Inflation/cost of living

[David L]

And what interest rates are your banks offering?

Not enough

Have a slight leaning towards a Tesco 5 year deal of 4.6% could be worth a punt, but I need to do more looking - by the time I'm done rates will be heading down again...

Definitely not enough! I'm not looking to tie my money up so the best I'm getting is 3.4%. It comes with a 'best rate' guarantee so will probably move up a bit more but, of course I'm still around 6.5% adrift from keeping up with inflation. I kid myself that my attempts at saving money on the majority of our spend, food, means that inflation in our household is nowhere near as bad as the headline rate suggests.
We need inflation to come down and then the banks to show some sympathy towards savers by keeping savings rates from falling at the same time - some hope!

[David L]

This country is utterly screwed.

Cheer up! The German economy is growing less than the UK's
 

[David L]

Inflation sticks at 8.7% which means the incompetents at the BoE will probably hike rates again tomorrow. Will definitely get ugly for many.
Meanwhile their failure with monetary policy is matched by the government's failure with fiscal policy

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-net-debt-passes-100-gdp-first-time-since-1961-2023-06-21/

Idiots, the lot of 'em

[David L]

Interesting:

https://m.uk.investing.com/news/economy/central-banks-make-huge-mistake--financial-crash-like-1929-now-inevitable-3111998?ampMode=1

It appears recession is analagous to wildfires, natural and necessary

[dom]

Governmental/institutional attempts to manage the economy seem very crude. They appear to be using the same basic tools that they always used. Why has there been no progression in the field of economics? No insight?

The wealth of data and the massive programming power of computers at our disposal and we're still using the same devices that we used when pen and paper were all economists had at their disposal. It really is a stunted "science" and the poor relation of most other fields of research.

[Nickslikk2112]

Why has there been no progression in the field of economics? No insight?

Because economics is shit.

It's no better than sticking a wet finger in the air to judge the weather. A bit of Supply and Demand theory works well enough, the rest is all guesswork and dogma. Just because something worked in the past doesn't mean it will work in the future - probably because it didn't work in the past, it was just coincidence.

I bet if I studied for my Accountancy qualification now, barely any of the economics I studied will be  on the course now.

[Slim]

I often leave a laptop on, idle, for a few days at a time. And of course I've wondered what that costs me. Well - I bought one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08X4M7TX2

It's a three pin power meter - plug it into the mains and it tells you how many KWh you've consumed since you've plugged it in, or reset it.

I plugged the laptop in - it was idle for about 12 hours, not hibernating but screen turned off from inactivity. Turns out it consumes 0.0054 KWh per hour or very roughly a penny every three hours.

Looked at another way, it would take me 125 continuous days of leaving the laptop off when it would otherwise be left on, to pay for the power meter.

Will plug an Echo Dot into it next, that will be interesting I think. Because we have 7 of them.

[Fishy]

Yeah I've often wondered how much my little homeland is costing ..  3 pcs running  2x Esxi  Hosts  and a shared storage

[captainkurtz]

I've got 40 solar panels and my bills still cost a bomb...

[David L]

Our energy costs have fallen this month from £234 to £161

[Fishy]

We've got over £500 credit with e-
on with an email saying prices will be falling...

[Slim]

Will plug an Echo Dot into it next, that will be interesting I think. Because we have 7 of them.

Well - according to the power meter, the Dot in my mancave has used 0.008 KWh over the last 12 hours while completely idle. No radio, no Amazon music, no asking it what time it is, no weather forecast etc etc. Just inactivity (unless it did a firmware upgrade overnight, which is unlikely).

Quite a bit less than the laptop, at 0.000666 KWh per hour. About 1/8 of the cost.

So just on idle, very roughly because they aren't all the same model and don't have the same type of charger, our seven Dots are using about a penny every three hours. A little bit more.

1p per three hours is 8p per day .. let's call it 9p .. about £33 a year in electricity costs. Not a problem but not negligible.

[Slim]

I've had the little fan heater on in my mancave, this morning. So I checked it with the power meter - it's supposed to be 500w,  but the power meter claims +370 (although interestingly there's a "settling in" period; it supposedly uses about 420w for the first 40 seconds or so then tails off quickly).

Anyway who knows whether the manufacturer's rating or the power meter's measurement is more accurate, but let's say it's 410w.

On that basis, with electricity at 27p per KWh.. I asked CHatGPT to do the sums. It's very rough (assumes I use it for 3 hrs per day between Oct - Mar).

[David L]

Inflation falls to 4.6%. Should be making money on our savings now, in real terms

(probably fiddled though - to allow the PM to reach one target)

[Nickslikk2112]

Inflation falls to 4.6%. Should be making money on our savings now, in real terms

(probably fiddled though - to allow the PM to reach one target)

I think most of the last year's inflationary pressures will have worked through by now anyway so the target would be hit whatever the government did.

And yes, most of my savings are now making me real money