And now we go again...

jwil

It's probably safe to assume your council tax is going up by 5%.  It doesn't help with the precept or the police/fire bits though.  Our parish precept is going up by £200 😱 triple what it was last year.  None of the budgets are agreed until about now though, so they can't confirm any earlier which is very annoying for us trying to plan!

Hope the car goes through MOT ok.

It was very wet here as well.

beanielou

What is parish precept? We dont have this in Scotland. Nor of course seperate water rates.

Blackcats

It would indeed be nice to know the cost of council tax for 24/25 fairly soon.  Good to have time for a big grumble about it and then get prepped for the payment onslaught.  I got this year's paid off in November so it's been really nice having a long break from it.

joedenise

I'm just assuming a 5% rise in my budget but if that isn't right then I'll just need to readjust once I know how much it's going to be.  Can't see any other way of working out my budget.  Mobile phones will being up nearly 9% so that's what I'll be budgeting and then adjust once I know the exact amount.

Of course there's also going to be extra tax to pay with the personal allowance not going up so having to do more with less money!

savingholmes

Apparently they are asking for 10% increase in CT where I live which is rather shocking!

beanielou

savingholmes said:

Apparently they are asking for 10% increase in CT where I live which is rather shocking!

Blimey. That is. 

jwil

savingholmes said:

Apparently they are asking for 10% increase in CT where I live which is rather shocking!

They asked govt to allow them to do that here too, but were refused permission

jwil

beanielou said:

What is parish precept? We dont have this in Scotland. Nor of course seperate water rates.

The town and parish councils here also raise funds through council tax.  So the council tax overall includes a section from the main council, the police, fire, parish councils and I think this county is alone in this, but there is a rivers authority element here as well to help tackle flooding.

Our parish precept went from c£10 two years ago, to c.£100 last year to c.£300 this year!

EssexHebridean

Well, blow me down with a feather, I only got a response from the council! They can't publish the new figures as yet as that has to wait for formal ratification at the council meeting this evening, but they have sent me all the various component levels, and confirmed that the council themselves are freezing theirs (already knew this as they have announced that - third year on the trot - woo for them) and so allowing that it's unlikely that the local council will make any adjustments to the Essex CC/Fire/Police etc bits - in fact so far as I know they can't - that means I now know what our bill will be, and can budget. Much as I moan about our current council (although not so much since they aren't also our freeholder!) I'm not complaining about them this time! 

Still in the "dead zone" of course, so little financial stuff to talk about really. Banks checked this morning and all fine, and a conscious decision to leave the two bits outstanding on the CC alone for today - the £60 for the final night holiday accommodation is an easy switch across from the interim holiday account (the one with the lower interest rate) and last night's nip into T's (more on that shortly) can wait and get added to Lil's spend tomorrow. 

Car service (mine) was done yesterday - bless Neil-the-mechanic's heart though, he picked up on the fact that my MoT would still have been a few days early on the month-ahead date, and made us aware that this would mean me losing an entire month on it rather than the few days I was thinking it would! VERY glad he told me - the test is now deferred until next week or the one after! £185 transferred to him for the service anyway. Couple of notes on the check sheet - my 2 rear tyres will need a change before all that long - they'll do a few miles yet though, and a wee bit of a knock from the anti roll bars which means that at some stage that will need work - Neil didn't seem to think that was a massive thing though, and I can wait until it gets worse (can't think I'd even noticed it myself so it almost certainly IS minor at the moment) before it needs doing anyway.  

So, nipped in to T's for apples and couscous. Decided to get 3 packs of couscous as I'm within a whisker of needing to refill the container so that will see of one of the packs immediately - I can only get the wholewheat version in T's so that was also a factor. Wandered past the Ramadan related stuff on the way in and spotted coconut milk at 75p a tin, and packs of mini poppadoms for 50p each, then ambled round by the main indian type foodstuffs section and nabbed a large bag (300g) pf coriander seeds for £1.75. They're E@st 3nd brand which I'm very happy with, and notably cheaper than the N@tc0 equivalent so I was very pleased with that!  One more item crossed off my "spices needed" list too. £8.05 spent in total. Had a devil of a job getting it all squeezed into my bag, but got there in the end without crushing the poppadoms too badly! I do like the store near work for the various bits I can't get nearer to home, i have to admit. 

I see that MrEH has fed his Oyster this morning, which was more or less as expected. My calculations suggest that will now see him through next week as long as he is only in London for 3 days, so that is the final top up of the month. We might still need some diesel - although we filled his car last weekend, it went to Derby and back of course. It might just about see us though, depending if he uses it for rugby on Saturday. We'll see. Anyway - right now it's looking like we can make the OP to the mortgage that I want to next week - namely one which would take us to £110,500 before the March payment hits. That in turn *might* mean that the usual start of month OP would then bring us below £110,000 even once the monthly interest hits....eek - that would be a Very Exciting Thing!

joedenise

I wish my local Ts did the big bags of spices, I can only get the ground ones at the moment so have been using the big river company for the whole spices which are considerably more probably!