Inflation 2019

I've just received notification that my State Pension, will be increased this year by 2.27%. Big deal, but I won't see all of it as my personal allowance is less than my State Pension, so some of it will be taxable. It'll be lumped in with the tax I pay on my company pension, I'm hoping for a better increase in that.

I've also had notification an increase in water charges, up by 15.6%

I've yet to receive that for Council Tax, but last year it went up by 5.6%
When you consider all the other increases people face, like train fares etc., can someone tell me to what sort of "index" State Pensions are linked?
Can't be anything in the "real world."

 

The inflation rate has always been something I've never understood.
They just fiddle the rate to suit themselves.

 

You should see how much we pay here for water DHR....the highest rate in the country

 

We converted to a water meter 10 years ago . Our water bill is still 15% less than it was in 2008. If there are only two in the household it is usually beneficial to change . A family of 4 probably not.

 

I'll be paying £858 this year.
I'm not on a water meter, as I've a koi pool with a 24/7 trickle change.

I've also two lawn sprinklers and the borders are fed by a leaky hose sysrem.
The washing machine is on about three times a day and the dishy three times in two days. They don't use a lot, but it would soon mount up.

Like many koi keepers, if we had to be on a meter we'd probably fill our pools in.

 

I would love a state pension plus a rise to go with it but have to wait until I am 66 for mine if I live that long after working all my life without hardly a break and only claimed the dole for six weeks whilst waiting to start a new job after being made redundant.

 

Neither did Al Capone , apparently.

And look what happened to him.

 

@shiney I would much rather be my side of 80 than your side of it...

I would love to have had the energy to have carried on working until I draw my pension but after too many years of long working days/weeks plus running a home I had to pack it in before my health suffered anymore so am a kept woman at the moment something I don’t enjoy as I feel guilty about spending some of Mr Kandys pension money at times.Luckily I am not materialistic so don’t need much in life apart from nice walks in the countryside which costs nothing and we enjoy holidays away in a caravan which makes up for not having holidays when I was a kid.(1st holiday aged 12 2nd holiday aged 17) I just feel peeved at how much money I have lost through loss of wages or pension but the damage has been done by governments and it ain’t gonna change any time soon

 

Women of my wife's age did have it harder than many moden women.
Once the youngest child was at school, she went back to work part-time, she was a shorthand typist. When she was working full time before the kids came along, she earned twice as much as I did!
She did some shopping in her lunch hour and the main shopping on Saturdays, with the kids in tow. I off course always worked Saturdays.

It's not that long ago, an occasion when we went shopping in Sainsburys. As she's a registered seriously disabled person we have a blue badge and I don't pay car tax. There were no disabled spaces available and as she can't walk very far, I pulled into a parent and child bay (they were nearer the entrance!) As we got out of the car a woman who had stopped near us got out of her car, walked up to my wife and said "You've parked in a parent and child bay, they are for people like me."
Quite calmly my wife said to her. "Look love when I was your age and fully mobile, when I went shopping I had to cope with three kids, a push chair and four carrier bags..... on a bus!"
Think yourself lucky you've got a car, don't need crutches and can push your pushchair and child to the entrance from anywhere in this car park." We left the woman completely dumbfounded.