Sorry I have'nt been around gang, but I've been working on starting my own small business. Just a pipe dream right now, but may become a reality in the next few years. As most of you know, Sabre and I are also looking for a house. Been very busy. Should be on Friday night for some OFP though. Also Steel, if you want to fly FB, I should be on this weekend.
Later all
Grifter.
Have'nt been around
Moderator: RLG MGMT Team
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Jedi Master
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PanzerMeyer
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Jedi Master
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- Joined: 11 Feb 2004, 14:32
- Location: Melbourne, FL
Grif, not sure of my schedule this weekend...
Nidia has some stuff planned for tonight... I am moving into a new position at work and have a lot to do - we are working out details right now. It is potentially the BIG TIME, but there are a couple of requirements my boss has put into the job I am not willing to do for any amount of money - mainly 50-70% away from home. We shall see.
Maybe we can plan on Sunday eve, and even coax Chowda online if he is around...
Nidia has some stuff planned for tonight... I am moving into a new position at work and have a lot to do - we are working out details right now. It is potentially the BIG TIME, but there are a couple of requirements my boss has put into the job I am not willing to do for any amount of money - mainly 50-70% away from home. We shall see.
Maybe we can plan on Sunday eve, and even coax Chowda online if he is around...
Helmut
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Hammer_other
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PanzerMeyer
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Generally, the further north you go the cheaper it gets in the property market - except for the city areas like Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and such. However, even though the cost of living is fairly much the same all over, the average salary is somewhat lower the further north you go too. So, you can actually be poorer in some respects in the "cheap" north.
There are many aspects which go toward the somewhat expensive life in the UK and causing some of the problems we have too:
1. Public transport is ludicriously expensive and very unreliable, not to mention downright friggin dangerous / unsafe / unfit for use (Privatisation!)
2. So thus said - every man and his dog uses personal transport, and is too selfish / independant or dependant upon their own transport to car pool, so you get massive traffic jams, everyone is late to work and gets less done - time / money are lost to the companies (some are government systems) - so who loses out? Yes you guessed it - Joe Public who has to shell out loads more money for everything, or foreign companies who say we have priced ourselves out of the market - even though we produce some the highest quality products across the world.
Hell, we even have our own oil - so what do we do? We sell it abroad, and buy in more expensive oil from the Middle East - And people wonder why we pay so much for fuel over here?! GPB 0.79 / Litre at the moment.
3. The government takes this opportunity to blame the public for all this chaos - and so invents a further tax for us to pay to enter London to do our jobs (as if they aint making enough with their Gatso radar cameras!).
The list is almost endless, but suffice to say, you'll find all the smart people are upping sticks and leaving to go to places like New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA - just to have a quality of life.
There are many aspects which go toward the somewhat expensive life in the UK and causing some of the problems we have too:
1. Public transport is ludicriously expensive and very unreliable, not to mention downright friggin dangerous / unsafe / unfit for use (Privatisation!)
2. So thus said - every man and his dog uses personal transport, and is too selfish / independant or dependant upon their own transport to car pool, so you get massive traffic jams, everyone is late to work and gets less done - time / money are lost to the companies (some are government systems) - so who loses out? Yes you guessed it - Joe Public who has to shell out loads more money for everything, or foreign companies who say we have priced ourselves out of the market - even though we produce some the highest quality products across the world.
Hell, we even have our own oil - so what do we do? We sell it abroad, and buy in more expensive oil from the Middle East - And people wonder why we pay so much for fuel over here?! GPB 0.79 / Litre at the moment.
3. The government takes this opportunity to blame the public for all this chaos - and so invents a further tax for us to pay to enter London to do our jobs (as if they aint making enough with their Gatso radar cameras!).
The list is almost endless, but suffice to say, you'll find all the smart people are upping sticks and leaving to go to places like New Zealand, Australia, Canada, USA - just to have a quality of life.
Yup have to agree with everything Kodiak said.
I live in a 2 bedroom house with kitchen, bathroom and dining and living rooms, all rooms are very small dont know the amount of space per square yard ( very roughly i'd say about 12 Foot by 12 foot for each room) but very small and it is worth £70,000 thats $105,000 to you americans and i would estimate that you guys could buy a mansion overthere with that amount of money with swimming pool and loads of land with it, i have no front garden to speak of and a very very small back garden.
But that's the going rate over here for this type of house, even further north!
Used to be the case that the typical londoner could sell his house/flat in London and buy a house as big as a castle in Scotland but thats no longer the case since the house prices in Scotland are catching up fast with the rest of the country.
Just as an after thought the average Joe Bloggs earns about £15000 per year in Britain ( and that's before the tax man takes his 30% for income tax and National Insurance payments) so to buy a house like mine he needs to get a mortgage that is 4 to 5 times his average yearly income, something you could not get 5 years ago since the max for a mortgage over here used to be 3.5 times your yearly earnings.
Seems you can't buy anything these days without large amounts of credit.
You should have seen the weird look of disbelief i got from a credit card salesman in a supermarket a couple of months ago when he asked me what credit card i had and if i would be interested in changing it to his brand.
To which i replied "I don't have any credit cards at all and do not wish to get one thanks!"
I live in a 2 bedroom house with kitchen, bathroom and dining and living rooms, all rooms are very small dont know the amount of space per square yard ( very roughly i'd say about 12 Foot by 12 foot for each room) but very small and it is worth £70,000 thats $105,000 to you americans and i would estimate that you guys could buy a mansion overthere with that amount of money with swimming pool and loads of land with it, i have no front garden to speak of and a very very small back garden.
But that's the going rate over here for this type of house, even further north!
Used to be the case that the typical londoner could sell his house/flat in London and buy a house as big as a castle in Scotland but thats no longer the case since the house prices in Scotland are catching up fast with the rest of the country.
Just as an after thought the average Joe Bloggs earns about £15000 per year in Britain ( and that's before the tax man takes his 30% for income tax and National Insurance payments) so to buy a house like mine he needs to get a mortgage that is 4 to 5 times his average yearly income, something you could not get 5 years ago since the max for a mortgage over here used to be 3.5 times your yearly earnings.
Seems you can't buy anything these days without large amounts of credit.
You should have seen the weird look of disbelief i got from a credit card salesman in a supermarket a couple of months ago when he asked me what credit card i had and if i would be interested in changing it to his brand.
To which i replied "I don't have any credit cards at all and do not wish to get one thanks!"
Lose Sight! Lose The Fight!8)
Barrie "Nemisis" Brownlee
[img]http://img201.exs.cx/img201/2690/nemisissignature0xl.gif[/img]
Barrie "Nemisis" Brownlee
[img]http://img201.exs.cx/img201/2690/nemisissignature0xl.gif[/img]
ummm...105K? That is nothing. One can not buy a condo for that here in San Diego. A very small house will run 250K plus - about 1500 sq ft maybe. My house, 2500 sq ft is estimated at 450K plus... I do have a 4 car garage and almost an acre yard, but I also live out in the country and not in San Diego proper - so my house in San Diego might go for 650K or more depending upon location in San Diego...
Helmut
