Calm down dear.......

Why has the country gone mad and started panic buying fuel? All around me the petrol stations are either running temporarily dry, or queues stretching right round the block, it's utter madness. I think people have in their memory the crisis 10 years ago when hauliers blocked the ability for tankers to deliver fuel and the country nearly ground to a halt. For any strike to be legal this union backed negotiations which may or may not result in strike are required to give 7 days notice. So peeps stop panicking, we will be given plenty of notice if there is a strike and plenty of time to act. Stop listening to the scare mongering of this Tory government, I'm convinced I heard the corks popping out of the champagne bottles at number 10 as they count all the extra revenue their actions have caused.

Let the train take the strain … for free!

Now I have probably bored you senseless with the chronicles of my much lamented commute, but because I have no choice in that I try as much as possible in “my” time not to drive. 

I have a couple of extra days leave over the Easter period and am planning a trip further up North and across country to Durham for two nights.  This is a 350 mile round trip and approximately £60 in fuel.   So armed with that information thought I would see how much it would be to take the train, regrettably the cheapest price (after searching all the discount sites and checking prices on a variety of combinations of return tickets, two single tickets, going a different route etc) was £79.90 and an extra hour and a half on my journey time (due to having to change trains twice), so I was in a quandary as to whether I would spend the extra 20 quid?  Thankfully this decision was made incredibly easy courtesy of Tesco.

I was idly making my shopping list and checking prices when I thought I would check my clubcard account and found to my glee that I could use reward vouchers if I purchased train tickets from red spotted hanky.com.  For every £10 worth of rewards I could claim a £20 voucher against train fares.  So for £40 worth of reward vouchers (half price) I have paid for my train fares for my little jaunt.  As these reward vouchers were sat there doing nothing but gathering dust, my journey cost is effectively free – Happy Days J.  

Give with one hand .... take with the other

Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralising as money – Sophocles

Well that will teach me for being so buoyant on Sunday realising my gas/elec bill would be reduced due to my frugal ways.  Today I received the reminder for my car tax, now this little swift move I shall regale by our beloved government passed me by.  Last year my annual road tax for a 2003 1.6 Peugeot 307 was £165, this year it is £190.  On investigating this huge rise, the car tax rates themselves have not increased but the formula to determine your road tax banding has.  No longer are you judged on your cars capacity but it is now CO2 emissions, so your car is banded on what they believe are the emissions for a car of your age (despite the fact that some people look after their cars, service etc and their emissions maybe lower or higher) grrr.  This change passed me and my nearest and dearest by completely, so I am faced with a 15% increase in my road tax despite the fact that my car has not changed.    Once I've calmed down I will dig out the paperwork from my latest MOT where the actual emissions are measured and see if I stand a chance of appealing, but I will leave that until tomorrow evening as its been such a long day and bed beckons.  If the governments motive was environmentally driven then it wouldnt hurt as much, but the cynical me cannot help but believe they have just found a way in which to make more money.

But honestly do the government not actually realise the economic mess we are in?  Or is it a case they just dont care? The fact that the average household faced with job losses, pay cuts and pay freezes coupled with rising costs in just about everything you have to use to live are teetering on the edge of solvency.  I suppose if you are Eton educated millionaires then no I suppose you don't have the foggiest clue.  So thank you oh government of ours by adding yet more financial burden on our shoulders, by finding an ingenious way of taxing us more in such a cunning and stealth manner, by not actually increasing any rates but by moving the goal posts so anyone who can't afford a brand spanking new car because they are  poor are now finacially penalised for being poor - tax the poor for being poor ....ingenious– very unhappy today, I will try and sleep off the grumpy me and normal half glass full me will return tomorrow Cxx L

The Reward of Conserving Energy

I don’t watch too closely how much energy we use in our home, like many areas of my life huge improvements could be made, however I have tried consciously to use less.  It has also helped that we have had a relatively mild winter in comparison to the Siberian winters we have seen over the past few years.

I used to however keep the heating on during winter pretty much constantly, now I put on a jumper or jump into bed early with a book to prevent keeping the heating on.   This winter I just put the heating on to take the chill off the house and then switched it off early as I did jobs around the house to keep myself busy and relatively warm, all ploys to try and use less.

I pay my electricity and gas bills by monthly direct debit, there is always a risk with this in that you may be under or over paying, but I need to know and budget for a fixed amount whilst I financially manage myself out of debt.

My joint fuel bill (gas and elec) for the past 12 months has been £119 per month and with the ever increasing fuel prices I was expecting this to increase.  I religiously input my meter readings each month via my on-line account with Scottish Power and doing so tonight the marvelous computer has now reduced my monthly direct debit to £79 per month to prevent accumulating credit.  The extra £40 per month will help ease the ever increasing petrol prices, when I bought my car 5 years ago the cost to fill the tank was £35 it is now £60, during that 5 year period I have had a pay freeze, so in real terms a pay cut year on year, this extra £40 will certainly help ease the increase in the cost of the daily commute. 

The Curse of the Commuter

So back to work today with a bang, it was like I was never away, but only worse.  I have a job where the work just piles up irrespective if I am there or not, so I came back after my 4 day break to 321 new e-mails and an in-tray resembling the leaning tower of Pisa, coupled with my phone not stopping all day as the news soon spread I was back, anyone would have thought I was indispensable ;) – I know I’m not I just wish some others would realise J  So my day instead of being 12 hours long (including commute) was today 14 hours long and will probably be the same for the rest of this and next week whilst I catch up.  I always seem to pay the price for any leave that I take that I sometimes think is it worth taking it? 

Apologies for my grumbling it’s been one of those days – so back to the commute.  We are a household of 2 with 2 cars and I hate this fact, not only is it financially expensive but environmentally unsound as well.  We have one car loan, the other car is paid for (but was bought via a loan as well) and our joint annual car costs come to a staggering £9750 per annum.  So let’s embark upon the old car versus public transport dilemma.  We have to have 2 cars there is no getting around it unfortunately, hubby works unsociable hours when public transport is often not running a service, so he needs a car.  I also need a car (which I use purely for commuting to work and back, we always use hubbys car at weekends / holidays etc), I really wish I didn’t, I wish I could instead use public transport, (let the train take the strain as the old adverts used to say) mainly because my current commute is 3 hours per day which is incrediably tiring and the thought of sitting comfortably, reading a book whilst travelling to work really appeals. 

However my decision to drive is completely financially driven.  Whilst my car costs are high, public transport costs beat them hands down and if I was to get rid of my car and take public transport our annual transport costs would rise from £9750 to £13470.05 (yikes). 

Based upon a 5 work day week and working 47 weeks per year, the daily cost (petrol, tax, insurance, annual service/MOT) currently comes to £20.97 (so the first 2.5 hours (net) in any one day I work pays for my travelling costs (sigh).   However the bus and train fares (one bus and two trains to get to work) come to a return cost of £36.80 per day and would equate to the first 4 hours (net) that I work in any one day paying for travelling, as I am only officially paid to work 7 hours 24 mins (I always work more unpaid), it would be more financially sound to just pack in work and go on benefits. 

So whilst I would love get rid of my car, it is financially unviable and that is such a shame.  In a bid to be a bit more environmentally and financially sound, I have registered on car sharing websites but no-one would be foolish enough to live where I live and work where I work so no luck on that front thus far.  My friend who lives in Italy travels by train each day a similar length of journey that I would have to take for just €2 per day return.  Whilst public transport fares are so high in this country we will never use it in the same way our cousins on the Continent do and regrettably the car will remain king unless you happen to live in a major metropolis such as London.