The cost of living... what can we do?

Do you mean the winter heating allowance?
It is the £250 we are getting this November, increased this year from the usual £200.
The extra for pensioners you talk about is only for pensioners on benefits, not for all OAPs.

 

@glengarry23 is in Ireland and talking about Euros.

 

Wow, that is impressive. We don't even get a free snow shovel, let alone big money like that and when you consider our winter temps, it sure would help a lot!

It is still mostly dark here but I'm getting out the door shortly to buy basic pantry items that are on offer. This is one of the few ways left in, in these times, to try to make ends meet!

 

Sorry. I thought he was converting Pounds to Euros for your benefit.

 

Jocko,..we don't use Pounds here!,..we did a long time ago and changed to the Cent,..even they were a long time ago

 

I am not rubbing it in but we don't pay for water rates,..that applies to the entire country,..plus we get a telephone allowance

We have no Banking Charges from the age of 60

 

There was something doing the rounds on social media about this recently. Someone apparently wrote to the head office of their water company, advising that they'd reduced their payments by some specific amount. They quoted a breakdown from their latest bill, and deducted the bit for sewage handling, on the basis that the water company wasn't doing it (instead just letting unprocessed sewage into the waterways). It went viral and I think a few followed suit but it must have been a minority or we'd have heard about it on mainstream news.

I wonder what would happen if a lot of people did it. I'm not going to. Sure I think it's wrong that we're paying for services that aren't being provided properly, but I can't be chewed with the hassle of giant companies starting legal action against me, or worse, cutting off my water supply.

 

Lucky for is in the UK the law is clear on this point, but often misunderstood.

When you buy a product or service from a company, that company is responsible for delivering that product or service. It's up to them who they outsource to, and the consumer doesn't need to worry about that, because their contract is with the one supplier.

The same is true when you buy electronic gadgets. Often if there is a problem with the device, the shop will tell you to go to the manufacturer, but you don't have to. Your contract is with the shop that sold it to you and they have the responsibility of dealing with issues. There are exceptions of course. If I buy a mobile phone and find it doesn't work anywhere, the issue is then with the service provider but if the device itself is not fit for purpose, it goes back to the shop.

 

If you go near closing time of supermarkets most times they have reduced their use by food date by pennies put them in freezer for later its saved me quite a bit and have had some fantastic bargins in fact not all use by food is out of date most times its still ok to eat
Also go to farm that sells meat many times if they dont sell meat within a certain time they put it in freezer at half the price its still fresh but you have to put it in your freezer when you get home i have saves £ last week i got £89worth of meat for£43

 

Our sewerage is taken by Southern water, the water in the tap comes from southeast water, we used to get separate bills until about three years ago when it changed and S.E. Water now collect both and pass it on to Southern.

I think the untreated sewerage happens because a large amount of surface water drains and gullies actually flow into the sewers, years ago it seemed like a good way of getting rid of it.

Problem we have now is lots more concrete, lots more houses, so lots more run off, it then floods the sewers and they cant handle it all.

 

If only, and I know this is a ridiculous idea, but just imagine if only, the water company that make such huge profits perhaps knew that their outdated infrastructure was going to struggle to cope as more things got built, and maybe took some of their huge profits and used it to upgrade their infrastructure.

Crazy idea I know. This is why nobody makes me a CEO or chairman of anything. I'd spend too much of the profit on making sure we could continue to provide the service we sell.