Latest Moan From You and Me 2023

I don't think that's the issue.

Let's consider a ten grand savings account. If inflation is 2% and the interest is for all intents and purposes, zero, then you're effectively losing £200 per year. I could see that as an acceptable fee, almost like an insurance policy on the security afforded to me by knowing I have a financial safety net.

Now let's say inflation on the important things is closer to 20% (food, energy and accompanying - although my accommodation costs haven't grown yet because I'm still on a cheap fixed rate mortgage for now), and interest is 5%, then that 10k savings account is losing 15% in real terms. That's 1500 quid per year. That's hefty.

You will have observed that the figures I used for inflation are nothing like the official figure that when I last checked was around 8%. That kind of brings me onto another moan. The headline inflation figure is grossly misleading. Inflation is broken down into many different categories, and an individual's personal rate of inflation will depend entirely on their circumstances. Ie it depends what you spend your money on. Food and shelter, when I last checked, were closer to 20%, with energy contributing to driving the overall headline figure down. So while a well off person who only spends a small percentage of their disposable income on food and shelter, because they already own their home outright and being human, they only eat about the same amount of food as everyone else, will have a relatively low rate of inflation, a poorer households, using pretty much all their income just to pay the rent and feed the kids will see a much higher rate than the headline figure.

 

That is the benefit of directly investing in things like investment trusts, (keeping in mind charges), and (perhaps) periodic lump sum additions with regular sums input to benefit from "pound cost averaging". "Financial advisors", unless they're the type actually charging for their services "up front" will probably not mention these things. It's possible that just investing in one company at the right time will give a good gain, but the opposite can happen. Hence my liking for spreading risk for less than theoretical maximum gain (e.g. FCIT, etc.).

 

Yes, I was going to make the point that everyone will have a personal rate of inflation. But, what’s the alternative to publishing a headline rate (average) of inflation, given all the consumables?

 

You're right, there needs to be a general one as an overall benchmark.

My beef is that, as is so often the case when you mix words like 'government' and 'statistics', the figure is misrepresented. When we hear the great news that inflation is coming down, and Rishi Sunak is determined, working alongside the bank of England to get inflation under control, and it's clearly working. Hooray for the government and the bank of England. But the reality for most ordinary folks, and certainly for those on the breadline, is that inflation is not 7.9% or whatever the latest figure is, it's more like 20%

 

No, its 8% over all, averages again, just as they quote averages for everything, they are now giving a separate figure for food inflation, but unless you separate out every item you can only go by averages.
But that inflation is now stuck there, it doesn't matter if it went to zero, we would still be paying a lot more than we were 12 months ago.

You can only compare the same items all the time in order to get the average, if you say its nearer to 20% atm for most people then it must have been something like 30% six months ago.

I'm not well up on what items go into the bag to get to the average figure.

 

I see this kind of thing as simple, if you use the same items and services in the reckoning you always get a yard stick that makes sense, a bit like my temperature readings, they bear no relation to the official temperature but they are my readings, so I can compare them.

I guess you have to remove certain items and add different ones from time to time otherwise we would still have mangles in there instead of washing machines.

 

I'm surprised at you putting up a download, I dont download much like that.

 

The Bibby Stockholm was initially built as accommodation for oil rig workers. Now all of a sudden it has been branded as 'inhumane'. Those poor oil rig workers...

This so called 'inhumane' accommodation looks better than many Council flats.

 

As someone said, we could do with similar, but smaller places for the homeless on the streets, I'm sure they would jump at a warm dry place like that.

Its strange but they didn't complain when they were sleeping in makeshift tents on the French beaches.
We are seen as soft touch, and they know it, or at least there lawyers do, again, lots of money to be made.

 

Paid the water bill. The standing charge is about a third more than the water/sewerage charge.

 

First Minister Mark Drakeford has sounded the alarm over the Welsh government’s financial outlook, reiterating finances are £900m lower in real terms than when that budget was set by the UK Government at the time of the last spending review in 2021. ‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‌ ‌‌‌‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‌

Here's an idea. Make an instant £33 million saving by not introducing the highly unpopular blanket 20 mph speed limit...

 

I'm sure the speeding fines will make up for it.