Great 'What do you hate spending money on the most?' Hunt

Cinders2001

CHlHlRO wrote: »

10. Library fees. Not late fines, that's, well, fine, but to join in the first place? No wonder they're having to close all over the place!

Do they charge now??
Where do you live?

libertino

Stationery - pens, printer paper, glue... You like to think they'll never run out and need replacing.

libertino

CHlHlRO wrote: »

8. Postage prices are increasingly extortionate these days...

What? Maybe if you're sending large or heavy items or paying for next day delivery, but 32p-41p to have a letter delivered to absolutely anywhere in the country is incredibly good value. Consider that some people will pay £3 or so for a birthday card, and the cost of actually getting it to the recipient is a tenth of that.

As someone who rarely posts, and when I do it's most often by recorded delivery, I'd find £1 for a postage stamp reasonable.

John_Pierpoint

Nicoll wrote: »

Car insurance....my husband is just 3 years older than me at 46 and has 6 points for speeding, but if I put him on my insurance it goes down by £50. That really annoys me :mad:

Also someone crashed into my car when I was stationary at the beginning of the year, luckily he stopped and admitted full liability so I didn't have to go through my insurance company but when I went to renew my policy they wanted to add another £40 on as it went on my driver history :mad:

Yes they know far too much about you these days - presumably every insurance company can identify the keeper of a car and its insurance policy via its numberplate.
This, plus the no win no fee culture has created the staged accident industry complete with £,000's for all that unprovable whiplash.

Plus all the administration costs, which probably turns each £1,000 into £1,500 - we the punters have to pay for all this parasitic activity one way or the other.

My sister had a classic:
Sister - driving old diesel.
Mr Business man - driving brand new BMW.
BANG
(Attempted exchange of wing mirrors.)
Sister - !!!!!! happens - costs £25 at scrap yard - flutter eyelids and get free fitting.
Mr Business Man - Bluster Bluster - costs supposedly £500 - protracted correspondence and hassle (eventually Mr B backs off).

Moral of the story - I'm not sure; but "freedom = nothing left to lose".

SugarSpun

Water once you get past airport security. Last time I travelled through Gatwick they emptied my then 11 month old daughter's sippy cup of its 80ml of water - I complained about it at the time and the supervisor said it was a mistake - it was a mistake that they didn't fix for me and cost me £1.55 plus the hour of waiting till the water wasn't so cold from the fridge that she couldn't drink it (not to mention that I tried to take the chill off it by putting it inside my clothing and so I was uncomfortable, damp and cold too).

Other than that my pet hate is hidden charges. !!Free flights!! ... except for the airport tax of £50 or more. !!Free ebay listing!! ... except we're taking loads of Paypal charges on top of the FVFs. Give me a price upfront and if it's worth paying I'll pay it without complaining, but quietly adding things on makes me :mad:

Oh, and hotels that offer the great rates but then charge £20 for breakfast. A bulk-bought hotel fry-up costs them less than £1 and yet we're expected to pay a fortune for the privilege of eating it. And the toast is always cold.

roosterpotatoes

I completely agree with laloopi.

When I was pregnant I had a few problems with water around the baby, my nearest hospital is 7 miles away, obviously I cannot walk there as it would take me all day, there is no public transport that would take me anywhere near the hospital and really felt miffed that i had to pay for the car park.
I had to go in twice a week for the last three months of the pregnancy, i think they should have a deal that when you have relatives in hospital you should pay one £3 charge, regardless of the number of cars, you are feeling low enough in hospital without the car park charge putting people off visiting you.

Rant over

John_Pierpoint

I can contact my banker over the interweb.

If I need to sort out something with the tax man, I can spend 24 hours pressing "last number redial" to get through to a machine on an over expensive rate number that asks me to press numbers and then cuts me off.

After 24 hours (I understand first thing in the morning is the best bet) I might get the machine to put me through to a "know-next-to-nothing" call centre operative; who will take my number and promise me a return call.

Sometime in the next day or two the return call might arrive. (When I might be driving along say the M1) so I am forced to say "What is your name and number" so I can 'phone back when I can open my own copy of the tax return/notice of coding/letter and have a meaningful discussion.
"We don't give out incoming telephone numbers".

Well that is not true - they do give out incoming priority phone numbers to a specially privileged sort of person who has "accountant" on his letter heading; with whom they enjoy playing the game of poacher versus game keeper in a game of ever changing arbitrary rules. A game intended to gather up 50% of our national wealth.

How much of this is a parasitic activity.

KxMx

suziew wrote: »

Council tax - what a rip off - I live in the country - the only service really is the bin collection

Er what about the roads you drive on, street lighting, Library, Police, Fire, litter picking, hedge trimnming so the roads don't get blocked etc?

housesitter

Regarding hospital parking as I happen to know someone quite well who was responsible for bringing it in at our local hospital at the time back in the early 90's.

Before doing so the car park was just a large patch of waste gound. No tarmac, just rubble with large water pools when it rained, no bay markings, nothing.
Car crime was rife in the car park. There was also the odd mugging, mainly at night. There was no security guards, no lighting, no CCTV.

For this particular trust, the car parking fee pays for tarmac car parks, security guards, CCTV, lighting and electricity bills to provide customers of the hospital a safe and secure place to park, knowing that they now stand a fair chance of coming back to find their car.
It's not a money making exercise to spend on other areas.

The employees of the hospital also faced car parking fees although at a discount for long term rates. Again, the previous provision being somewhat chaotic.

Personally, I have no problem with it. Whilst I'm the opposite of a anti-car hippy, no one forces you to use the car. In fact when building new hospitals the trusts have to provision a certain amount of bus services, taxis, private cars, walkers and cyclists, providing facilities for all.
I prefer that my taxes go to paying for treatment on the NHS, not so people get free car parking.
I also used to work for the trust adhoc and experienced the transition.

No one forces you to park at the hospital.
You can park somewhere else.
Of course, you might have to pay there too!!

When it was brought in many people, especially some working for the trust, rebelled against it parking where they felt like. First step to encouragement was stickers for the driver side window which were really difficult to remove even with hot soapy water. Talking a good 30 minutes.
When that didn't work, the repeat offenders were clamped. No charge to remove, just really difficult to find someone to do it thus making them wait.

Whilst from the employes of the trust there was a lot of moaning, once they noticed the benefits (ie: no more stolen cars and robberies) the moaning stopped quite a bit.

housesitter

Oh and what I really hating paying for is at Liverpool airport. There are two queues for security. One which you can pay for to be fast tracked.
I find that infuriating.
I didn't ask for the security theatre.
Specifically provisioning a queue to allow people to pay for the dis-service just makes an even bigger mockery out of it.

They obviously identified there was a problem with the speed of the queuing system but instead of providing more staff so people don't miss flights, they hold the traveller to ransom with the choice of:
Miss your flight beyond your control, or pay extra to ensure you make it to the gate in time.

Not that I'm suggesting security is deliberately taking their time to create a revenue stream for private contractors.
Heaven the thought.