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How Many Here Are Suffering From The Crunch?


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HOLA441

The doubling of the student loan interest rate has led to me & the missus paying ours off in full this week. It's come out of our house deposit, but the monthly outgoing on the extra money we would need to borrow will be less than the SLC would be taking from us.

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HOLA442

My income has soared this year, largely because my hard work at building my website has paid off and I have good niche IT skills :rolleyes: . I've also diversified like hell and have 8 different sources of income.

But on the downside I remortgaged a week too late in March and now have to pay an extra 30 quid a month. Grrrr. And I bought my shoebox flat at the height of the boom, so even with a large deposit I'm probably going to experience negative equity. In fact the place I bought is so small I've rented it out and I'm living in a massive new build flat some other sucker bought for nearly a quarter of a million :o .

My expenditure appears to be going down as well, although my annual holiday is going to cost much more this year. The better I get at cooking, the more my food bill shrinks.

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HOLA443
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HOLA446
Has anyone recently signed on? I remember in the 80's when I did that it was a hellish experience (thanks to M. Thatcher) but do they give you much hassle now and how much do you get? Do you have to wait long for payments and do they still pay your mortgage?

I thought I was Alice in Wonderland. Security men great you at the door, thinking you're going to get mouthy or hit them. If you as much raise your voice you can be thrown out. Nobody has the confidence to give an opinion. There is no funding for retraining. They put you on a telephone to the national head quarters if you ask something they don't know and the man at Hq tells you to ask the local JC. The staff though friendly have their hands tied and have to behave like cardboard cut outs. I could go on and on

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HOLA447
Doubling of the interest rate?

When does the SLC publish it's new rate? set each year?

Sounds like i might be rushing mine off soon!

My understanding was that the rate doubled from 2.4% to 4.8% last September based upon the previous March RPI figure. This September the rate on my loans drops to 3.8% - RPI this March.

I am on the original system though, not the new "Grads pay 40% tax" system. Try the student loan company site for exact details

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HOLA448

Not really suffering at all - as yet. Only one major move for me and that's coming off fixed term contracts and taking up a permanent job. Fixed contracts are difficult enough to cope with mentally in the good times, especially when you have a family. I dread to think what it's like when you know the economy is on its ar5e and you have to find a new contract within 3 months.

Hopefully my new company are well placed to weather the coming problems. I'm fairly sure they are.

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HOLA449
Doubling of the interest rate?

When does the SLC publish it's new rate? set each year?

Sounds like i might be rushing mine off soon!

My statement says:

01/09/2006 - 31/08/2007 2.40%

From 01.09/2007 4.80%

The APR is based on the RPI figure for some particular month (can't remember which) each year, but RPI was unfortunately high for this year's particular one, so yes, it's doubled. There was a minor fuss in the media when it was changed.

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HOLA4410
I thought I was Alice in Wonderland. Security men great you at the door, thinking you're going to get mouthy or hit them. If you as much raise your voice you can be thrown out. Nobody has the confidence to give an opinion. There is no funding for retraining. They put you on a telephone to the national head quarters if you ask something they don't know and the man at Hq tells you to ask the local JC. The staff though friendly have their hands tied and have to behave like cardboard cut outs. I could go on and on

The onus will be on you to prove you have paid NI contributions. Luckily I had saved every payslip going back years last time - still had to sort it calling Glasgow for 2 days. They said they had 'forgotten' to add my contributions to the DB (? :( )

This also happened to a friend recently.

I have little job security and my freelance partner's work has dried up completely. Thinking of bailing out of 12 year relationship to save myself, which is horrid, but do not see any other way at the moment - supporting him on my CC.

Just need to keep going til the end of the year and then some money matures.

Edited by Tonkers
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HOLA4411

Not personally affected yet, but I work for a <100 person software co. and in April sales fell off a cliff and have not bounced back. My personal preparations include saving (have approx 4 yrs take-home pay in cash deposits) and quietly colonising colleagues' areas of expertise so when the cull happens I'll be the one who can "do everything" and therefore be kept. ;)

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HOLA4412
I'm untouched so far bar maybe a rise in my grocery bill, mortgage fixed for 10 years, gas and leccy fixed till 2011 and I bike to work. Payrises of 0.5% over APR each year and as I work on the Railway I'm not at risk of losing my job.

What Reccesion ?

i work in railway industry as well so no fares to work unless i have to drive what do you do fortune and where are you

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HOLA4413
The onus will be on you to prove you have paid NI contributions. Luckily I had saved every payslip going back years last time - still had to sort it calling Glasgow for 2 days. They said they had 'forgotten' to add my contributions to the DB (? :( )

This also happened to a friend recently.

I have little job security and my freelance partner's work has dried up completely. Thinking of bailing out of 12 year relationship to save myself, which is horrid, but do not see any other way at the moment - supporting him on my CC.

Just need to keep going til the end of the year and then some money matures.

You would ditch your partner because you don't want to support him? Don't you love him though, as long as you love each other you can get through anything.

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HOLA4414
Guest Shedfish

sole trader, payments so irregular you could make the figures say whatever you wanted, depending on the choice of data points, but broadly my earnings have halved from a year or so ago

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HOLA4415

OK so far.

No risk to job for a few years at least and a good sum put aside to buy a house in 2010.

Bills and food going up of course but with careful budgeting no actual difference in outgoings.

So far I'm more interested in the anecdotes of those around me - how friends and family are changing their behaviour (and opinions)

Classic recession stuff - yes, many people are struggling to cope but the now received "feeling the pinch" wisdom is bringing it all on very quickly as folks cut out almost all 'discretionary' spending.

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HOLA4416
You would ditch your partner because you don't want to support him? Don't you love him though, as long as you love each other you can get through anything.

12 years, of course I love him, but what if he has no income coming in over the next 3 months (which has happened a few times before)? He cannot get any sort of gov handouts and is not in a good position to do another job.

Do you let the loved one drag you both down when it really is an issue of survival of one or none?

Edited by Tonkers
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HOLA4417
12 years, of course I love him, but what if he has no income coming in over the next 3 months (which has happened a few times before)? He cannot get any sort of gov handouts and is not in a good position to do another job.

Do you let the loved one drag you both down when it really is an issue of survival of one or none?

Depends what he is like of course?

My ex- she had one think on her mind irrespective of income.

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

MEW-spend

cos its what everyone else is doing - innit?

I begged to differ and thus ultimately we went our speparate ways!

I have heard she is well on her way to IVA status :lol:

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HOLA4418

Business sector (food packaging) starting to suffer - difficult to pass cost increases (raw materials & energy/fuel) to large customers.

Weaker Pound not helping one bit as the extra export business is dwarfed by increased costs of imported purchases (common I should think in many manufacturing sectors, hence the persistence of the UK giganormous trade deficit.

Also noticed marked increase in late payments ...

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HOLA4419
12 years, of course I love him, but what if he has no income coming in over the next 3 months (which has happened a few times before)? He cannot get any sort of gov handouts and is not in a good position to do another job.

Do you let the loved one drag you both down when it really is an issue of survival of one or none?

You should be having this discussion with him, not with a load of strangers on a bulletin board. Sooner the better.

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HOLA4420

Sounds like everyone is largely OK...

Cept me. :(

I'm glad I've been in "recession mode" for a little while and have sizeable savings...because my employer is going bust. I'll be unemployed in a month or so.

Let the job hunt begin :P

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HOLA4421
MEW-spend

MEW-spend

cos its what everyone else is doing - innit?

I begged to differ and thus ultimately we went our speparate ways!

I have heard she is well on her way to IVA status :lol:

Oh he's not that! He's fairly thrifty. Just I don't see any work on the horizon for him this time, and I just cannot support him, whether I like it or not :( if he has an income of zero for the forseeable.

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HOLA4422
You should be having this discussion with him, not with a load of strangers on a bulletin board. Sooner the better.

Actually, I would be interested to know if anyone else has been to the wire like this with a loved one. The conversation is being had!

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HOLA4423
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HOLA4424
This is one for Minos....

What's been the personal impact of all this turmoil on you?

Personally our team has been decimated from five to just two (yes, I know the true meaning of the word is 10%). All the interesting projects and travel have been cancelled. All my work is now focused on just keeping the essentials ticking over. I hope this is enough to keep my job, but we'll see soon enough.

Wages are likely to be frozen at the year end and bonuses slashed. Morale is pretty low.

The food and energy inflation hasn't had a big impact on expenses to be honest. I eat out a little less and cycle to work a bit more, which is more than enough to offset the rises in other things.

What's it like for you? Are you hurting out there?

You guys that are struggling why dont you start spreadbetting? You have your eyes open already as to what is going on and where we are heading otherwise you would not be here so use this information

ok then here are my predictions...

1. Oil $200 a barrel

2. Gold will breach $1000 an ounce and climb ever upwards

3. Food commoditys on the up with no end in sight

4. Oil service companys up way up

5. Oil companys up

6. Banks down

7. Builders down

8. Alternative energy up

9. Metals up (silver, platinum, copper etc)

From that little lot you could pick some nice buy and sell positons and make a very nice extra income each month even only going $1/point! If you had followed my prediction for Oil way back last year when it was $70 you would even at only $10/point have made over 70 grand not to mention gold which was $670 at the time!

Edited by Soul Reaver
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HOLA4425
12 years, of course I love him, but what if he has no income coming in over the next 3 months (which has happened a few times before)? He cannot get any sort of gov handouts and is not in a good position to do another job.

Do you let the loved one drag you both down when it really is an issue of survival of one or none?

For better for worse, for richer for poorer?

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