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Soaring Petrol Prices Push Commuting Costs Higher Than Mortgages


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HOLA441

The solution is to live near to where you work. Did this for a year, it was amazing. Was home at 5:15, and had loads of cash.

Easier said than done, in Manchester every single job seems to go through agents who are idiots... I applied for a job 3 miles away. It said if you do not want an career doing accounts.

He phoned me up and said the job requires that I do accounts.... I hate doing accounts as it is demeaning and underpaid which is why I don't do accounts now, but pay for it in a long commute.

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HOLA442

This has been an issue for me for ages now. Get horrendously expensive house close to work in future... or buy a mansion for cheap but ages from work and hence horrendous fuel costs. And for those that cycle - try doing that in sub-Arctic Scotland......... Trains cost a fortune and the bus fare keeps going up and is poor service. I spend about £160 a month on fuel and work is just 5-6 miles away! It is a simply horrific thought that petrol costs for getting to and from work and working out to be more expensive than a MORTGAGE. Everything is crumbling around us.

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HOLA443

This has been an issue for me for ages now. Get horrendously expensive house close to work in future... or buy a mansion for cheap but ages from work and hence horrendous fuel costs. And for those that cycle - try doing that in sub-Arctic Scotland......... Trains cost a fortune and the bus fare keeps going up and is poor service. I spend about £160 a month on fuel and work is just 5-6 miles away! It is a simply horrific thought that petrol costs for getting to and from work and working out to be more expensive than a MORTGAGE. Everything is crumbling around us.

And buying close to work is not exactly safe either, as will the job last as long as the mortgage. Renting isn't much better with the restrictive rules many LLs put up. I.e. you MUST rent it for X period, no ifs no buts unless you can find some other sucker.

I had a hell of a time renting short term 6 years ago, temp jobs would pop up for 3-4 months at a time.

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HOLA444
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HOLA445
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HOLA446

Day by day I see fewer and fewer reasons to live here. I wish Gordo McRuin had just let things crash quickly and sharply. God help us all if it continues another 5-6 years...

I'm rather pleased today though. I make a small sum of money in HK every so often but manage to pay £0 tax. The HK government in April has been kind enough to give me a £600 wedge :D how nice of them.

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HOLA447

Easier said than done, in Manchester every single job seems to go through agents who are idiots... I applied for a job 3 miles away. It said if you do not want an career doing accounts.

He phoned me up and said the job requires that I do accounts.... I hate doing accounts as it is demeaning and underpaid which is why I don't do accounts now, but pay for it in a long commute.

a long commute is a small price to pay for a job you enjoy doing, or at least content in

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HOLA448

I am living with great memories when just 2 years ago I was paying 29p a litre for Red Diesel for my boat. Along came those b******s at the EU forcing the Government to add duty to Red Diesel for pleasure boating, but hey I now pay full duty but VAT @ 20% on 60% for propulsion and VAT @ 5% on the remaining 40% for heating. :)

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HOLA449

I did live near my job , I moved to where the job was it was a 10 minute cycle ride, lovely. They closed place down soon after, now have a job 30 miles away. I am going to aproach my employers about working from home due to the cost. Not moving as it's a nasty place to live.

Now got a motorbike which does 60mpg if you're careful which isn't bad. Getting rid of the car next week. Trains (if the weather is too bad to ride in) and motorbikes only from now on. Still I'd rather not commute at all...company cost cutting basically pushing the cost onto you. All the money spent by employees having to do extra miles due to branch closure could no doubt pay the branch running costs and them some.

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HOLA4410

I would have though you'd have had it the other way round being moored up most of the time in and around Norwich not to mention the extra cold winter this year.

Since the beginning of November and until the end of March my boat has been out on hard standing while I have been warm at home giving the heating a bashing. Will be back down the end of March as she is put back in. :D

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HOLA4411

I am living with great memories when just 2 years ago I was paying 29p a litre for Red Diesel for my boat. Along came those b******s at the EU forcing the Government to add duty to Red Diesel for pleasure boating, but hey I now pay full duty but VAT @ 20% on 60% for propulsion and VAT @ 5% on the remaining 40% for heating. :)

I should think so too. Pleasure boating is not exactly an activity of national importance. Pay your ******ing VAT like everyone else has to, you ******ing parasite!

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HOLA4412

Snip

...............

And if you are disconcerted by driving in the UK try what it is like in somewhere nice like France - who don't have an obsession with property.

Correct.

Driving here (dept 87) is still a pleasure, not a chore. It's still possible to travel 5 miles to the nearest town, and not see another car! :D

It's the real life 'Darling buds of May' atmosphere!

MPG is brilliant too, the same vehicle when in UK is probably managing about 90% of the MPG achieved in France (French derv is cheaper also). :D

But, I guess that a French city is just like any in the UK, regarding commuting in, and around it.

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HOLA4413

I am living with great memories when just 2 years ago I was paying 29p a litre for Red Diesel for my boat. Along came those b******s at the EU forcing the Government to add duty to Red Diesel for pleasure boating, but hey I now pay full duty but VAT @ 20% on 60% for propulsion and VAT @ 5% on the remaining 40% for heating. :)

Having no heating system on board and being a fine upstanding citizen, I asked to pay tax on 100% when this came in and I first filled up. The marina till wasn't set up to allow me to do it!

I was amazed by the fuss in the sailing press when red diesel came to an end. I, like most sailors, use about 100 litres a year so even quadrupling the price hardly makes it a big component of the cost of sailing when you keep a boat on the Hamble. The fuss was also a bit embarrassing; penniless old ladies pay VAT on their heating gas while the yellow wellie brigade complained about paying VAT on fuel for their yachts.

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HOLA4414

I say, for most people the answer is too much like hard work, they'd rather whinge than accept the solution. All they need to do to slash their fuel costs is to get their idle bodies and lardy arses onto a scooter, or preferably, a bicycle seat.

]

How very dare you sir!

I am pretty fit these days and would actively enjoy, during the summer at least, doing my 20 mile trip to the office on a bike. The roads are too fast and dangerous for that though.

If fuel hit £10 a litre that would stop me and everybody else driving it so I would be cycling all year round on safe roads. Smaller increases, even a doubling, won't have that effect though.

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HOLA4415

How very dare you sir!

I am pretty fit these days and would actively enjoy, during the summer at least, doing my 20 mile trip to the office on a bike. The roads are too fast and dangerous for that though.

If fuel hit £10 a litre that would stop me and everybody else driving it so I would be cycling all year round on safe roads. Smaller increases, even a doubling, won't have that effect though.

Cycling is a very safe activity, casualty stats prove it to be so, you have more chance of being a traffic casualty statistic strolling along a pavement than you do by riding a cycle. So, being a safety conscious citizen, you always wear a helmet when out walking? :D

Yes, outside of summer can be little fun, I'll give you that, those days are usually "scooter" days. Still, you can't beat cycling past a long queue of stressed out car drivers on a nice summer evenings rush hour, it's lovely. :)

You are right about these and subsequent rises having little or no impact though, like I said, people would rather whinge than deal with, they really are that lazy!

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HOLA4416

I am living with great memories when just 2 years ago I was paying 29p a litre for Red Diesel for my boat. Along came those b******s at the EU forcing the Government to add duty to Red Diesel for pleasure boating, but hey I now pay full duty but VAT @ 20% on 60% for propulsion and VAT @ 5% on the remaining 40% for heating. :)

A pal of mine owns a vast gin palace which consumes diesel on a biblical scale... £80's worth of Red to drive from Poole to Sandown & back.... what's that going to cost now? £200, 300 for an afternoon. :lol:

Seeing as this chap is a rich pwoperty developer type I never could work out why he was allowed to buy cheap farmers fuel in the first place?!

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HOLA4417

Around 5 years ago just after being made redundant I interviewed for a job 40 miles away around the M25. The pay was £5K less than I had been on leaving me a gross pay of around £27K. To do the job would have required an upgrade of car, ie me spending savings to the tune of maybe £5k, and then 20,000 miles a year commuting, translated into money that was 2.5 gallons a day (stop start traffic) ie £10 at the time, £50 per week, £ 2.5Kpa, £400 pa extra services,,, £200 pa tyres and depreciation of £1.5K pa so say a total of £5K pa after tax,(or in effect around £6.5K pre tax reducing my pay to around £21K pa, This in comparison to the £1200 I had been paying previously, and owning an already depreciated car that I did 3K miles in pa. Even back then big comuting like this was expensive, now you would up that figure by another £5+per day. The total effect of mega commuting really is 'Mortgage money' added to the fact that you need to continually save for a new car.

To add insult to injury, they are putting up train/bus fares beyond CPI every year.

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HOLA4418

If fuel hit £10 a litre that would stop me and everybody else driving it so I would be cycling all year round on safe roads. Smaller increases, even a doubling, won't have that effect though.

Just plugged £10 a litre into my costs spreadsheet, just for fun

It would still be cheaper for me to drive at £10 a litre, than to use public transport. If I include the opportunity cost of the extra time taken using public transport. And this assumes no increase in public transport prices. At £10 a litre it would still make economic sense to drive.

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HOLA4419

Around 5 years ago just after being made redundant I interviewed for a job 40 miles away around the M25. The pay was £5K less than I had been on leaving me a gross pay of around £27K. To do the job would have required an upgrade of car, ie me spending savings to the tune of maybe £5k, and then 20,000 miles a year commuting, translated into money that was 2.5 gallons a day (stop start traffic) ie £10 at the time, £50 per week, £ 2.5Kpa, £400 pa extra services,,, £200 pa tyres and depreciation of £1.5K pa so say a total of £5K pa after tax,(or in effect around £6.5K pre tax reducing my pay to around £21K pa, This in comparison to the £1200 I had been paying previously, and owning an already depreciated car that I did 3K miles in pa. Even back then big comuting like this was expensive, now you would up that figure by another £5+per day. The total effect of mega commuting really is 'Mortgage money' added to the fact that you need to continually save for a new car.

To add insult to injury, they are putting up train/bus fares beyond CPI every year.

So through arbitrage, tax & housing, they've already priced the 'chavs' out from the economy by proxy. Petrol will do the same to everyone else.

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HOLA4420

My commute costs are pretty much the same as my mortgage.

About £440 per month for mortgage, and £410 pounds per month in train fares.

I count myself fortunate to do a job I enjoy, and to have bought my house around 1998 so my mortgage is small.

If I had a bigger mortgage, my current commute just wouln't be affordable.

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HOLA4421

I am living with great memories when just 2 years ago I was paying 29p a litre for Red Diesel for my boat. Along came those b******s at the EU forcing the Government to add duty to Red Diesel for pleasure boating, but hey I now pay full duty but VAT @ 20% on 60% for propulsion and VAT @ 5% on the remaining 40% for heating. :)

Assuming that your boat is not restricted to inland waters could you fill up at the Channel Islands?

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HOLA4422
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HOLA4423

OK first thing all petrol is now sold in liters and thats the only thing you know what the price is for, why does everyone still quote consumption in mpg surely its a bit meaningless, like the stupid situation driving round Ireland where all speed limits are in KMH and all distances miles , why use metric for half the things and miles for the rest insane .......

My other point would be that most people who use the car for shopping, kids school run etc etc type stuff probably do less than 3k miles a year , at that level the price of petrol to most people is pretty meaningless, hence all the housewives in the 4*4 are just not bothered about the cost of petrol compared to the cost of an expensive car it just is not that significant.

The people whom it does effect are these people with crazy commutes to not high paying jobs, I just cant understand how anyone other than a couple of nutters would be driving more than 10k a year, these people will be effected as they are squandering a finite resource much more than the mother in the 4*4 and the logical thing is for them to live closer to where they work.

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HOLA4424

The people whom it does effect are these people with crazy commutes to not high paying jobs, I just cant understand how anyone other than a couple of nutters would be driving more than 10k a year, these people will be effected as they are squandering a finite resource much more than the mother in the 4*4 and the logical thing is for them to live closer to where they work.

Again all well and good if you're on your own. What about those of us with partners who work in different places?

Sure we could move closer to her work, but then it would be me in the same situation instead. Unless I go on the dole of course, then I wouldn't have to drive anywhere (which could be an option should petrol go over £2 a litre).

This is why the get on your bike/live near your work option just isn't viable in a dual income household. The chances of you both finding a decent job in the same area in this day in age are slim to say the very least, hence why so many of us are having to commute in the first place.

Edited by PopGun
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HOLA4425

How very dare you sir!

I am pretty fit these days and would actively enjoy, during the summer at least, doing my 20 mile trip to the office on a bike. The roads are too fast and dangerous for that though.

If fuel hit £10 a litre that would stop me and everybody else driving it so I would be cycling all year round on safe roads. Smaller increases, even a doubling, won't have that effect though.

Just to be pedantic, you mean you think the drivers are too dangerous not the roads. A road is a fine thing. A car driven by an incompetent, OTOH...

But cycling's pretty safe by all accounts. Safer than walking according to the stats. And infinitely more enjoyable than driving during rush hour.

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