Preparedness for when

GreyQueen

In terms of generating wealth, property has done very nicely here in the UK. As you know, I work for one of the English local authorities. We still own our housing stock, and are major player in the residential sector of this city. We have also been obliged to sell many properties, at heavy discounts, under Right to Buy. The monies resulting don't sit in a bank account, they are directed to central government and about half into what's called the housing revenue account, which goes for maintenance of the remaining stock.

Notwithstanding that there isn't a few million idling ready to be spent on new-builds, LAs are hog-tied by central government in terms of how they can raise money to built new council homes, in a way which housing associations are not. Mostly the LAs can't build anything.

What this means for the sector of the population with lower incomes/ poor health/ unpredictable employment patterns, is that the supply of affordable social rented homes is shrinking just at a time when the population is increasing and the ecomomy is very diverse and mostly detrimental in terms of pay and conditions.

There has also been a consistant effort to restrict general housebuilding in such a way that makes it very difficult for even the able to built their own homes on their own land, which drives up the price of land, which in turn is a major contribulator to the price of housing.

For several generations, central government has been aiding and abetting both an inadequate supply of all kinds of housing, and the profiteering of the building sector. Effectively, I see it as those who already have protecting their privileges at the expense of those who lack their connections and leverage. All the parties who have held power in the twentieth century and this present one, have dirty hands in this respect.

I agree that many of the entrepreneurs have been lucky rather than creative. The ex-council house beside my parents' ex-council house is owned by a local businessman and rented out to a succession of european migrant workers. Who are out for 12 hours a day and are no trouble at all.

He paid 95K for it, up 45k on what the previous owner paid for it only 4 years' prior. The rent these investment houses go for means that they are not affordable by ordinary working families with two incomes, and are not liable to attract the professional castes, so are let to multiple-wage earner households, such as the ones there presently - two couples and one singleton, all working with no children.

These houses were built 50 years ago to be afforded by one male breadwinner with a SAHM wife and mother. They now take 5 full-time wages to afford the rent. Mind-blowing, hey?

Re gold, one had to take whatever one hears with a pinch of salt, as the informants are often in the business of selling it. Traditional investment advice has been to hold 10% of one's wealth as gold, as a last-ditch hedge against complete insanity. I'm afraid I can barely type the words one's wealth without the urge to dive off my chair and roll around on the floor laughing. This one's wealth is tied up in one's tins and skills atm, dahlings. :rotfl:

Frugalsod

Yes I have had friends repossessed and it is not pleasant. Most might have a nice big house but they also have huge mortgages to go along with it.

When you compare the real worth of the house and your wages you are not really that much better off. Your home will have risen nominally but you will have to spend a lot to maintain it and it will depreciate over the long periods in real terms, and while your wages may have gone up if you adjust for inflation are you really that much better off?

High interest rates are a long way away but then so are decent annuity rates so you will pay for it eventually.

Frugalsod

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

This is scary for anyone who thinks that smart metering is a good idea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2aL8t5DXNk

The main reason for smart metering is to save the energy companies money reading meters. The actual risk from individuals getting their meters shut off by hackers are remarkably low. The real targets will be the energy companies and if they can shut off an entire companies customer network they could hold it to ransom. If a homeowners smart meter was hacked it would be the energy companies problem. They could be liable for domestic or commercial losses and still have to fix the problem.

mrsmortenharket

We own. We had to move to a new town last year for schools.
We could have stretched ourselves and bought on the "all fur coat and no knickers" estate or the older estate that we live on now.

Only my dh works. We could have apparently borrowed approx £100 grand more than we did :eek: but me and dh are quite conservative with our spending. All we could think of was what if interest rates rocket.

GreyQueen

Frugalsod wrote: »

The main reason for smart metering is to save the energy companies money reading meters. The actual risk from individuals getting their meters shut off by hackers are remarkably low. The real targets will be the energy companies and if they can shut off an entire companies customer network they could hold it to ransom. If a homeowners smart meter was hacked it would be the energy companies problem. They could be liable for domestic or commercial losses and still have to fix the problem.

How bizarre is that? I just popped out and came back to a letter about changing my meter for a new one and was asking them if the new one was to be a smart meter, and hadn't even read this post at the time.

It's a non-smart meter, apparently, which means it will gel nicely with my analogue self, a woman who has to take her sox off to do really big sums (more digits to count on, y'see).

Frugalsod

GreyQueen wrote: »

How bizarre is that? I just popped out and came back to a letter about changing my meter for a new one and was asking them if the new one was to be a smart meter, and hadn't even read this post at the time.

It's a non-smart meter, apparently, which means it will gel nicely with my analogue self, a woman who has to take her sox off to do really big sums (more digits to count on, y'see).

Not very bizarre. You are now in the Twilight zone where your fridge can SMS you when you are low on milk! :j

GreyQueen

Frugalsod wrote: »

Not very bizarre. You are now in the Twilight zone where your fridge can SMS you when you are low on milk! :j

Just think how backwards we were in the 60s and 70s. If you were disorganised and ran out of milk you had the following options.

1. Go without til the shop opened/ milkman came next morning.
2. Cadge off neighbour (cadging being actively discouraged in our family, you expected to shift for yourself or face the consequences).
3. Get the tin of M@rvel powdered milk out of the cupboard and whisk some up. Vile stuff, strictly last resort.

And we were so backwards that until 1984 'our phone' was the red call box at the end of the road.:rotfl:Y'know, it's a wonder any of us survived. We had alcohol in our gripe water, nobody's cot had bumpers, we didn't ride in a car from one year's end to another and most of the play equipment inc whole play forts, which we used, has been banned and long-since removed as unsafe.

Still, my Dad and his 'orrible little lad pals have even happier memories of playing in the tip at their village in the late 40s/early 50s, which included gathering up discarded lead from leaded windows and smelting it and attaching fireworks to the back of homemade go karts for mad hurtlings down the hill into the dump. Wheeee!!!!

Gosh, and no one even though that any of this was in any way unusual......the trouble with the olden days is that we just didn't know we were badly off - I expect you get texts to tell you that these days.:p

nuatha

GreyQueen wrote: »

Gosh, and no one even though that any of this was in any way unusual......the trouble with the olden days is that we just didn't know we were badly off - I expect you get texts to tell you that these days.:p

The trouble with the "Olden Days" is we let them go in the name of progress.

Frugalsod

I must admit I do miss the milkman. While the prices were higher you did get fresh milk every day, or every other day now. Plus no need to worry about recycling the carton, as they replace it with a fresh bottle every day.

The fact that we all have a very different lifestyle to what we had when we were kids is not surprising but the three day week is why I am not phased by the possibility of power cuts. It did leave its mark on me in that I always have candles as a backup lighting source.

I remember walking up the street to a neighbours to watch the Munich Olympic games in colour on the only colour TV in the street. Times change and even though I have a smart phone I do not use it for calls or texts that much but it is very useful for so many other things. So it is why i do not criticise the unemployed for having a smartphone. You will really have to look hard for a phone store that sells the old dumb style phones any more. Plus if you are renting you will not get access to online job sites without one, as you cannot get 6 month landline contracts.

thriftwizard

We spent all our summer holidays paddling in the brook, "guddling" trout & cooking them very badly on (unregulated) campfires, swimming in the pools and squelching through the muddy bits where the cows went down to drink - upriver of where we swam! Or shrimping for our tea in highly-insanitary rock pools not far from the sewage outlets, or cycling through the bomb-site allotments in the city & having adventures & turning purple with juice in the bramble mountains. Didn't see our parents much between dawn & dusk, and they didn't seem to worry much as we were all together.

As a child, I loved it. As a parent in the 1990-2000s, I'd have been having kittens if mine had stayed out all day at the age of 10 & I had no idea where they were! But truth to tell, I hated it when they stayed in & played video games instead.