Hmmm, this house buying lark is expensive and stressful.

The solicitors are costing £1,200.

Stamp duty tips the scales at a very inflated £8,250.

The survey was £645 and, if I’m honest, read like it had been produced by a 3 year old child. Maybe it had, they’re probably cheap labour.

Removals are approximately £300.

Luckily, we’ve nothing to sell otherwise you can add estate agent fees of, say, £3000 to that as well as additional solictor fees of about £750…that’s about £14,000 all in. What a bargain eh?

It’s almost as expensive as a wedding – I should know, after all I am currently forking out for one.

Then, once you move in you can factor in council tax (rip off), gas and electricity (another rip off), water, mortgage, home insurance, life insurance, broadband and telephone costs before you’ve fed yourself, filled up your car with the most expensive diesel in the world or even dreamt about a holiday. That’s why I call living in ROB just another day in paradise.

We’re due to exchange contracts soon, and apparently buildings insurance and life insurance needs to be sorted for then. It never stops. I’ll let you know where I find the best deal.

 

 

 

 

 

We bought my wedding ring on Saturday, and I think I’ve tried it on about 50 times since. Considering the rising cost of Platinum, it was rather a good deal at £570 and, for once, I don’t feel ripped off. Like a fine wine, I must be mellowing with age.

My other half has decided on a titanium ring – it’s more durable than Platinum, tough, lightweight, scratch-resistant and hypoallergenic. He fancies a double comfort design (flat on the outside, curved on the inside) with a width of 7mm. The Platinum version was £2,500 (extortionate) but the titanium version only £36 from UK Titanium Jewellery. Bargain eh?

Best of all – if he loses it, it’s no big deal. At that price, we can afford to replace it right away.

A week or so ago I posted about my car insurance renewal. Since then I’ve been shopping around and comparing quotes whilst trying to get a level of cover and customer service on a par with what I’ve been receiving from my current insurer (it’s just their premiums I don’t like). Car insurance is a begrudge purchase anyway, so I might as well be sure that I am getting a deal that’s right for me.

One of the most important factors in my decision about who to insure my car with is whether they have a UK-based customer service and claims line. I also want a courtesy car, windscreen cover, legal protection and to protect my no-claims bonus.

I’ve found that although it’s easy to compare quotes and to find the cheapest policies, it’s really hard to compare policy benefits – essentially what this means is that comparing prices is not always useful, as in terms of the actual product you are not comparing like-with-like.

Obviously, I’ve been on to all of the big car insurance comparison sites that advertise on TV. They’re so “in your face” that you can’t help but want to see if they live up to their promises of the “cheapest prices” and “best cover”.

Interestingly, what I did notice is that a lot of the policies that appear near to the top of the price comparison results were very basic indeed, which struck me as a blatent attempt to get listed ‘at the top’ and therefore capture the most business. This wasn’t working for me, as price is just one motivator amongst a number of other factors.

Fortunately, there is a diamond in the rough. Gocompare.com is, in my opinion, the best of the bunch. Not only can you compare by price, but also by policy benefits. I ended up shaving about £97 off my renewal price without compromising on the rest of my cover. So, for car insurance I recommend Gocompare.com.

Yesterday we received our first electricity bill from npower, having become a customer in December last year. The bill was estimated at £127, which I thought seemed a little steep considering we’re ultra careful and switch everything off at the socket when it’s not in use. In fact, we’ve become slaves to the sockets and switches since the rip off 12.7% electricity price hike on 4th January 2008.

Having opened the bill and realising it was an estimate, I confidently predicted our actual (non-estimated) bill would be a whole lot cheaper, once I’d supplied the meter readings. “You wait and see”, I told my (slightly uninterested) other half.

Having scuttled off to read the meter, I was proven right. Oh yes, that estimated bill was way out. Way, way, way out – but there was no gloating, because my reading suggested we’d used £1,180 worth of electricity in just 3 months. Cue panic attack, whimpering and frantic totting up on fingers and toes – followed by a long wait on hold and a 38 minute conversation with an Npower customer service representative, who (despite the dreadful reviews was actually really helpful).

After lots of deliberating and cogitating, the lightbulb moment came when the previous tenant’s exit bill was checked, and found to be based on two 4 digit meter readings. Our bill was based on two 5 digit readings instead, meaning we’d used close to 10,000 units of electricity rather a little less than a thousand.

Problem solved – my error when I first read the meter was not picked up by the customer service representative who set up the account. They’re re-billing and I’m relaxing.

 

I’ve posted on my other blog about extorionate petrol and diesel prices. It’s one of the UK’s biggest rip offs, but with so many of us dependent on our cars, there’s not that much we can do about it – apart from vote with our feet at the next election. And it begs the question, would it really make a difference anyway?

Now I’m no fan of any political party, and I have to hold my hands up for voting Labour back into power – but this country desperately needs a change.

The PM was quizzed on the ITV news last night (notice the use of the word ‘quizzed’ rather than ‘grilled’, as that would be too much to hope for or expect). Upon being asked to comment on what he, in his role as our PM, is doing to aid us Brits (who let’s face it are now completely skint due to rising food costs, rising petrol and diesel prices, the credit crunch and general ROB exploitation) he completely evaded the question.

When pressed, he muttered about child benefit and winter fuel allowance for old folk. Not good enough, Gordon. There are other sectors of society who you’ve taken from. Again and Again and Again. Such as middle earners (raise the 40% tax band, it’s unfair), childless couples, those of us not in receipt of benefits and so forth.

Sort it out, and count yourself privileged that you’re in a position to do so.

On Saturday I received my new TV licence for 2008/2009 and now have I cause for two moans:

Moan 1: Rip off pricing

The annual cost of what is essentially just a bit of paper has increased by £4 to £144.50, despite the rapidly deteriorating quality of programmes on the BBC analogue channels. This is just another example of Rip of Britain robbing us blind. It wouldn’t be so bad if the cost was justified on the basis that it covers all the TV channels we watch, but no – we just have to pay for the privilege of watching the dross the BBC put out hour upon hour (I suppose we can exclude The Apprentice, Match of the Day and a handful of sporting events from that last statement).

Moan 2: Rip off payment charges

I pay by quarterly direct debit, mainly because the £144.50 one-off fee is way to steep for me to afford comfortably. For the pleasure of paying this way, I’m charged an extra £5 per year, or £1.25 per quarter. Whoever said Dick Turpin was dead obviously doesn’t own a TV.

Yes, it’s that time again. Car insurance capers – Jeez, I can’t wait.

I’ve been with the same insurer for about 7 years now; I’ve shopped around, but never switched. I like their customer service and when I’ve needed to claim, the process has been easy and efficient. Whilst price is not everything, it does count for something – and to be honest, they’re far from being ‘cheap’ and I’m starting to resent being ripped off.

So I’m off to get some more quotes. You see enough adverts on TV after all - “save this”, “compare that”, “we’re the cheapest”, “no we are”. You can even win a million quid “just for getting a quote”. Desperate or what?

Today’s moan is all about rip off stamp duty.

Get real, this ain’t a duty, it’s a tax (and an unfair one at that). So call it that and be honest, at least we’ll all know where we stand.

Unless you’ve just arrived from Planet Dot, you’ll know that the price of an average UK house has grown substantially in recent years, pushing many more of us into the £250K+ buying bracket. Let’s face it, £250K doesn’t get a whole lot these days, but jump up to £275K-£300K and you’ll get yourself an extra bedroom or a better postcode, or maybe both (if you’re lucky).

Let’s face it, if you’re stretching to £275K or even £300K, then you’re far from rich - although the British Government has you labelled as a cigar chomping capitalist, surrounded by mounting piles of cash; a modern day Cyril Sneer if you fancy. It’s 1% stamp tax for house purchases between £120K – £250K and 3% for purchases between £250K and £500K. How sickening that if you buy at £250K you pay £2,500, but have to stump up £8,250 at £275K.

The knock on effect is that it’s not just us buyers whom they have by the balls, it’s the sellers too. Price your house at £250K-£275K and you’ll rarely find a buyer who doesn’t expect you to either drop to the 1% threshold or contribute in part or in full to the 3% stamp tax bill - and you can understand why.

Get rid of this out of date dinosaur of a tax and replace it with something that fairly reflects our real ‘duties’ as homeowners.

 

My faithful old Golf is back from the garage with a fairly clean bill of health. Fortunately, there was no major damage caused by it’s bout with the biggest pothole in the world, so there’s just the cooling fans still to fix. The VW specialist quoted me a very tasty £200 compared to the £420 quote I got from the fat cat VW dealer. It seems there are still deals to be had in ROB, providing you shop around.

There is icing on the cooling fan cake. The Golf is now in the garage with pot hole damage, after I splashed through a seemingly innocent puddle only to find it covered a hole the size of a small planet.

When I find out how many legs and arms it’s going to cost, I’ll take it upon myself to rant a little more about the state of ROB’s roads.