The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

PasturesNew

GDB2222 wrote: »

I am not sure how you manage without a printer, PN. If you would only use it occasionally, an inkjet will clog up, so you need a laser. Perhaps you can find an old one on freecycle? Perhaps an old office machine that's been well used and where the paper pickups are a bit dodgy? That might suit if the price is right, and toner is often dead cheap for those.

I don't print things out, that's how I manage
I go without.

Lasers used to be very expensive.

I've not seen a single printer come up on the freecycle sites. I guess, like most things, the closer you are to a big city and/or London the more stuff of interest appears on those sites. Like most things, away from big cities/London they're rarely worth the time it takes you to continually monitor them .... and anything that does go on is either an ugly sofa, kids clothes/toys, or snapped up the second it appears. I've tried freecycle sites in the past to see what's going ... and got a canvas wardrobe and a footstool ... but it's a lot of monitoring, pouncing, then driving to acquire these things....

I really want a wireless printer - so it can be kept in a random corner, tucked away, out of sight, not cluttering up the living room and looking ugly. You also soon run out of living room plugs! I've got two sockets in each of three corners.... but it's not the number of sockets, but where they are, that dictates where you can put stuff. I'd like a printer I can just "use" and not have to "set up and get out" each time I want to print.

antrobus

PasturesNew wrote: »

There are three routes:
- sell lots of drugs
- gamble/win the lottery
- marry VERY well.

Or wait for your grandparent/parents to die and inherit their house.:)

antrobus

PasturesNew wrote: »

..I really want a wireless printer - so it can be kept in a random corner, tucked away, out of sight, not cluttering up the living room and looking ugly...

You can get one for about £30. Print, copy, and scan.

Personally, I don't get worked up about printers. I've got a HP 1510. It has a cable connection. It does print, copy, and scan when I need it to. Every so often it requires feeding with a recycled ink cartridge. It might be costing me about a £1 a month. There are more important things to worry about.:)

CKhalvashi

LydiaJ wrote: »

If I may be forgiven for mentioning house prices on the NPT...
I got a bit of a shock today. I bought my house for £365k in Jan 2011. Next door (smaller than mine because unextended, so one fewer reception room, no utility, no ensuite) sold for £310k in early 2012. They're in the process of moving again (hoping to exchange within a week or two) and today I asked them what price they'd agreed with their buyers. They said £493k! Mine will be worth quite a lot more because of bigger. Not that that means anything to me - I've no intention of selling. Instead, it fills me with dread - how are my kids ever going to be able to buy houses at this rate???

Completely agree!

I tried (and failed) to explain to someone once that high house prices are leaving her kids worse off.

I popped into a letting agent several years ago to be told 'oh, you can go downwards in price but it just attracts the wrong tenants' regarding a short-ish let. Needless to say they didn't get any business at all and the property in question was let after careful vetting at the discounted rate.

CKhalvashi

GDB2222 wrote: »

I am not sure how you manage without a printer, PN. If you would only use it occasionally, an inkjet will clog up, so you need a laser. Perhaps you can find an old one on freecycle? Perhaps an old office machine that's been well used and where the paper pickups are a bit dodgy? That might suit if the price is right, and toner is often dead cheap for those.

I'd say 99.9% of my stuff is emailed and agreed via email.

It does rely to an extent on honesty, but I've never been let down yet. It also means that I don't have hard copies of stuff to go missing

Pyxis

I print loads.

If it isn't on paper, I can never find it again on the iPad!

Then there's stuff like sheet music, maps, AmDram rehearsal instructions,diary sheets, receipts, rotas, and loads and loads more. I get through loads of paper, but that's partly because the printed stuff often comes out in larger letters than is needed, but there's no way to reduce it.

On the bright side, I do have a never-ending supply of notepaper, that comes from printed stuff I might have finished with, or made errors doing!

I write loads of stuff down, because if it isn't written down it doesn't get done!




Pastures, if you do ever get a printer, it's work paying a bit more for one that prints double-sided.

silvercar

LydiaJ wrote: »

If I may be forgiven for mentioning house prices on the NPT...
I got a bit of a shock today. I bought my house for £365k in Jan 2011. Next door (smaller than mine because unextended, so one fewer reception room, no utility, no ensuite) sold for £310k in early 2012. They're in the process of moving again (hoping to exchange within a week or two) and today I asked them what price they'd agreed with their buyers. They said £493k! Mine will be worth quite a lot more because of bigger. Not that that means anything to me - I've no intention of selling. Instead, it fills me with dread - how are my kids ever going to be able to buy houses at this rate???

My world!

Talking about LISA savings plan with the kids and they pointed out the max 'help' is 3k. 2 bed flats in anywhere commutable and safe are over £300k. Over £500k if you want to live anywhere vaguely central.

Someone I know has 2 married kids with 3 kids (her grandkids) each. They are both renting and are now in the situation where the rent is unaffordable for the areas they want to stay living in. The friend has just downsized to give the kids deposits. Massive downsize, from 4 bed detached to 2 bed maisonette.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

My world!

Talking about Help to Buy with the kids and they pointed out the max 'help' is 3k. 2 bed flats in anywhere commutable and safe are over £300k. Over £500k if you want to live anywhere vaguely central.

The "Help" part is by way of an interest free 5 year loan for 20% of the house price.... after that you can remortgage, or stay on their variable loan rate.

In my day we simply accepted that we couldn't afford houses, and/or that we had to look 10-20 miles away.

It's only become "a story" since it's affected more people and there's been more media stories etc about it all.

Even my own parents, buying in 1970, had to "move out/away" by 3-4 miles as houses closer to town were pricier/too much.

If I went back now to where I grew up - the council house I was in until 10 would cost me about £300-320k; the house we bought/moved to when I was 10 would cost about £300k. And if I were to sell this house I am sitting in now and buy an equivalent house, there are 15 to choose from about 15 miles further out, so 20 miles away from the town where there are jobs.

vivatifosi

It's impossible in the home counties PN. I though "surely not" when i read what silver had written about flats. Where I live the ones close to the station are £275k. I looked up my little starter home which was as big as a shoebox and even that is now allegedly worth over £250k.

LydiaJ

PasturesNew wrote: »

The "Help" part is by way of an interest free 5 year loan for 20% of the house price.... after that you can remortgage, or stay on their variable loan rate.

In my day we simply accepted that we couldn't afford houses, and/or that we had to look 10-20 miles away.

It's only become "a story" since it's affected more people and there's been more media stories etc about it all.

Even my own parents, buying in 1970, had to "move out/away" by 3-4 miles as houses closer to town were pricier/too much.

If I went back now to where I grew up - the council house I was in until 10 would cost me about £300-320k; the house we bought/moved to when I was 10 would cost about £300k. And if I were to sell this house I am sitting in now and buy an equivalent house, there are 15 to choose from about 15 miles further out, so 20 miles away from the town where there are jobs.

Oh, I'm not part of the "everyone has a right to live in the neighbourhood where they grew up" brigade. I belong to the "move away to university, move again for work, and end up in a totally different part of the country from one's parents" category, and I imagine my kids will too. The way HP are still going up and up just makes me worry whether my kids will ever be able to buy anywhere within reach of wherever they end up working. Oh well, we'll have to wait and see. They're not old enough to be worrying about house buying yet, anyway.