Finance Friday | Loose money
It’s difficult these days to even define what money is. It can be coins in our pockets, notes in purses and wallets or numbers on bank account statements. Money can be just bits in a computer or tokens of any kind.
Finance Friday | Priorities
Can you imagine living in a country where you don’t have any opportunities and struggle to get clean water and enough to eat? Here in the UK, most people are lucky, but there is a lot of inequality. Young people on benefits go into MacDonald’s to eat, just because it’s there.
Finance Friday | Supply and demand
In theory, competition and supply and demand should regulate prices in a free market. In practice that isn’t the case. There are monopolies and cartels. There can be a lack of competition. There can be government interference in the market, such as the government’s ‘help to buy scheme’; that can distort the property market. An increased money supply can also mean increased demand.
Finance Friday | Easy Money
When I was younger, there was a lot of industry in the Black Country. Working and making money was hard, but there was was also ‘easy money’. Making beer could be considered a lot easier than working in a foundry or down a mine.
Finance Friday | Recession–what recession?
It seems the British economy is growing and we aren’t in recession after all. GDP has increased 0.3%. Well it’s better than nothing. That means spending has increased by 0.3%, that’s combined spending, the government’s and ours. The government is spending less. Are we spending more?
Finance Friday | The economic fiasco
Rents for social housing have gone up over the years in the UK and have been subsidised first with rent rebates and then that was changed to housing benefit. They went so high that workers couldn’t afford them.
Finance Friday | Needs and Wants
We all need water and food and we need to keep warm in winter. The divide between what we actually need and what we want is getting a little blurred. Do we really need mobile phones, cars and internet? I think we want these things and a lot more, but we don’t need them. We don’t even need television…
Finance Friday | Talk Talk Talk
I answered my phone this morning. This is unusual for me, I usually leave the calls to go to my answering machine, because of nuisance calls that could be dealt with easily; but aren’t, because they make money for the telecom companies. It was from TalkTalk.
A market economy?
Imagine you had to buy meat at the butchers because no one else sold it. If the prices kept going up, that could be because there was a lack of competition. If there are only two butchers on the High Street and the nearest one apart from those were 50 miles away; they might take advantage of that.
Saturday ideas and thoughts
I don’t usually do sky pictures, they’re boring, but this one is unusual and I’m a bit desperate today. If you look carefully you can see the moon breaking through the clouds. We had another week of financial bad news. Both banks that are partly owned by the tax payer posted losses. Not real losses that would send them into administration like so many High Street businesses; these are just millions and billions lost ‘on paper’.
Who has all the money?
I have money in my wallet and money in the bank. We all think that we know what money is and how to use it to buy goods and services. Do we really understand the world financial system? It does seem to have become very complicated. Governments around the world are complaining that they are not only broke, but trillions in debt. What’s going on? (more…)
Wealth cascading down the generations?
We all wish that we had been born with a silver spoon in our mouths. But the reality for most people is that rather than enjoying inherited wealth, they have to create their own wealth. Many people will never own their own home and for those that are lucky enough to own a home, they spend their life paying off the mortgage. To make it all worse the money we earn is constantly devalued by an expanding money supply.
Frugal Food Ideas
Food prices keep going up and so we not only have to shop around and look for bargains, we have to do some frugal cooking. Egg and chips is one of my favourite meals. You can get eggs with the little lion on from most supermarkets for about 1.35 for 15. In Aldi, I buy those crinkle cut oven chips for 99p a bag. So I cook a meal for less than 50p.
Finance Friday | devaluing people
A few years ago, the refuse collection service where I live was put out to tender. One of those big ‘outsourcing’ companies won the 300 million pound contract. They now collect refuse, a wheelie bin for recycling, a bin for garden waste in summer, a bin for a kitchen waste and a bin that is supposed to be kept in the kitchen for waste too. The staff got a pay cut when it was all reorganised and that wasn’t the only council service to be outsourced.
How would you fix the economy?
Imagine for a moment, that you lived in a small village and was fairly self-sufficient, producing your own food. You even produce enough to sell to the Lord of the Manor and the rest of the village.
Surviving the cuts
A lot of people are going to be struggling because of government cuts. The Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill, will keep benefit rises to 1% for three years from next April. This will hit a lot of people and save the government a couple of billion a year. That’s a lot of money. Not as much as the 12 billions the Olympics cost, but still a lot of money.
How the empire builders ruined Britain
This post was originally published on http://mike10613.wordpress.com on the 4th January 2013.
Big is beautiful to some people. Well, you get paid more for running a city than a town! Near my home there are six shops. There used to be a greengrocers where you could buy fruit and vegetables; that is now a ‘tanning salon’.
Surviving Christmas
The supermarkets where I live are very busy and people are stocking up on food and booze. I have had enquiries about Christmas openings, but most supermarkets don’t seem to have them on their websites yet. Usually they are closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day; except for Asda who usually open on Boxing Day. I’ll do an update if I find out the opening times.
Saving money as a student
How to save money during your education
Education is considered to be most important part of every individual’s life. The writing techniques, learning skills, teaching technologies, etc. play vital roles in education. Apart from the learning, one may have many responsibilities like repaying student loans, different kinds of bills, expenses and own finances besides the chores.
The economic outlook
In the UK, the Chancellor made his Autumn economic statement yesterday. Will the economy get better or worse as a result? It seems we are going to see more austerity and so it will probably get worse. People will have less money to spend and that will be lower sales for retailers and service providers.
The nature of money
The area of Britain where live is known as the Black Country and used to be heavily industrialised. I used to listen to drop forge hammers pounding as a child and looked out of my bedroom window to see factories served by a railway line. They made trucks for trains and the workers were called in to work with a device that sounded like an air raid siren.
The Scottish Power double price rise!
Last month, I received an email from Scottish Power with their price rise. Is it simple? Is it hell! There are two unit prices for electricity and two for gas, three out of four will be increasing. Then there are the annual discounts for taking both gas and electricity and the online discount. They are being cut by a total of £11.55. It’s complicated, but the unit price of gas is going up by over 12%. Can it get worse? Yes it can. Now they want over 24% extra!
Preparing for a frugal Christmas
I have been reading about getting presents for Christmas and many of the suggestions involve parting with serious amounts of money. Many people need to cut back this year. People are supposed to be short of money in a recession, but it seems not everyone needs to cut back. I shall show you before Christmas how to send Christmas Greetings for free, by using a suitable photo with Merry Christmas on it and posting it on Facebook. That’ll save a few bleeding postage stamps.
Easter 2013
I took this photo in March last year, the weather was warm and sunny, before the rains came. This year, my lawn is covered in snow. Is climate change to blame? That was the subject of one of my articles this week. The UK government will be cutting welfare this week too, the poor will get poorer.
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March 30, 2013 | Categories: culture, Finance, Finance Friday, Neodigital Art, photography, psychology, Reviews, Thrifty | Tags: England, photography, reviews, social comment, Spring, UK | Leave A Comment »