izzy

Sorry to hear your bad news. Remember, the holidays are often the time when niggles erupt into major problems: when the routine starts again tomorrow, you both might be able to put this disagreement into perspective. From a female view point, I think someone made a good point earlier when they said your wife's pride might be hurting by comparing herself with her customers and friends. Rightly or wrongly, we all do this and life can look pretty bleak if you're at the bottom of your social pecking order. If I was your wife, the last thing I would want is someone belittling me when I already feel humiliated by the rest of my peer group. I think you need to acknowledge your wife's pain and verbally validate it. Make sure she knows that her happiness is of the utmost importance to you. (You can validate her feelings without giving in). Once you have communicated to her how important her happiness is to you, try and build her self-image up in other ways. For example, have flowers delivered to her work. Start telling mutual friends how fantastic she is. Stop by her work and ask what she wants for dinner. Tell her how beautiful and special she is to you. i.e. make her the centre of attention (someone her friends / customers might envy) and you may restore the balance in your relationship.

Sold up and Renting Abroad, I think you've made an excellent point, not just about buying in Turkey but about buying a holiday home anywhere. Programmes like 'A Place in the Sun' have made buying, and living abroad, look deceptively simple.

Only point I'd make about Turkey is remember it's an earthquake zone. You must therefore ensure that the building is a quality construction built to specific standards designed to resist collapse in a quake. As far as I know, this involves digging very deep foundations and using a steel frame in the building construction. I'd be concerned if the building was too cheap. The type of land the house is bulit on is also important.

A lot has been said about out-sourcing in the IT industry and the decline of manufacturing, but the unemployment figures are still relatively low. Which sectors are expanding and creating new jobs?

What's the urgency? Do you really need to buy, can't you rent? If you really think prices are going to rise, then buy. If prices are going to 'plateau', then there's no rush.

Charity abuser of the week Royal Opera House Covent Garden £205,000 This salary is probably quite a squeeze, darling. Designer suits, flowers and champagne don't come cheap you know, just ask Elton John.

Doctors are vastly over-rated, IMHO. Like William Burroughs, I tend to feel that you're more likely to remain healthy by avoiding doctors than by handing your life over to them. There speaks a man who has never been ill. Believe me, when you do need life saving treatment, and those who administer it, you'll bite your ungrateful tongue.

The house two doors down was sold recently for £221,000. It is now sporting a 'For Let' sign. We pay £750 a month to rent the same type of house (it's a terrace) If the owners are paying 5% on the mortgage this is £11050 a year. We only pay £9000 a year in rent. Call me simple but this looks like a get poor quick scheme. I've been a landlord before and voids and repairs can cut well into good profits, never mind a balance sheet which, at best, is £2000 in the red each year. Perhaps these generous people have charitable intentions towards us poor renters. Long-live subsidized rent! Merry Christmas

Does anyone have a link to information on this proposed government policy?

Is this a wind up? As a similiar aged female, I'd like to say: Stop whinging! What has been taken away from you? You're an adult and able to make your own choices. All of us are exposed to the expectations of parents/ friends/ society, but it's your life. Nobody is actually stopping you do exactly what you please. I'm sorry, but if you want to experience a tirade of bitterness, look no further than BPE's posts. The guys on this forum are only supporting BPE as a stick to beat, what they perceive as, the threat of feminism.

I just don't agree. Do they create money? If so, isn't this increasing confusion over the actual definition of 'money' part of the reason the world economy is in this precarious position. They don't actually produce anything. Surely bonuses come from percentages of profits from making financial transactions. At the end of the day, small investors, savers, borrowers, consumers and tax-payers fund this merry-go-round. You are just a very small fish and the bottom of a very long food chain, only, the ocean is vast and too murky for you to see it.

Good luck to them However, I do have one question. Why do many here find it perfectly acceptable for those in finance to earn large sums whilst there is only critiscm for top earners in the public services /healthcare, who take home comparitively modest amounts. Perhaps I am ignorant in this, but to my mind neither produce something tangible (in fact, I'd have to argue on the side of the public sector being more useful) and surely, we pay for both directly or indirectly. Perhaps we could also say: a lot of nurses pay one of those derivates traders.

Won't this ultimately weaken the pound? So when our currency is worth tuppence hapney internationally, all that imported tat we've come to love so much might be worth a fortune at the car boot sales.

Even though it pains me to say it, houses still seem to be selling here.

As a dentist I have to disagree. I work mostly in the NHS (in priority care and access) and part-time in private practice. Dentistry isn't nearly as lucrative as most people think, the running costs are enormous. Consider this, when you have a crown made you are paying 3 people, not one (dentist, dental nurse, lab technician) and you are paying overheads: staff such as cleaner, receptionist; running costs and the price of materials. Secondly, changes to the way NHS dentistry is being orgainised is FORCING dentists out of the NHS. Please view my previous post on this subject. http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/ind...showtopic=16461

Are you talking about Slough? I used to rent out a flat in Slough. Never any trouble finding tenants due to proximity of Heathrow and M4.

I shall go to church on Christmas day and be thankful for all the good things that I have. We're living in wonderland people. OK, not being able to buy a house sucks but no one in the history of humanity has ever had it as good as us.

Any working person should be better off than those who don't work (except those who cannot through disability). Everyone's labour is worth more than £5.05 an hour.

Think our obsession with shopping comes from a severe shortage in imagination. What consumer drones we are becoming. Nothing better to do on Saturday (and Sunday) than trawl round consumer temples. I think a lot of people are ready for a change. There has to be more to life than matching scatter cushions and beige interiors! Please, tell me there is.

Can't wait Will we see: 'House prices Slashed in Spain, Tumble in Turkey and Slaughtered in Slovenia'. Serves these greedy investors right. What's worse than preventing ordinary people as home owning own home, ohh yeh, I know, let's go to a poorer country and prevent even poorer people owning their own home. :angry:

Before you all start shouting... I expect this won't be a popular sentiment But.... I feel a bit sorry for the average EA. Seems like it's either famine or feast for them. Can't blame them for stocking up in the good times. (obviously dishonest behaviour is unacceptable)

Most of the week I work for the local PCT (Primary Care Trust (NHS)). Currently, we have a £10m deficit and a freeze on new positions. In my opinion we offer a cr@p service. This is not because the people on the frontline are not trying, it is just that we are spread way too thinly. Might just be my opinion but I always imagined an organisation looking a bit like a pyramid with the 'doers' at the bottle providing the service, with smaller and smaller levels of management above. I feels now like an inverse pyramid with an ever decreasing number of 'doers' being told to work even harder by an ever burgeoning layer of 'managers, consultants, advisors'. Personally, I am absolutely sick of people who never go near the frontline getting paid fat salaries to telling us to do things they may never have done/ have given up doing for the refuge of a cosy office. This country is going down the toilet. :angry:

Get a mate to put in an insulting offer to knock their confidence in the market.

For me wealth is freedom. Without money we are bound to slavery. Financial independence and modest requirements give a person the freedom to quit a job which makes them miserable, escape from a rough area or time to follow their own personal interests.