It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

Optimisticpair

The govt website

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_PublicNoticesAndInfoSheets&propertyType=document&columns=1&id=HMCE_CL_000118#P67_4124

gives details of at least some edible items that are zero rated and standard rated.

maryb

The increase to retirement age at 66 is going to be accelerated but I don't think it's going to affect anyone who is in the transition from 60 to 65 retirement age. With that you feel like you are chasing something that keeps receding. I won't get my pension or bus pass until I am 64 (will he still need me, will he still feed me....?)

However DH who is two years older than me will get his bus pass when he is 61 although he won't get his pension until he is 65

Larumbelle

Optimisticpair wrote: »

The govt website

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_PublicNoticesAndInfoSheets&propertyType=document&columns=1&id=HMCE_CL_000118#P67_4124

gives details of at least some edible items that are zero rated and standard rated.

Funnily enough I was just looking at this myself. My inner geek is really enjoying it too! :rotfl: Some of it seems just plain bonkers: eg, crisps have VAT added, tortilla chips and twiglets don't. Shelled nuts attract VAT, still in their shells they don't. Millionaire's shortbread = no VAT, normal shortbread with chocolate topping = VAT added.

AnnieG

I can only echo your views about the job centre unfortunately. I had no idea that claiming benefits would be so complicated, frustrating and slow. I've only been trying to claim since the beginning of June, but goodness me it's irritating, and I'm starting to think that they're never going to get it right, and if they do, I'm going to be stuffed by the HB and not have enough to live on. Hurumph, can you tell I'm fed up??!!

The_Thrilla

I have just come back from reading the FT. Here is what their political editor said:

...first budget was so ambitious in scale, so foreboding in its implications that it seemed to induce a sense of numbness at Westminster, as MPs struggled to come to terms with a £113 billion fiscal squeeze.

Wait a minute! Didn't Radio 5 Dead say that the "deficit" was £155 billion, and that the "debt" was £900 billion?

It looks to me like this budgie is a sham, and that Gideon Osborne has just shuffled a few figures around, and that they are following more or less the same financial policies as their predecessors.

As for the clampdown on state benefits, we've heard it all before. Some minister says there are too many people on the sick who are fit for work, and there are too many people getting benefit who are workshy. People ring up radio stations. "I'm scared 'cos I'm really sick, I've had two strokes, and I can't move the left side of my body." and "A job! No! No! Anything but that!" But nothing ever happens. True, I know some people who are swinging the lead. I think we all do. But they're still getting their benefit to this day, in spite of all the scaremongering.

Just make sure you get your new laptop before January.

Chipps

silvercharming wrote: »

Millionaire's shortbread = no VAT, normal shortbread with chocolate topping = VAT added.

I guess that's why it's Millionaire's shortbread... if we save all the VAT we would have paid, one day we'll be.....

ginnyknit

The man that owns Hobbycraft loves millionaires shortbread - just shows you those with money know how to keep it as my Dad used to say.

Must steel myself to check out the website re- VAt don't think it will help my karma any!

l am a little angry with it all today but am trying to rise above it. Time to get on with it me thinks and just carry on from day to day. Dd got a chicken from Mr T for 1.74 so am off to make a banquet for 4.

Larumbelle

I knew there was a reason that I hold onto my receipts forever! It's a really easy way to find out what items you buy regularly have VAT on them. I have spent a fun (and geeky) afternoon going through them. Call me a saddo but I've had a great time - out in the sunshine with a glass of lemonade, compiling lists and knowing exactly what is going on in the football from the shouts of the neighbourhood men :rotfl: Idly watching my laundry sway in the wind and feeling unfeasably proud of the peg holder I knocked up from a tea towel yesterday. Is it wrong to be this easily satisfied? (In my defence I am recovering from the operation I had on Saturday so I'm having to rest up)

Anyway, OH reckons that the supermarkets will probably absorb the cost of the VAT rise on the items that you pay VAT on, then jack prices up elsewhere to compensate. I disagree - I think they'll add extra on to to 'round up' the price? What do other people think?

Charis

Optimisticpair wrote: »

The govt website

http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channelsPortalWebApp/channelsPortalWebApp.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pageLibrary_PublicNoticesAndInfoSheets&propertyType=document&columns=1&id=HMCE_CL_000118#P67_4124

gives details of at least some edible items that are zero rated and standard rated.

Thanks for that. I note that crocodiles are zero rated but live horses are not considered a food item :rotfl:Seriously though, it does help us to make OS choices.

Charis

Charis

The_Thrilla wrote: »

Wait a minute! Didn't Radio 5 Dead say that the "deficit" was £155 billion, and that the "debt" was £900 billion?

It looks to me like this budgie is a sham,

Oh no, not the 'dead parrot sketch' reinvented as the 'dead budgie sham?'

Charis