Rising food & fuel prices ?

[nickdutch]

I eat a lot of rice, fresh veggies and lentils. I don't eat meat all that often so I might buy a big pork or chicken and then can it in 8 1/2 L jars and then just break into a jar every couple of days or week for the lunch and dinner meat. The thing that kills me though is gluten free breakfasts. They are pricey as b@ggery to be honest, and I usually have a big breakfast. So I am praying for the price of "free from" stuff to actually get closer to what a person with health problems can afford. Its like being a person with allergies is a luxury for the rich these days.

[TwoDo]

At this point, the economy is going to falter. The government will have to make the decision whether to ease fuel taxation in order to keep the economy going, to keep the shops open.

... and once they do drop the fuel tax their revenues also drop and they have to print/borrow even more than they do now to make up the difference. The deficit and national debt get larger and soon the pound drops because other countries have lost confidence in the UK's ability to pay. Since the UK is a net oil importer (as of the year 2000) we will then have to pay for oil and gas in increasingly valueless pounds which puts the price up even more. This raises the effective rate of inflation which then leads the government to raise interest rates which then makes peoples mortgages unaffordable and completely trashes the housing market and so on... once the ball starts rolling it is very difficult to stop it.

The government knows this and is very concerned. All this austerity talk (and it is just talk as the current government spends more per year than Labour ever did) is just to keep the currency markets convinced we are "doing something about it". Since we print or borrow 1 pound in every four that gets spent sooner or later the world is going to stop believing.

I've re-read the above - Jeez what a load of doom and gloom. Sorry about that, I was on the Boilerjuice website and I just felt the need to rant.

Don't be sorry. Pretty accurate assessment I thought. Reality doesn't go away just because one doesn't think about it or believe in it.

[Briggs]

My next cut-the-utility-bill project is water. You guys probably already figured this out so forgive me for ranting again.

It's been bothering me for ages how SW Water are charging me for services. I haven't got my bill in front of me to give the precise figures but I know they charge me three times the amount per litre to take waste away. They meter what they supply and figure what comes in must go out and bill me accordingly. Three times the amount for waste!

We use 23000 litres per annum. My target is to cut that down by a third using rainwater storage. That way, SW Water's assumption they can charge me based upon my meter is incorrect because I'm going to be bypassing their bl**dy meter.

[ForgeCorvus]

Briggs, Does your rain water (the stuff you don't harvest any way) go into the sewer or a soak-away?
If its a Soak-away and your water company charges for surface/ground water removal you're entitled to a rebate as you're not using their system
http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/consumerissues/ ... swdrebates

[Briggs]

Briggs, Does your rain water (the stuff you don't harvest any way) go into the sewer or a soak-away?
If its a Soak-away and your water company charges for surface/ground water removal you're entitled to a rebate as you're not using their system
http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/consumerissues/ ... swdrebates

Thank you for the link. My house is in a courtyard and I have two gutter downpipes in the courtyard that I would have a problem diverting so I couldn't claim back anything unfortunately. At the back of the house, I have three downpipes (it's an L shape house with an irregular roof pitch) and I'm about to try out the Hydrobutt rainwater gizmo on one of the downpipes. I was thinking of using the Rainwater Hub, but the Hydrobutt appears to do the same thing, costs less and is less obtrusive than the Hub.

[ForgeCorvus]

The question is where does the drain in the courtyard go ?