Preparedness for when

greenbee

We have a similar problem here with the road drains.

Everyone moans that highways should come round and clear them.

There's one outside my gate.

Personally I don't find it a huge effort to clear it myself (particularly now they have a. cleared it once properly as it was blocked when I moved here and b. they've unglued the grate where the resurfacing people decided to surface over it... possibly why it was blocked...)

grandma247

DRUM ROLL PLEASE

I have just had a letter about our council tax. We are being re banded from B to A and we get a refund of £1828.67. We are using it to pay off the last of the mortgage which would have finished in December due to us overpaying for a few years. :j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j

Living_proof

grandma247 wrote: »

DRUM ROLL PLEASE

I have just had a letter about our council tax. We are being re banded from B to A and we get a refund of £1828.67. We are using it to pay off the last of the mortgage which would have finished in December due to us overpaying for a few years. :j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j

Amazing, well done! It is the most liberating feeling in the world not to have a mortgage but it takes a while to get used to it. Enjoy!

Karmacat

I'm liking all those small actions - they make a huge difference in day to day life.

Grandma247 - congratulations! To getting the refund, and the way you're going to use it

Frugalsod

I just found this about making your home greener. The advantages are that if you lifestyle is greener then your bills will be lower and stay low if they introduce a carbon tax that will actually work. Longer term that is what will happen eventually preparing for such changes makes the change easier to cope with.

boultdj

Well done on getting re-banded grandma247, and enjoy being mortgage free.

grandma247

I am still in the air at the minute. I rang to confirm what we will get and they said we are paid up for tax this year as that was also in credit because I pay it weekly and don't stop it for the two free months. I will think about reducing the payment slightly next year to prevent too much build up of credit.

Frugalsod

I just discovered Artisanal firewood should you ever need it.

http://digg.com/video/dumb-artisanal-products

GreyQueen

Afternoon all.

Well, I was slightly discombobulated this morning as I was connected to the web, could send and recieve emails but neither of the browsers (the default duckduckgo and the leftover IE) could find their webpages. Even the trusty turn-it-off-and-turn-it-on-again didn't work. But now am home after work and we're all OK now. Phew!

:beer: grandma247, many many congratulations. Anyone can apply to the valuations office to have their council tax banding reviewed. You may get it reduced (or increased :mad:) it's not the council who decide, they just apply whatever the valuations office tells them to.

I work for a local authority in southern England. My workday includes such delights as arranging to have dog dirt, fly-tipping and grafitti removed. As well as litter picked up. I really feel that this is a very poor use of council taxpayers' money, particularly as I have to work one month in twelve just to pay my share of it. Grrrr!

I also talk to some city residents very frequently as they report dog fouling in the same place daily. The owners of fouling dogs are usually repeat offenders and walk their dogs late at night and early in the morning, leaving deposits as they go. The obvious answer would be for police to lurk in hiding and catch them redhanded. Then we could take them to court and publicly-humiliate them and seize all their goods and chattels inc their homes, and sell them off as galley-slaves etc etc.

Ooops. We can't do that, can we? And we have to manage tens of millions of central government cutbacks since the Tories came to power, with increasing need for adult and childrens' services, education etc with these cuts. There is no end in sight and it's only going to get worse. Much worse.

Like a lot of people, I'm busy at my work, and don't enjoy the blessings of good health. Mandatory voluntary work (a contradiction in terms) wouldn't be welcome in my life, I've been running on fumes since Tues lunchtime and am exhausted. However, if I could trade off some neighbourhood maintenance duties in return for a reduction in my council tax, I'd gladly go for that, it's my largest bill after rent.

As it is, I do bits and bobs when I see them needing doing and have the time and the resources, as I suspect many millions of people do likewise, without any anticipation of reward or recognition.

ivyleaf

Brilliant news grandma247 :T