OS Daily Wednesday 23rd May 2010

Lindy_-_Loo

Hiya everyone,
think my oH must be one of the few people who isnt being able to leave work early to watch the match, he said before that everyone turned up arat from the store optomotrest who is poorly - or apparently so!
some of the mums at school were complainging today that they would miss some of the match as they HAD to pick their five year olds up - think some where heading to office to inform them they were going to collect them early. I will be going to school at normal time.

Budget will effect us as we rely on CTC and CB, oH works full time but only earns £13,000. We managed to claim £59 a week in HB when the rules changed in november so I'm hoping we can still get that. I cant believe that anyone needs more than £400pw to rent a property, well certainly not in my neck of the woods!

Tea will be gammon for me and OH and spag bol from monday for the boys. Trying to cut down the food bill so wil probably have more freezer foods.

Take care xx

Butterfly_Brain

• Sorry but this is gonna be a long post
• VAT payable items include:
• Soap Powder and softeners, All cleaning products
• Sanitary wares , Toilet paper
• Toothpaste -Toothbrushes -Mouthwash and anything like that
• Soap, shampoo, conditioner, creams and lotions, bath oils etc
• All over the counter medicines, plasters, nicotine replacements, and such like.
• Ornamental plants
• Ornamental fish such as Koi carp, goldfish etc
• Juice and juice concentrates
• Nuts if shelled and roasted or salted (Unroasted are Zero Rated)
• Ice cream, sorbets, ice lollies, frozen yoghurts ice cream gateaux and cakes including arctic rolls, wafers and cones.(Desserts which have to be defrosted or cooked are zero rated though)
• Non culinary salt such as dishwasher salt and rock salt for roads
• Linseed and essential oils
• Monosodium glutemate ( which will affect the price of a lot of ready meals etc even though ready meals are zero rated)
• Sandwiches as part of a buffet or party service (but if you buy them as a grocery item they are exempt !!!!!!???)
• Any bread product is exempt unless you buy it as a takeaway meal such as Burgers and Kebabs.
• Cakes if supplied in the course of catering
• Cereal, museli and similar bars with honey or other added sweetening matter and snowballs - flapjacks on the other hand are exempt.
• Florentines, shortbread partly or wholly chocolate but millionaires shortcake is exempt (That figures :mad:)
• Coconut ice
• Chocolate buttons for cake decorating and inedible cake decorations
• All wholly or partly coated biscuits (Chocolate chip cookies are exempt)
• Gingerbread Men decorated with chocolate unless this amounts to no more than a couple of dots for eyes . But bourbon and any biscuit sandwiched with chocolate are exempt as are jaffa cakes.
• Ice cream wafers partly covered in chocolate such as chocolate oysters.
• All sorts of chocolate and chocolate products including diabetic chocolate -chocolate body paint is exempt :rotfl:
• Sweets, pastilles, gums, lollies,candy floss, sherbert, chewing gum, bubble gum, turkish delight, marshmallows, fondant and similar confectionary
• Sweetened popcorn, nuts and fruits with a coating of yoghurt, chocolate or sugar, crystallised ginger or ginger that is coated with chocolate or sugar. Glace cherries and fruits including marrons glace
• Bars cnsisting of mainly sesame seeds and sugar or any other sweetening matter,
• Sweetened dried fruit if advertised as for sale as confectionary/snacking but if it is advertised as for snacking and home baking it is exempt.
• Slimmers meal replacements in biscuit form that are wholly or partly covered in chocolate or something similar in taste and appearance
• Beer, cider,perry, shandy, wine, spirits and liqueurs(That's on top of duty!!!!!!!!!) this includes liqueur chocolates
• Milk shake flavourings, medicinal teas , mineral waters, alcohol free beers and wines, ginger, glucose, honey, peppermint and barley water drinks, syrups, crystals and powders for making any standard rated drink, carbonated drinks lemonade, cola and such like also mixers such as ginger ale,soda water , bitter lemon etc
• Fruit cordials and squashes
• Home brew and wine making kits, malted barley,hopped malt extract, grape concentrates brewers yeasts etc.
• Crisps,potato sticks and such like, savoury popcorn, prawn crackers made from anything but tapioca (Tortilla chips, cornchips, cocktail cheese savouries and twiglets are all exempt so are any snacks made from vegetables)
• Flavoured rice cakes but not unflavoured ones
• Vitamin and Mineral supplements of all kinds, royal jelly products, tablets pills and capsules containing herbal preparations other than garlic or yeast, cod liver oil and other fish oils, elixrs and tonics ( Basically all health foods and supplements)
• All sports energy drinks, creatine and all products made with it
• All preservatives, stabilisers, thickening agents,guar gum, gum arabic, agar xanthen gum etc but not corn starch.
• All petfoods and products for their care
• All adult clothing and shoes
• That's all I have for now but I will dig a little deeper

anniebooklover

That's quite a list ButterflyB. I was listening to a former tax auditor on Jeremy Vine's show today. He admitted that sanitary items are VAT-rated but a luxury yacht is zero-rated!! Just what every struggling family needs, isn't it?

HoneyBee83

Afternoon all,

What a beautiful day again! Put out 2 loads of washing out this morning and stripped the beds so doing the last wash now!
Gotta be careful in the sun today as i got a tad burnt mon at daughters sports day so i've mostly been cleaning inside.

Looking forward to watching footie and so is the daughter-dont think she'll watch it all tho! Then have open evening at her school for starting in sept.

Have no clue about dinner,my meal plan has gone out of the window recently have broccolli to use up ummm....thats all i know off the top of my head,oopps! Best go look and create!!

Hope everyone is well:)

nicola1303

:j I actually went out today and bought Apples, Satsumas, the daily Newspaper and did the lottery.......I can honestly say I have never ' just ' got what we needed and usually come out at least £10 lighter.

Sorry for this but I felt I should post this so I can come back to it and tell myself ' it can be done Nicola ' :rotfl:

mumoftwo

well done Nicola, you did great.

BitterAndTwisted

I admire your iron self-control. Good on you and good luck with the lottery numbers!

Bitsy_Beans

Afternoon.
Not really gutted about the budget. At the end of the day you cannot spend money like no tomorrow and then not have to pay it back. It's going to be painful but quite frankly I think there needs to be a general attitude adjustment by some sections of the UK - make do and mend rather than rampant consumerism. I hate our throwaway culture - does make me wonder if that's why stuff is made these days with build in depreciation, nothing seems to last very long.
I might invest in shares in Mooncup since sanitary products are going to cost a fortune

Anyway have done naff all today. Played with kids in garden this morning and played a "Hoof and Safety" game (see Cbeebies for annoying alpacas ) that I got free from the BBC. Been round to my mums this afternoon as they got back from hols last night.

I literally had to drag DS to school at lunchtime It breaks my heart to see him like this. When asked why he doesn't want to go he mentions it's because of a bee but where or what this bee is doing I have no idea. He sobbed his heart out and wouldn't walk into school so I had to drag him. He keeps telling me he just wants to stay at home - I am dreading the summer hols as I am worried that this will reinforce his desire to stay at home. Sorry for moaning (I have done too much of that lately) but it makes me cry to see him so upset and distressed. Will try and find out if there is a soft toy bee or an incident with other kids getting hysterical about bees that might be putting him off. Could be a red herring but who knows.

Tea will be a makeshift as we have reception open evening at school.

jc - I too would be fuming if I was in your shoes. I do think you ought to mention something to your H, perhaps he's just not realised how it came across?

Glad to see Diva is OK albeit tired

OK have to dash now - catch up tomorrow with you all.

alice-mary

Well Done! I know hat you mean bu I deal with things a bit differently (I have no will power). I used to pop into my local co-op to buy a lotto ticket and as the queue was always huge, I ended up impulse buying EVERY time! I now do my lotto on-line and this has saved me time AND money!

Alice

Butterfly_Brain

Well done hun - it can be done :T