Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

PasturesNew

leighton wrote: »

Nothing on the university's website, but the union website describes the strikers as 'around 2,000 cleaners, porters, caterers and clerical staff' (sorry, can't post link). Their pensions are being cut, the pensions of higher paid staff are not affected.

Not professionals, then. Probably not manipulative scum either.

Don't really need them then for the exams to progress, unless some jobsworth's got the key to the safe in their knickers where the papers are kept.

PasturesNew

I'm lying on a new sheet... new sheets are nice.

Washed the other one and stuck it on the line and wasn't overly happy with how it looked.... so went out to buy some new ones... but MSE style. Found just what I was looking for at the end of an aisle in a supermarket (just after I'd given up as I'd seen their £7 ones and thought "not paying that").... and there they were, just two little white sheets at £3.75 apiece with a fat REDUCED sticker on the packs. Bought and happy

chewmylegoff

PasturesNew wrote: »

For High Street agency temps, doing admin work, agencies charge about £12 and keep £5 of it.

Agencies always win.

Our temps still earn more than permanent staff doing the same job. The agency provides a service for employers not willing to employ a load of hr staff to do it instead.

silvercar

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'm lying on a new sheet... new sheets are nice.

Washed the other one and stuck it on the line and wasn't overly happy with how it looked.... so went out to buy some new ones... but MSE style. Found just what I was looking for at the end of an aisle in a supermarket (just after I'd given up as I'd seen their £7 ones and thought "not paying that").... and there they were, just two little white sheets at £3.75 apiece with a fat REDUCED sticker on the packs. Bought and happy

If I had more money than I knew what to do with, I would sleep on freshly laundered sheets every night.

Davesnave

silvercar wrote: »

So you dropped 35k but kept 10k's worth of land. Clever. Why not hold on to it for another few years and see if prices rise. You could tell the neighbours that you will keep it if the offer isn't decent.

Is the supply of water written into the deeds?

We dropped more than that overall, but when it became obvious that we needed to fall into the next price bracket, where more potential buyers were, we decided to take the second garden out of the package. The main garden was pretty large anyway.

We actually had an offer of well over £10k on garden 2 in 2007, when it was landlocked and only available to those few houses. We left that hanging, as our first buyer (we had 4!) wanted both gardens. So did buyers 2 and 3. However, when we did the big price drop, we re-thought our strategy & decided to go into rented until we got a similar bargain. Suddenly, we needed the second garden to store lots of equipment, building materials and plants, and in order to get into it ourselves, we had to give it independent access.

Yes the supply of unmetered water is written into the deeds with no time limit, as the site would have been useless to us without it. At first, the buyer's solicitors objected and said we should get our own supply, but I instructed our solicitor to tell them 'go swivel' in solicitor language, and they backed down. As I'd known one of the purchasers in a professional capacity for a number of years, I think she accepted our assurance that the water supply clause would go when we did.

We either sell the garden this year or we become liable for CGT on it. I'd rather see someone get some pleasure/benefit from it, than hang on in the hope of prices increasing.

Davesnave

tomterm8 wrote: »

For a tree like an acer, I'd guess the advantage of a grafted tree are that by controlling the root stock you can control the height of the tree. So you don't end up with one too tall for your garden.

The main reason people buy a grafted tree (a root from one source joined to a piece of stem taken from another named plant) is to know exactly what they will be getting, and yes, dwarfness comes into it.

If one sows seed of a dwarf acer with very finely cut leaves, the resulting seedlings won't breed true, because lots of cross pollination will have occurred. The seedlings will have leaves of varying colours and probably none of them will be as finely dissected. Some of the darned things will also grow to 35' instead of making a nice rock garden feature!

I have grown lots of acers from seed, but they are devils to coax through their first winter. At the moment I have half a dozen originating from the same rare tree and they're all a little different.

SingleSue

silvercar wrote: »

If I had more money than I knew what to do with, I would sleep on freshly laundered sheets every night.

At the moment with my new washing machine, it is like sleeping on brand new sheets every night.....goes to show how inefficient my old washing machine had become.

lostinrates

PasturesNew wrote: »

Agencies always win.

DH was laughing so much he got hiccups the other week. An agency called him and told him that two firms were looking for someone with his kind of cv. DH...who's been a little cheesed of and has been approached privately by another firm thought, ''wat the hell and asked for details''. The recruiter, obviously over excited, told him that ''going through profiles DH had been specifically mentioned''. Then they told him the best opportunity was working with x (x happens to be someone dh knows) and would be significant;y more than his eployers pay. Then went on to state a number lower than he earns....DH pointed this out to the recruiter who got very flustered (probably had out of date info) and went on to remind dh about the amazing opportunity to work with x, and how honoured dh should be to have been named by him and went on to list the qualities dh would find x had. DH pointed out that if x really wanted him he would possibly have picked up the phone and invited him out to lunch...having each others mobile numbers and lunching occasionally, saving his firm the huge agency fee. DH said,so. you're just fishing right? The recruiter whimpered ''yes''. DH wished him luck.

silvercar

We either sell the garden this year or we become liable for CGT on it. I'd rather see someone get some pleasure/benefit from it, than hang on in the hope of prices increasing.

For anything that has been your principal private residence you would have been exempt had you sold it at the same time as your main residence. Selling it at a later date does mean you lose the PPR relief as I understand it.

You pay CGT on the difference between the price when you bought and the price when you sell (less costs), so you are only taxed on the gain. Plus you (+your other half presumably) each have a CGT allowance of £10,600 if not used elsewhere, so you need to be making a considerable gain to face a tax bill.

Davesnave

silvercar wrote: »

For anything that has been your principal private residence you would have been exempt had you sold it at the same time as your main residence. Selling it at a later date does mean you lose the PPR relief as I understand it.

You pay CGT on the difference between the price when you bought and the price when you sell (less costs), so you are only taxed on the gain. Plus you (+your other half presumably) each have a CGT allowance of £10,600 if not used elsewhere, so you need to be making a considerable gain to face a tax bill.

Ah, thanks for that. I forgot the allowances.

and thanks to everyone else for your input too - all v useful to hear different views.