that to shine they only really have to do little. They make a song and dance when a handful of their students go onto Oxbridge whereas at private school it's considered the norm.
  15. The difference between property prices in the catchment of a good comprehensive school in our area and where we live is £125,000 (£185k vs £310k on a modest 3 bedroom semi). The additional cost (£200k (assuming added to the mortgage over 25 years)) can't be far off that of a private education.
  16. I'm a nosey bugger and the window of the one I peer into (Mercian capital) looks as though the people in it are dual roled as both customer facing representatives and contact centre operatives. Hardly ever see any actual customers in there.
  17. We have this discussion every year and yet the market never manages to depress prices. The very best used cars coming off lease get a second or third life within the dealership network, less outlay to the customer but higher margins (apr is nearly always less favourable) which is where I believe the manufacturers begin to harvest for a profit. On the last two leases my whole outlay (rentals) only covered the VAT element. (£9,000 and £7,000 respectively) on two prestige German marque's. I'm seeing an increase in the number of new (status) vehicles driving around with a bow on the grill of all things. 3 this week alone, is anyone else seeing this too? ?
  18. Stick that in your compound interest pipe and smoke it. For most graduates their maximum earning potential won't be reached before they're 30 and then the £30k student loan will be more like £50k. The only way I could make university stack-up for a career that might max out at £45-50k per annum would be to pay the student loan off with a normal loan in my twenties, move and default until the loan is statute barred (six years) hopefully all before the big 30 when maximum earning potential is reached. It really is that much of a millstone, we shouldn't deprive people of the right to a proper degree at little cost to themselves afterall their learning is of most benefit to our country and economy. The young have be collateralised, securitized and sold out to the highest bidder. ****** the system.
  19. That nauseating stock photos with the billboard display 'own your home here for as little as £465 a month'. iPhone £65 a month CHECK Shiny Beemer £399 a month on lease CHECK Part-ownership in a 1 bedder 999 lease £465 a month CHECK ****** 'em
  20. The amateur landlords, and by that I mean the ones who actually hold down a job as well are likely remortgaging the main home for their it's me pension second property. They can borrow at low home owner borrowing rates and won't have to present a business case to a lender. I know one such couple in my village, bought a house for £350,000 10 years ago and now worth £800,000 and they were able to equity release at their very low tracker rate to purchase a 2 bed in the nearest town for £140k ... I think they took a little bit more as the guy bought a new 7 series BMW and they are extending (planning permission requested) their kitchen and putting a basement games room in with club grade boogie boogie dance floor and a bar. On paper at least they'll have been cash buyers.
  21. I too was equally fed-up about the same time as you and sold 35,000 shares for 20.07p in June 2016. Luckily I didn't sell out completely, and held on. Trading in and out of shares has cost me dearly in fees (£4,000 over five years) and time that I won't get back. Overall I'm up 40% and all my sells will now get put into vanguard and fidelity tracker funds with low management fees that were mentioned on another thread and I can put myself to good use, maybe getting a proper job. I'd hate to be a full time day-trader, so depressing even if making a profit.
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