Decline in our standard of living, when will it stop?

geoffky

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Assuming you have the standard windscreen wipers, that "click" in position into an arm with a hairpin bend formed on the end of it to hold the wiper; the fitting is somewhat counter intuitive the first time you do it.
A bit like those "puzzles" in Xmas crackers made of bent steel rod or nails.

The secret is to do one wiper at a time and make sure you have understood the replacement and got it ready before removing the old one.

Now is the time to realise that perhaps you have a car with a long wiper in front of the driver and a shorter one in front of the passenger.

I've been running around with a Focus blade on a Mondeo, but it is not 100% satisfactory because the spring on the Mondeo is too strong for the shorter blade in intermittent drizzle conditions - tends to judder.

I GOT them off ok by pinching in two prongs but the replacement bits look nothing like the one that is on the wipers..for the front one is 20" and 24" ...thanks...

John_Pierpoint

There will be a forum out on the interweb for you model of car.
Someone on there will probably be able to post a link to your type of wiper or even a U-tube clip showing exactly how to do it.

Jennifer_Jane

chewmylegoff wrote: »

my quote went up from £850 to £900 this year, until i stuck it into an internet comparison website and the same company quoted me £550 through one of their other brand names!

Well, thanks to this site, my standard of living is just about possible with my Company Pension (9 years of paying into this), and 62% of the Basic State Pension. My car insurance last July was £141 but there was also £60 Quidco cashback = £81 annual for fully comp for a Toyota Yaris 2009 usage of 4,000 miles annually. Nothing extra: no legal and no NCB protection.

But there are other things - have just got (via the Grabbit Board) a Boots glitch which gave me £226.34 of Sanctuary toiletries for £77.56 - a saving of £148.78). I boost my income tremendously by all the tips from this site (I have 5 bank accounts for instance, thanks to all the incentives this year).

Conrad

vivatifosi wrote: »

I don't think the economy is going to turn around anytime soon Rugged.

I've got to say I think the economy is already turning a corner and entering a new golden age of prosperity.

For me many macro fundamentals have been addressed by Govt and things are turning about although we're still missing a proper red tape bonfire.

On top of this we are seen as a safety beacon in an uncertain world and also we can exploit the many new opportunities presented by the developing world, everywhere from Morocco to Belize.

Just look at how well the UK is doing in the film world recently, either making entire or parts of films to great sucess at much lower cost than Hollywood. The yanks are investing heavily here. This is but one of many emmerging sucess's.

vivatifosi

Conrad wrote: »

I've got to say I think the economy is already turning a corner and entering a new golden age of prosperity.

For me many macro fundamentals have been addressed by Govt and things are turning about although we're still missing a proper red tape bonfire.

On top of this we are seen as a safety beacon in an uncertain world and also we can exploit the many new opportunities presented by the developing world, everywhere from Morocco to Belize.

Just look at how well the UK is doing in the film world recently, either making entire or parts of films to great sucess at much lower cost than Hollywood. The yanks are investing heavily here. This is but one of many emmerging sucess's.

I hope so, but I think you are over-optimistic. The forecast GDP growth rate is about 1/4 of the average. While there are growth industries - there always are even in a recession - we need to see more widespread growth. Also there's a lot to play out in Europe and although sterling may be a safe haven currency there could well be a cost involved in being part of the EU.

However like you I have seen business tick up a bit. I think there comes a point where business investment has to happen because the cycle moves from the need to invest due to say expansion, to the need to invest because the facilities are knackered. My concern is that we are seeing pent up spend from that rather than anything more healthy, from where I'm watching anyway.

kabayiri

vivatifosi wrote: »

I hope so, but I think you are over-optimistic. The forecast GDP growth rate is about 1/4 of the average. While there are growth industries - there always are even in a recession - we need to see more widespread growth. Also there's a lot to play out in Europe and although sterling may be a safe haven currency there could well be a cost involved in being part of the EU.

However like you I have seen business tick up a bit. I think there comes a point where business investment has to happen because the cycle moves from the need to invest due to say expansion, to the need to invest because the facilities are knackered. My concern is that we are seeing pent up spend from that rather than anything more healthy, from where I'm watching anyway.

Remember also, we need to achieve employment growth of 250K additional jobs every year, just to keep up with the additional economic migrants that arrive here each year. If the labour force grows much faster than the job market, the oversupply will force wage levels down. Living standards will drop accordingly.

Regards Conrads point there is a fairly successful BioTech company I know of here in the NW of the UK. But it barely employs more than a 100 people. We are talking pretty small numbers of jobs.

michaels

Graham - Info on dpf removal

http://www.angeltuning.co.uk/dpf-removal-dpf-delete-oxfordshire.aspx

sabretoothtigger

Conrad wrote: »

I've got to say I think the economy is already turning a corner and entering a new golden age of prosperity.

I was waiting for the punchline. Hopefully Im just a very negative person and you are correct but that seems way off base from what I can tell

I'd have to be made aware of some rapidly expanding business area to be that optimistic.
Technology is great but we dont lead. Finance has alot of changes to go through yet. Natural resources we are in decline. Service sector, not really because its non english speaking expanding most in this area. Engineering, greatly in demand but we dont have enough

Uk is already rich, so just not expecting growth more like vital maintenance