Tag Archives: Budget

Have Fun On The Cheap

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In this economical climate you would be foolish to pay full price for anything. However, it can be hard to find inexpensive stuff to do now that the recession has kicked in. The answer is to have fun on the cheap. There is still fun to be had, and relatively cheaply if you look around. Frost has done the searching for you and has come up with a number of things to do without breaking your budget.

You can buy Peter Pan Tickets. I have seen it and it is an amazing experience. If you are a sports fan you can get San Diego Chargers Tickets at a reasonable price. There are few things more fun than a night of American football.

If sport is not your thing, music fans can get Celine Dion Tickets
Celine is quite the performer and that will be an experience you will never forget. If Celine is not your cup of tea you can get Rascal Flatts Tickets

If you are feeling more cultured then you can get Trans-Siberian Orchestra Tickets cheaply.

Everyone deserves to have experiences they will never forget, so just buy them at a price you can afford. Have fun!

Labour’s Debt Legacy

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You (every UK household) will pay £2,128 in taxes this year just to cover interest debt repayments!

That’s not to pay off the debt, that’s just to cover the interest. That is Labour’s legacy.

The worst part is this amount is set to increase as the national debt continues to soar thanks to the estimated £146billion budget deficit this year (and that’s after the cuts)!

In 1997 Labour inherited a budget that was in balance and set to move into surplus. That is a budget deficit of £0. With the budget deficit moving to a surplus the Labour government wasted a valuable opportunity to pay off some of the UK’s debt.

It’s so infuriating that that £2128 in taxes we’re all paying today to cover interest debt repayments need not exist at all.

What the previous Labour government actually did was go on a massive spending spree with borrowed money. Government spending soared from £309billion in 1997 (40% of GDP) to £647 billion in 2010 (52% of GDP). The Labour government mortgaged Britain’s future to achieve political success in the short term. Ultimately their actions were profoundly irresponsible and selfish. ‘Weak politicians have bribed voters with endless amounts of borrowed cash’

The UK now owes over £31,000 for every person in employment!

See the debt bomb for an idea of the scale of the debt and how fast the debt it is increasing http://www.debtbombshell.com/

No one wants these cuts. But we need to except that we can’t spend more money than we have. If so much money wasn’t going on interest re-payments there would be no need for cuts. But the fact is Labour has created this debt and we can’t just ignore it.

Quite frankly it was sickening to watch Ed Milliband giving a speech to anti-cuts protestors, when it was his party who got us in this situation in the first place.

His attempts to link the anti-cuts protests to the anti-apartheid movement and the suffragettes were ridiculous if not offensive.

Let us not forget the lessons this has taught us. We all need to take a longer term view. Politicians but us voters as well. And there needs to be more transparency. Personally I found George Osborne’s recent budget much easier to follow than the old Brown ones.

The fact is the previous government spent money it didn’t have and now you have to pay it off. Let’s learn the lessons. Don’t let any government do it again.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/7495214/Budget-2010-Relentless-march-of-state-spending.html
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downchart_ukgs.php?year=1990_2011&state=UK&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=2008&chart=F0-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=l&color=c&title=Overall%20Public%20Spending%20Chart
http://www.debtbombshell.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12830224
http://cluaran.free.fr/debt.html

Twelve Top Tips To Cut Household Costs. {Money}

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January is always the cruellest month. After the Christmas blow out, funds are short and everything is more expensive. This week is supposed to be the financially toughest with Christmas credit card bills plopping through the door and just another two weeks to go till payday. Then there are the long nights and the cold weather to add to our joys!

To help, Frost has got financial expert, Jasmine Birtles, bringing you 12 practical tips on how to manage your finances and cut down your motoring costs by spending less and making a few simple changes to your routine.

So, fight back at the seasonal and economic gloom and use these tips to make the most of your money this month and for the rest of the year.

1. Save on motoring costs. Motorists are really feeling the pinch at the moment. Swap your current car for a smaller, cheaper, more fuel-efficient version. If it has very low emissions, you will also save on insurance, car tax and some residents parking schemes. Keep the tyres pumped up at all times and try to drive at a smooth, constant speed as this reduces your fuel consumption. For more information on smarter driving tips visit www.shell.co.uk/fuelsave. Making the right fuel choice can lead to significant savings each year. Shell FuelSave Unleaded & Diesel are formulated to save you up to 1 litre per tank* at no extra cost, helping you to save fuel and money every time you fill up.

2. Get as much as you can for free. Use freebie sites (wisely – there’s a lot of rubbish to sift through!) for free samples of all kinds of things. Also, get into mystery shopping for free restaurant visits and supermarket shopping trips – make sure they are legit, though, like TNS-Global.com or JKSMysteryshopping.co.uk. Get a holiday nearly free by swapping your house with someone in another country. Try the website Homeexchange.com for an amazing selection of homes all round the world.

3. Share and swap with friends and neighbours. Get together with your friends and neighbours to save money. Have a swap shop every now and then where you and your friends swap clothes, accessories and even unwanted gifts. Also, share lawnmowers, power tools and other big-ticket items with neighbours. Bulk-buy food and household goods at the Cash and Carry and share them out with neighbours so that you all end up paying less.

4. Sign up to bargains. There are loads of voucher sites and bargain newsletters that will send money-off deals and vouchers into your inbox every week. Just be discerning about which deals you go for. Sign up for free to the Moneymagpie free weekly newsletter for exclusive deals you can’t get anywhere else [http://www.moneymagpie.com/newsletter-subscription/]

5. Use loyalty cards. If you’re going to spend money you might as well get something back for it. If you use loyalty cards like the Boots Advantage card, make sure you get the most out of them. Boots commonly has ‘mega weekends’, either online or in-store where you get 1,000 extra points (worth £10). When one hits, it’s worth collecting together everything you were planning to buy in Boots to grab the excess. With fuel prices increasing, it’s worth looking at how you can save money on fuel. Shell runs a loyalty scheme, Shell Driver’s Club – you’ll receive 50 bonus points on first registration online and additional points every time you fill up at Shell. Points can be exchanged for money off Shell fuel vouchers – 500 points gets you £2.50 of vouchers.

6. Be clever with your credit cards. If you have a nasty Christmas debt on your credit cards, switch to a 0% deal such as the 17-month offer from Barclaycard or a low lifetime balance transfer card such as MBNA’s card which offers 5.9%. Or, if you pay off your debt each month, get a card that rewards you for spending. Try Barclaycard Freedom where you can earn up to 1% ‘Reward Money’ of your purchase price at over 20,000 participating retailers. You can then redeem it at participating retailers for money off at restaurants and high street retailers. Visit barclaycardfreedom.co.uk for a full list of retailers

7. Do a budget and stick to it. It sounds boring, but a budget is your family’s weapon against the money monster. You can even do it on the back of an envelope. Just add up the money that comes in each month then take away from that all the bills you have to pay to keep the roof over your head, and body and soul together. Once you know what you’ve got left over, you just divide that amount by four and make sure you don’t spend more than that each week. That will keep you out of expensive and miserable debt.

8. Make your home pay for itself. If you’re struggling to keep up with the mortgage, bring in extra cash by renting out a spare room. You can make up to £4,250 a year tax-free by doing this. Or just rent out your driveway by putting it on Parkatmyhouse.com. You could even make megabucks by offering it as a film set. Try registering with Lavishlocations.com.

9. Save on food bills. There are loads of ways of cutting down your food bill each week. Switch one meat dish per week to a vegetarian one that is cheaper. Get tips from Lovefoodhatewaste.com on how to make the most of what you’ve got. Shop at street markets as they are generally 30% cheaper than supermarkets. Go down a brand with food in tins and jars – you won’t notice the difference with most of them.

10. Shop around to save. It goes without saying that you could save £100s on your insurance, utilities and other bills by using comparison sites before you sign-up. Also, though, use sites like Pricerunner and Kelkoo to research gadgets like washing machines, TVs and lawnmowers. You can even save on removal costs by using the website Anyvan.com where ‘man-with-van’ operations and removals firms bid for your job. Find bookkeepers, lawyers and household helpers through Peopleperhour where all kinds of professionals bid for your work

11. Buy secondhand. Now that VAT is at 20%, the best way to avoid the hike is to buy things secondhand, particularly big-ticket items like cars, furniture and electronics. Use eBay, Gumtree, your local paper and family forums such as Mumsnet to buy things secondhand. Quite often, items just a few months old can be half price.

12. Be green. Get into green living and you will definitely save money. Mend clothes and gadgets where you can rather than buying new ones. Cut down on electricity, and your carbon footprint, by avoiding the tumble dryer and hanging clothes out to dry instead, using the ‘off’ switch when you’re not using electronic equipment and keeping the lid on pans when you cook.

* Based on a minimum tank size and fill up of 50 litres. Comparison between a standard gasoline and that same standard gasoline containing our instantaneous fuel economy formula; urban cycle comparison between a standard diesel and that same standard diesel containing our instantaneous fuel economy formula. Actual savings may vary according to vehicle, driving conditions and driving style.

The Gall of Prince of Wales {Carl Packman}

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Have you ever said out loud: oh my, how have they got the gall to say that? Occasions arise when the gall of your heroes can come back to hurt you. I’m on the political left, and as such I quite like the words of Polly Toynbee, she’s very well skilled in saying things that I want to hear, but she does have some gall.

There was the time when the lads at Though Cowards Flinch noticed that Polly was writing in support of outsourcing to ‘improve standards’ instead of supporting workers’ rights in the public sector. Then there was the time on Question Time when Richard ‘why bring up the world war, just actually why, why‘ Littlejohn outed Polly for her fancy foreign houses (Littlejohn hates foreign houses).

Toby Young, Tory boy of such popular cultural hits as How to show Cameron in a bad light and still love him to bits, pointed out that Toynbee had gall for criticising free schools when sending two of her three own children to private school for part of their education.

When someone finds this out on twitter, I believe it is shortly followed by the hashtag #fail.

Toynbee is someone who ought to represent my political viewpoint, but by night she illustrates a perversion of that view. And it hurts those to whom she writes for the most.

Now that I’ve shown myself to take this approach to people I used to respect, I can now turn to people I have never had respect for, and show them to be gall-ish too.

Prince Charles, it turned out, earned £271m in property deals in 2008, making an estimated £43m in profit.

The Mail reported back then that:

“The Prince’s income from the Duchy [created in 1337 by Edward III for his eldest son Prince Edward to provide an income for the heir to the throne] in 2007 was £16.3million or £12.8million after tax.”

This was after a massive £1m pay rise the year previous.

Yet he now comes out in support of ordinary people against property developers.

As the Guardian puts it:

“It is an unlikely claim for a prince who enjoys a £17m private annual income and employs 16 gardeners but Clarence House today said that Prince Charles believes it is his duty to defend “ordinary people” against profiteering property developers.”

This emergency budget is set to make 1.3 million people unemployed. My suggestion for him showing his support for all ordinary people is by contributing to the cuts, by getting his Mother to wave ta-ta to Edward IIIs outdated financial model, and giving up the Duchy. Then campaigning for the abolition of the monarchy, while throwing support at the scheme to nationalise all ex-royal buildings, thereby safeguarding tourist money to the country.

Until then, the man has some gall.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29/prince-charles-planning-property-developers

The Budget: to progressive what Kim Jong-il is to moderate {Carl Packman}

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We’ve had the first budget by the new coalition government, called out by a small boy, nervously looking down at his sheet, behind him a Prime Minister with a face so red backbenchers thought it was daytime (it was daytime, but they didn’t know it was daytime by any other measure than David Cameron’s face, which actually isn’t a measure of time at all, allegedly) and two Liberal Democrats, whose party once called the rise in VAT (which was called today, starting in January 2011) the Tories’ ‘secret plot‘.

Though, back then, the plot referred to Tory plans to raise VAT to 19.5%. Judging by the chants of ‘here here’ today by Nick Clegg and Douglas Alexander, either we are to take it that once VAT rises to 20% it stops being a plot, or the Liberal Democrats have their hands tied in this coalition government. All such speculation has been achieved on this subject, and it doesn’t look good for the yellows.

Julian Glover of the Guardian on the day of the budget argued that it was not: “as a Thatcherite one would have done, seek[ing] to divide the nation between winners and losers. It was a one-nation one, albeit produced in desperate circumstances.” Certainly all the talk of “progressive” (that vacuous blanket term for anything not fascistic or carried out by a person over the age of 50 – Ken Clarke beware) provided the cover with which to place over our eyes, while our ears heard insistence from the Treasury that “The top income decile [consult graph 1 here for further explanation] sees the largest absolute losses, while, on average, the bottom three income deciles experience the lowest losses”.

But if the way in which Ozzy Osborne has dealt his number blow is progressives then I might as well sign myself up to that Facebook group supporting Kim Jong-il right now.

VAT always hits the lowest paid in society the hardest, though mostly what George has forgotten is proportion and scale. If figure A earns £200 a week and the government decides to take £10 more of that away, while figure B earns £2000 a week, and the government also decides to take £10, figure A feels more of a pinch in spite of the fact that both have contributed the same.

Now this is not an accurate picture of what the government are doing at the moment, but certainly the illustration holds true, that though the top income decile will see the largest amount of money taken from them on their pay packets, this is because they are earning more. This does not represent an equal distribution of the “pinch” when you consider that those on the bottom end of the income decile, though not contributing as much (as they don’t earn as much as those on the top decile) feel more of a pinch by the raise in VAT, freeze on public sector pay and freeze on benefits.

It doesn’t follow that since figure A has less on his income statement than last year, that figure A is feeling the pinch more than figure B, in fact the opposite is true. This does not represent everyone taking an equal hit. Until this is rectified, the coalition government’s budget plans are to progressive what Girls Aloud were to dignity.