Everything is going up except our income.

It's not just about what we buy and how much tax and council tax we pay.
Today I received a letter from a charity. It says that based on what their current programme is overseas, the fall in sterling last year, the greatest drop since 1985, means that it will cost them an extra half million pounds to do what they have promised. This is to provide people with pour-flush toilets so they don't get cholera and dysentery.
Puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

By the way, I wouldn't mind paying higher taxes to live in a happier country, like Denmark, providing the system was fair and closed to tax cheats. But I would say that, wouldn't I?

I so agree gillybob. We also treat our employees well. One employee had a very difficult pregnancy, being admitted to hospital several times and suffering dreadful morning sickness. We told her to always go home or not come in if she felt unwell. I am horrified sometimes when I read about how some employees are treated, no sick pay etc. Even the public sector now has much stricter rules on sickness absence.

Sadly a lot of people assume that business owners are all greedy, money grabbing tyrants, who pay their employees the least they can get away with and pay themselves over the top. DH and I will never be rich or indeed successful. We run our business with compassion for our employees . They all (with the exception of the apprentice, who still earns living wage) earn more per hour than either DH or I do. I understand that they have families who come before anything and I would never dock so much as a penny from anyone's wage because they were ill, or had family issues. Unpaid overtime ? Are you joking ? There have been some very hard times when we have questioned whether we should just throw in the towel but we have cashed in pensions, sold our house and beloved caravan ( the only thing that upset me) in order to keep people in jobs and keep going.

I see where yaiyai is coming from - without all those employment reforms gillybob would be free to chop a very large chunk off the cost of each of her employees and add it to her and MrG's own, dock their wages when they were too ill to work and lay them off without pay with no warning at slack times while expecting them to work unpaid overtime when there was a rush of orders.

No wonder she is not prosperous, but somehow I can't see gillybob doing that even without the bleeding-heart dogooders.

Good post Elegran

Yep Elegran - those bleeding heart do-gooders. Waste of space . See my thread ' A life well lived' for another example of these appalling human beings.

We had ours last week too annsixty a whopping great rise of over 5% . Where on earth do they think ordinary people get that kind of money from? Mind you in our town there will be an awful lot of people who pay very little (I believe that even on benefits you still pay something) as we have a much higher than average low income elderly population here.

We had our new Council tax bill yesterday. A more than anticipated (by me) rise of 4.7%. This brings the cost to us of £2130. So no Lurpak for us ?

Is that the bleedingheart/dogooders who fought to have a safety net so that no-one died of illness if they couldn't afford medical care? that no-one starved if they were made redundant and had never earned enough to save anything? who were actually paid regularly when they did work? (until someone else invented xero-hours), the bleeding-heart dogooders who over centuries have manned voluntary services and charities and lobbied for universal suffrage, women's right to their own money and the legal ability to divorce an unfaithful or violent spouse, children's right to education not child labour, the age of consent to sexual intercourse to be 16 not 12, and a thousand other things we take for granted?

The 2p a litre price reduction is already applied at Sainsbury petrol stations around here. Filled up this morning! Asda & Tesco stores are nearby so I'll check later today.

Yes Rigby46 if only life were so simple indeed.

yaiyai I think maybe it is you who have lived a sheltered life unless you are being deliberately awkward, pretending not to know what I meant.

In your earlier post you say we all have a choice. I tried to show you some examples where we do not, and stand by those.
There are many people who work very hard all of their lives and get nowhere very far at all. Then there are others who (through sheer fortune) enjoy riches beyond the reach of many. There is a huge difference between working hard and earnings.

How is anyone meant to save if they live on or around the breadline?

Not sure what using contraception has got to do with anything. A whole different argument there. I will say however that it's a good job young people still do have children (makes me wonder why sometimes with attitudes such as yours) . Let's not forget that those children will be the ones looking after you and me when we are unable to look after ourselves. They will be the ones paying their taxes, NI and council taxes.

On the subject of fuel. I wonder if that 2p filters down to the pumps anytime soon?

Wassup with your other 4 Jalima ? What have you done? Accident?

X post Chewbacca (it just takes me ages to type with one finger)

Apparenly petrol and diesel prices are coming down which should reduce the cost of transporting goods which should bring down food prices including the price of butter.

That's the theory but don't hold your breath!

Well, the good news is that the price of petrol is going down today by 2p a litre. More to spend on Lurpak now!

yaiyai - I don't know where to start with your post. If only life were so simple. There are plenty of people who work incredibly hard but don't earn enough to save or manage to live within their means. And then there are the smug ones......

yaiyal How do you work out that do gooders have removed the incentives to work? I've lived on the breadline between benefits and trying to make a living from self-employment for years.

I know from personal experience about the cliff edges and the disincentives to work, most of which were brought in by the coalition government and made worse by the current government. I've never thought of the Conservatives as do-gooders.

Fitzy Many state benefits have been frozen for years. The only one which has increased in line with inflation (or more) is the state pension.

Gillybob - presumably we are talking about born in Britain? It doesn't matter where then, intellectually? How intellectual do you have to be to work, save, live within your means, use contraception to limit size of family? What difference does it make if your parents are rich or poor? I covered your last statement about ill or infirm. My husband and I were born into poverty from a largish family and we are not intellectuals. Our siblings have varied achievements, some being feckless whilst others are normal hardworking adults living modest lives. If you have never heard anything as ridiculous then you have led a very sheltered life. One thing we apparently agree on at least - Lurpak butter lol.

Nobody's mentioned fuel gas/electricity increases. Mine have just gone up 14%.

There's now a packet of Lurpak residing in my fridge. When I've used up the current butter, I'll report back!

And they won't get Lurpak on their toast either!

The next problem of course will be that elderly people living in their own home relying on home care will be admitted to hospitals as they will not be adequately looked after .

I know that cardiffJaguar . I haven't read about care home but I stared another thread about home care contracts being handed back . Very worrying . Central government should be forced to take care of the elderly not individual LA's

@gillybob
Unfortunately that is not how funds are distributed. In any case there is a shortfall in almost every council just to meet their mandated duties. Have you read about the number of care homes that are closing because they cannot continue with the funding their councils' provide? That means more bed blocking for the NHS. That means less operations.......and so on.