My journey to a debt free life

Onebrokelady

alt80 said:

FML you've just made me check my council tax for 21-22 up to £3060 from £2945 the !!!!!! think I'm !!!!!! made of money. Hate paying it def get no value from it apart from my bins taken pay for that sep at comm office would happily take my bins there to be emptied if no council tax on res home. Robbing !!!!!! !!!!!!. 

Just think though if you go for the bigger house you will have an even bigger bill 😀

enthusiasticsaver

I would not say I was actually massively into investing but the majority of our non property assets are invested as there are pitiful returns in cash savings accounts.  That just makes financial sense so we are approx 50% in property, 45% in investments and 5% in cash savings accounts. Nothing to do with political leaning though. I do agree with you that the government doesn't do everything well and could get better value but in terms of helping the poorest in society they are best placed to do it and we can afford to pay our share. Our investments are in low to medium risk due to our age (early 60s) and the fact we are able to withdraw relatively quickly and easily and our returns over the last year have varied but are averaging around 10% as at today but they have been up as high as 17% and as low as -7% due to the strange circumstances we find ourselves in.  No such thing as a safe portfolio. 

Sorry to hijack your diary OBL. 

Onebrokelady

enthusiasticsaver said:

Onebrokelady said:

welshspendthrift said:

@Onebrokelady our council tax has gone up by £5 a month so £50 more! Not sure what we are getting for that except that the free green bin now has to be paid to be collected! So OH says he will make a compost bin 😀 as refuse to pay. 

I'm not sure what we are getting for £178 a month, a friend who lives in a band B house says hers has only gone up by £5 but I don't know if she is on any benefits,or if the price increase is less for a lower band

Yours looks high for a Band C but I don't know what authority you are under. You are presumably under Devon but the town or city you live in also takes their cut. We come under Cornwall and last year paid £205 for 10 months for a Band D house. This year is £212 per month as far as I can gauge from website. I think your partial single person discount last year has confused matters. Maybe your friend who pays less gets some council tax benefits or the single person discount? Annoying when salaries are not going up by 5%

I'm under Exeter City council 😊

enthusiasticsaver

I think Exeter is expensive so that might be it but I think it is more to do with the fact that the discount has skewed your payments last year so there is a bigger difference and of course last year you paid over 11 months rather than 10.  I guess if things are tight you could ask to move to 12 monthly payments and not have the 2 months break? 

Onebrokelady

Cherryfudge said:

We've been hit with CT too but... someone has to pay for the Police, fire brigade, bins, emergency planning, recycling centre/tip (and clearing up fly tipping), swimming baths, skate park, libraries, children's play areas... and if an elderly person develops dementia and has to be sectioned for their own safety, their care for the rest of their life comes out of Council Tax too.
We moan about it but we'd have to pay privately if it weren't available, and I'm sure that wouldn't come cheap.

I do appreciate we have to pay for police, fire service and council services, but my friends mum is in a home and has sold her house to pay for her care, most of the Children's play areas are being closed where I live, my local swimming pool is owned by a fitness company so is not council run and I don't use it anyway, I don't use the skate park or the few play areas that are left. We should be charged by the services we use, I'm also charged a premium for living where I do so it's kept nice for tourists which annoys me no end because I actually live here and can't afford to visit any of the areas that these tourists visit 

Onebrokelady

enthusiasticsaver said:

I would not say I was actually massively into investing but the majority of our non property assets are invested as there are pitiful returns in cash savings accounts.  That just makes financial sense so we are approx 50% in property, 45% in investments and 5% in cash savings accounts. Nothing to do with political leaning though. I do agree with you that the government doesn't do everything well and could get better value but in terms of helping the poorest in society they are best placed to do it and we can afford to pay our share. Our investments are in low to medium risk due to our age (early 60s) and the fact we are able to withdraw relatively quickly and easily and our returns over the last year have varied but are averaging around 10% as at today but they have been up as high as 17% and as low as -7% due to the strange circumstances we find ourselves in.  No such thing as a safe portfolio. 

Sorry to hijack your diary OBL. 

Don't worry ,I've never had so many comments at once on my dairy 😂😂

Onebrokelady

enthusiasticsaver said:

I think Exeter is expensive so that might be it but I think it is more to do with the fact that the discount has skewed your payments last year so there is a bigger difference and of course last year you paid over 11 months rather than 10.  I guess if things are tight you could ask to move to 12 monthly payments and not have the 2 months break? 

Yep Exeter is expensive and you are right that the discount last year has made things this year look worse, to be fair they did offer to let me pay it over 12 months but i would still like to get my two months free so I said I would leave it as it was. I think I was just shocked at the amount of the increase initially because I thought it was £20 but now I realise what's happened with last years payments it makes more sense,I was expecting about an £8 increase so it's not much above what I had budgeted for in my head. DD2 is still living with me and paying rent so I can pay it and of course when she moves out I will get my discount back 😊 I too wish they would base it on income as that would be a fair way of doing it and of course I also realise that things are going to be difficult after last year and for a few years into the future. I know compared to lots of people at the moment Im really lucky because financially the pandemic didn't have any effect on my life and so many others have been hit financially. 
The next bill will be the water bill which I'm not looking forward to, I'm on a meter so I am careful but we pay more here as do you I expect 

Onebrokelady

Woke up to a nice sunny day today so took B out through the fields where I was lucky enough to see a Kestrel 😀it was hunting something in the grass so I stood and watched while it hovered and then dived in for the kill before flying off into a nearby tree, I've never seen one up there before so it was lucky timing. B was on high alert to something in the grass which turned out to be a bit of a black plastic bag 😀

I have my doctors appointment later today to see about my throat which I'm not looking forward too, she will think I'm going about my leg because lm limping quite badly today but I will have to save that for another time, I'm hoping that's just Fibro related and will go away on its own if I ignore it 😁
Some good news is that my riding stables are taking bookings again ready for when they open, they have only just mentioned lessons and not hacking so I will need to phone to see if they are going ahead, I'm going to give it a couple of weeks and then phone as this will give the weather a chance to calm down. I can't wait to able to get back on a horse, it's been so long since I was able to go and I know once I get back it will improve my mental state no end 

Sun_Addict

Fingers crossed for the doctors 🤞Great news about the stables reopening 🥳 🐎 

foxgloves

I don't want to politicise your diary, OBL, but will just make the following comment re council tax increases. We must not forget that central government has cut their funding of local council authorities by between 40 & 50% over the past few years. I think we all know the effect such a draconian cut to our own budgets would have on how we live. Local council services have been cut to the bone. They are expected to provide the same level of service on almost half the money. When they then need to make up part of the funding shortfall by raising council tax, it is the councils who get the blame & the anger of local people. Very convenient for the Government. Their halving of local authority funding is to blame...... but the councils face the wrath of the public. I live in a depressingly true blue area..... people always whining on about this & that service being cut, but seem surprised when my reply is to remind them that this is exactly what the majority of people voted for.
Council tax does need to be reformed - no question about that. There need to be more bands to help address the inequality inherent in the system - i. e people on the lowest incomes spend a greater % of their income on council tax than those on the highest incomes. Yes, it is ripe for change.
Sorry to hear you have had a significant increase, OBL. I haven't seen our new bill yet. I know it will increase but my ire will be directed firmly at the Government rather than the councils who are trying to provide the same services in times of increasing need despite enormous & politically deliberate cuts in their funding. 
F