How much to live on

Somebody

Albermarle said:

CPI + 3.9% seems to be a common formula for telecom price rises. How it can be justified is beyond my understanding. PlusNet do the same with broadband. Anyone would think that telecoms providers operate a cartel

I believe Ofcom are looking into it. On the other side the providers make the point that despite mid contract price increases, the average cost of broadband gets cheaper every year, whilst the speeds get quicker and more reliable, due to new fibre infrastructure being rolled out.

Slightly depressingly I found this on their website.

However, awareness and understanding of these terms is very low.  More than half (55%) of broadband customers and pay monthly mobile customers (58%) do not know what inflation rates such as CPI and RPI measure. And of those who are with providers that use inflation-linked price rises, very few broadband (16%) and mobile customers (12%) were both aware of the price rise and able to identify that it was inflation-linked with an additional percentage.[2]

Ignorance is bliss as they say. 

There's talk of Ofcom about to ban CPI/RPI+ related mid-term increases.  BT and EE are jumping the gun and putting in mid-term increases of between £1.50 to £3 depending on product.  Plusnet are likely to follow suit.  Therefore there'll be a 11.5% increase on a £10 tariff. 

blue.peter

Somebody said:

There's talk of Ofcom about to ban CPI/RPI+ related mid-term increases.  BT and EE are jumping the gun and putting in mid-term increases of between £1.50 to £3 depending on product.  Plusnet are likely to follow suit.  Therefore there'll be a 11.5% increase on a £10 tariff. 

I'd expect PlusNet to follow BT: BT owns PlusNet.

£3 on £25 = 12%. That's likely to be even worse than CPI + 3.9% most of the time. Even £1.50 ain't great. It's still likely to exceed inflation.

Ofcom, like the other so-called regulators, is pretty toothless.

Organgrinder

Broadly speaking, these things are commodities. 

The big players rely on people not jumping ship and have people thinking it is still value for money or very reasonable to use a phrase I've seen before.

Judged against what you were paying, maybe. Judged against the market no.

Personally I see no reason to pay more for anything.

blue.peter

Organgrinder said:

Personally I see no reason to pay more for anything.

Isn't that what MSE is all about?

daz378

Thanks for the comments...yes I know investments go up and down...only got a couple of grand in  stocks and shares isa...but add money every month...and in the rare case it plummeted..by more than half would be gutted but that's the risk..medium risk  index index fund...still up by 7% today...but last year was down 3% most of the year

Organgrinder

blue.peter said:

Organgrinder said:

Personally I see no reason to pay more for anything.

Isn't that what MSE is all about?

For me yes. However there are people who have brand loyalty. Or seem very stuck in their ways. Totally their choice of course. 

BooJewels

Organgrinder said:

blue.peter said:

Organgrinder said:

Personally I see no reason to pay more for anything.

Isn't that what MSE is all about?

For me yes. However there are people who have brand loyalty. Or seem very stuck in their ways. Totally their choice of course. 

There are practical considerations too.  I am with Vodafone because it's the only network I can get a reasonable signal with here and I get all the data, texts, phone calls, emails and picture messaging I need for under £20/month.  It's a tool for me - I have smart lights, smart plugs and thermostat all controlled from my phone (back up on tablet) - so the convenience and reliability for me also has a value. 

I know, because I paid more than that previously with another network that developed what was supposed to be a temporary local fault - which never got resolved and I refused to pay for a service that I could barely use, so I moved.

Could I get it cheaper elsewhere - very possibly.  Is it worth the risk of trying - not for me.  I'll shop around and save costs where I can, but this isn't one area where I'm not going to waste the effort - on the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' basis.  I see that as more pragmatic, than stuck in my ways.

Organgrinder

I don't disagree with you at all. Though I'd probably try a network that piggy backs on Vodafone with a £0.99 sim!

In your case, your location means the network isn't a commodity. It's not as if you can use say EE to get the service you need.

Where I live, we are fortunate to have good signals from all the network providers. Hence the decision to ditch Three and go elsewhere.

Albermarle

Organgrinder said:

blue.peter said:

Organgrinder said:

Personally I see no reason to pay more for anything.

Isn't that what MSE is all about?

For me yes. However there are people who have brand loyalty. Or seem very stuck in their ways. Totally their choice of course. 

I agree with you in principle and have chopped and changed many things in the past.
However have always stuck with BT for phone and broadband.
I had to use them when I worked from home, because the employer paid most of the bills and insisted on using BT. When I retired I thought I will change for a cheaper provider, but so far have not . Reasons are;
1) I had a very old connection/linebox, that needed upgrading. I thought rightly or wrongly it was best to stick with BT until this done ( now upgraded to FTTP).
2) Then the offer for my new contract was cheaper than my previous one, with faster speeds.
3) We still use a landline ( lots of people have the number and still use it) Some providers do not have a landline facility once you go fully fibre, and/or if they do they only offer expensive PAYG calls.
4) If we did switchover and something went wrong, then I would get it in the neck from family !

So looks like it is BT forever !

Albermarle

RoysV said:

RoysV said:

Short time lurker first time poster as they don't say. I've read through quite a few of the pages on here, not all obviously and found it really interesting so thought I'd put my budgets up. Here goes, be gentle

Mortgage free
TV, broadband, dual fuel, water, c/tax £425/mth  £380/month

Credit card which is virtually everything  house/car ins, car tax, servicing, food, clothes, eating out  £600 paid in full every month  £800/ month

Maybe £100 cash, if that

DC/SIPP £160k      £195k
DB @ 60 approx £6.5K
Stocks and shares ISA   £85K   £116k
Premium bonds £50k                 £9k
Cash ISA £15k                         £38k mix of ISA and cash 
Company share scheme £11k   £0

Well it's a year since I packed in so just an update. The figures above were in Jan I packed in end of April so my pay from them months aren't on there, so the figures might seem a bit skewed. The new figures are in bold.
Just below my original post I said I spend about £1300/month, this year it's been about £1370. I had one off costs of new washing machine, new hoover (them bloody Dysons aren't cheap) a repair to my boiler and a week abroad.
I'm starting to withdraw from my SIPP this month so we'll see what the figures are like next year.
I'm pleased how it's gone, I haven't gone without anything and I'm enjoying being retired the year has flown over. 

If you add up all the one offs and divide by 12, what does that make your actual monthly spend over the year?