Everything is going up except our income.

Presumably they eat silage from grass in the winter months when they are not outside.

I used to loathe the smell of silage fermenting, perhaps they have better methods these days!

It has to be Kerrygold for me. Cows grass fed. That's the Irish in me coming out..

Thumbs up from me gilly ??
All Lurpak lovers have great taste ( although I do dally with Anchor now and again)

It is one of life's small pleasures to peel back the metallic paper from a brand new, packet of Lurpak butter. To gently let the butter fall into the butter dish and to glide your knife across the surface for the fist time. To place a perfect scraping onto the top of a homemade scone, fresh from the oven .

There you go roses is that buttery enough for you?

I have actually licked the paper too. Waste not want not

Look, let's cut to the chase and talk about really important things again......butter
Lurpak spreadable is really good, but we always have the normal packet of Lurpak sitting there in a butter dish out of the fridge all year round, if very hot, it sits in the cooler pantry cupboard.
On prices, there are all sorts of variables at play ( Brexit is getting blamed for all but the weather) oil prices go up and down as we know, which affects prices, weather in countries abroad which spoil their crops, sterling goes up and down, and so on.
I haven't noticed much difference in price in my weekly shop.Council tax will be more expensive ( Government allowed councils to put it up to help with costs of local social care.)
For anybody managing on only a state pension, life is tough, but that was always the case, going back 50 years, and in fact, in real terms, pensioners are much better provided for now than for my Grandparents generation in the 1960's.

Angela the govts. latest measure of inflation is cpih, which does take into account rental costs and council tax.
Norah it's not just pensioners that get increases from the govt. but also benefit claimants, but only inflation increases - no triple lock. There was some talk of this changing to increases in line with wages rather than prices.

Surely poorer councils should attract more government assistance in order for them to keep their council tax at a fair and affordable rate for all. CardiffJag

Typical opinion of someone who doesn't care one jot for anyone less fortunate than themselves yaiyai

you make choices in life about how you earn and spend your money

Really? You can choose where you are born?
You can choose your intellectual capabilities?
You can choose whether your parents are rich or poor?
You can choose not to be ill or infirm?

I have never read anything so ridiculous in my entire life.

Conned? Yes. For all goods provided by and within the UK any change in price is directly due to the provider. What we import costs more.

Rises in council taxes has more to do with austerity and government reducing or fixing financial support for councils. Austerity has many bad effects so we will not be able to return to any norms ubtil we get all that debt on a better footing as well as a fiscal surplus.

GracesGranMK2 Don't think people would have a choice to pick and choose which services they would want if (hypothetically) the poll tax was revived. As for arguing about living in a lower value house than someone else? Gilly bob What has that got to do with anything? You make choices in life about how you earn and spend your money (yes I know there are exceptions) but overall bleeding hearts/do gooders have removed any incentive to work and strive to do better.

I agree NfkDumpling wasn't there a thing where the husband or wife had to pay for their partner even if they weren't earning? I am struggling to remember (hopeless memory) .

No, the poll tax wasn't thought through enough. I think, as usual, the civil servants were still in the middle of working out all the connotations when the politicians decided to launch it. Probably to cover up some disaster! If there hadn't been so much hysteria whipped up it would probably have been possible to tweet the system as anomalies came to light. But we'll never know. We'll be stuck with what we have for another couple of generations until its history.

Not paying taxes

That's the answer Gilly on several fronts; cooking from scratch, having a couple of cheap but nutritious meals per week, pad them out with vegetables or better still have a couple of veggie meals a week.

It's easy to make the pennies go further that way. I mean how cheap is liver and onions?

Doesn't help though when some are playing the system by now paying their taxes, and cheating.

Anyway I made a giant pan of "grandma Gillybob's famous bolognese" last night. (The real stuff with a carrot and celery base not the rubbish out of a jar) I tend to make it in huge batches of about 10-12 good portions. Once word gets around the family, the portions will disappear like magic out of my freezer.

I worked out the cost per portion is only around 70p. So very good value.

I think many of us are in agreement that the current system of calculating taxes are rather unfair and as usual geared to the far better off in society . Council tax levels are way out considering current values and of course there will be losers.

The poll tax will never come back after the last disaster will it? Effectively you could have a family of 4 people living in a small terrace worth around £80,000 paying more between them than a couple living in a multi million pounds mansion and that can't be fair either.

I agree that we need to look at these big organizations who have sweetheart deals with the tax man. Those footballers, pop stars , TV personalities etc. who take part in tax avoidance schemes. Massive corporations with their main offices offshore etc.

( We use Yeo valley easy spread butter as it only has olive oil added to help with spreading and not rape or (worse) palm oil and other stuff. ). Favourite butter for taste is Anchor, but it's not always available - why? I understood it was made in the UK now, but that may have been False News.

A properly organised poll tax - that is every individual meeting criteria to pay according to their ability would be fairer than income, council and NI tax I think. Everything could be put in one place. It would be easier to understand and manage. I don't have to pay tax. But I should. (Don't tell anyone will you.) I don't pay prescription charges. But I should. I do pay towards council tax as I half own our house. But we downsized. If my DH deceases before me I may have to pay a very little income tax, but not in all honesty enough compared with what our wage earning DC have to fork out. They pay too much, as we did at their age, at a time when they're struggling to bring up families. It's too lopsided.

I agree that since NI has been sort of absorbed into the general tax pot everyone should pay. Yes, we've contributed all our lives, but it was kept completely separate then I believe. Now it should cease to be and be included in central government income tax. The system is too unwieldy and desperately needs simplifying.

Our council tax has gone up by 5% this year(approx), if it means the council can afford to keep services going then I accept that is the way it has to be. Two of us live in quite a large- not huge 3 bed bungalow, rated F and our bill is £2354.86. One of the dozen street lights in the village is outside our house so , I guess, we are getting value for money!
I buy English butter (who wouldn't support our own farmers? ) and haven't noticed a price hike, other than the shenanigans the retailers go through to pursuade us we are getting a bargain. My English yoghurt has gone up tho' by 25p. It's been £2.50 forever!

Council tax is and always has been an unfair and regressive tax. Income tax is better but needs to be simplified so that it rises smoothly with income, taking an ever larger percentage from higher incomes. The big missing piece of country's income is corporation tax. It is disproportionately low and,because of the weakness of international tax law, the UK does not collect enough from multinationals, who seem to take the attitude that is optional, because they can arrange their affairs so as to pay little or nothing if they like. Don't know what all this says about the price of Lurpak but would agree that the actual cost of living is rising faster than either CPI or RPI indicates. So, yes, we are being conned.

I think a Poll tax is unfair, wasn't fair before and won't happen (I hope). My preference remains income tax applied fairly. I don't think council tax is necessarily fair and it is surely regressive, my opinion.

The poll tax was grossly unfair - but then so is some people view of how society should be structured. If you are saying you are just charging everyone for all the services people will start to decide which ones they want. I don't fancy living next to someone who decides they can't afford to have their bins emptied. If you want a community then you need progressive taxes. If you do not have the income to pay or are exempt for some other reason what would be the point in trying to make you do so NFK, you would just beggar people who would then loose the roof over their head - how is that 'fair'? The reason there was such an outcry is that it wasn't what most people considered to be 'fair' even if you can't see it.

The poll tax probably is the fairest system - but the furore and hysteria whipped up when it was suggested means that it can never be used. Too many people would loose out who don't pay any tax now (me for one!!)

Personally think the poll tax to be fairest. All adults paying into the system must surely be fair. Where I live there are many detached houses that have been extended to be double and triple their original size, older ones are as big as nursing homes. Occupied by extended families and their council tax banding stays at the level it was before the extensions. Is that fair?

Norah Wed 22-Mar-17 15:07:36
You seem to have a rather distorted view of both our income tax and the fairness of Council tax Norah. How do you know you would pay less if we had a local income tax instead of Council Tax?

As for our income tax system being fair, surely fair would be one that gently steps up with income level while ours is strangely spiked with odd drops between levels.

I believe one of the greatest arguments for a local income tax rather than Council Tax is that is must me one of the greatest disincentives for those wishing to work or work more hours. Even if you will get Council Tax benefit you would still look at the whole amount and it would be very daunting to think you will be earning to slowly pay this until you are paying it all - not necessarily logical I know but scarcity (of both money and security) go hand in hand with fear and fear stunts growth - even into work.

If you wish to raise a tax against the capital value of houses - and how silly to think everyone could just move to a smaller cheaper one - then look at the capital taxes and see how houses fit in to this. Generally you don't pay them until you dispose of the capital goods although you may be charged annually on an increase (as on interest paid on savings). I can see no reason for a property tax to pay for local amenities.