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The price cap applies to the domestic energy providers (e.g. Bulb) and it's based on the wholesale price of energy. The domestic energy suppliers are buying energy at high prices, they don't produce energy themselves. Because the prices are rising so fast, there are periods where the price cap is lower than wholesale prices, which is why so many of them went bust over the last year (ie. they lose money for every kWh of electricity their customers use).
The windfall tax applies to energy producers who are selling energy at insane prices (e.g. Shell). The prices are high because of Russia/Ukraine and COVID.
There is a little bit of overlap of course - Shell does household energy for example - but by and large they're different companies
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I'd be more after a fifth of something like this: https://www.woodlands.co.uk/buying-a-wood/southern-scotland-and-northumberland/gatton-wood#8.85/55.8572/-3.5318 but still way too expensive really for what amounts to a shed
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Thanks golf club thread for directing me here. I also had the woodland idea, for 2.5 reasons:
- 1: as a glorified camping spot. Ride there in the evening, go to bed, wake up in a nice bit of woodland in the hills, have a coffee and go for a bike ride or hike. Lovely.
- 2: as a long term storage unit. I have a bunch of crap that I don't need year round (e.g. winter hiking gear, spare bike parts), and if you look up storage prices, they're mental. I'm pretty sure the return on investment on a temporary structure in a bit of woodland would be surprisingly short compared to commercial storage. Same as buying a lockup but cheaper.
- 2.5: eco crap: rewild it or grow some potatoes or whatever
The problem is people don't seem to bother to sell small cheap bits of land probably because it's not worth the effort - it's all commercial entities and whatnot. Decided if I wanted to do it my best bet would be to find a local farmer and ask them to sell me a tiny plot directly. Basically gave up on it though
- 1: as a glorified camping spot. Ride there in the evening, go to bed, wake up in a nice bit of woodland in the hills, have a coffee and go for a bike ride or hike. Lovely.
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They had a dumb system where they don't deliver on bank holidays so disabled it completely on the day before. You would think it'd be possible to just schedule the delivery for the next delivery day that isn't a bank holiday but apparently not. (I know it's not a bank holiday yet but just goes to show their systems are utter crap)
Also it doesn't work if you use wiggle.com instead of wiggle.co.uk I think
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I don't think this really solves the issue as you're just allowing more people into the current broken system, so prices continue to climb even faster. And anyone just getting their first property will be absolutely obliterated by any large interest rate increase.
You have to
a) build enough houses
b) stop allowing them to be used as an investment vehicle (→ implies ever-increasing prices)Either prices stop going up or your kids rent for life
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There aren't enough houses. That's the fundamental issue and it means that someone gets fucked no matter what your policies are. At the moment it is all the young people, and locals in places like Wales and Cornwall where second homes are common. Increasing the tax on second homes shifts the balance towards more young people getting on the ladder and the second-home-owners and BTL property hoarders getting fucked over. Seems pretty reasonable to put the population of this country over the financial interests of a small proportion of wealthy people.
Alternatively we could start building a million houses a year... any day now...
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Yes there are plenty of cunt landlords, but allowing for a large rental sector is a great way to ensure a vibrant city with plenty of young people coming and going. And a higher supply of rental properties should go some way to keep average rents down.
Sounds like a good deal for the landlord. Wring every penny out of the vibrant young people who are too poor to buy, whilst your asset appreciates due to gentrification caused by their presence. Cool
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Just had my MOT and on the history on the government website they failed it at first because the bonnet wouldn't close, and then passed it afterwards when (presumably) they managed to close it normally. There's nothing wrong with the bonnet and it wasn't mentioned to me at all when I collected the car.
What's that all about? Did the mechanic forget how to close a bonnet, fail it and then someone more senior showed him/her how to do it and change it to a pass? Should I complain? Kinda screwed up my MOT history now, makes the car look worse than it is if I were to sell it.
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You could easily build a tiny railgun to achieve the same thing if you disconnect the two rails from each other and apply a potential difference across them. You'd need a metal ball. A 9V battery might be enough, not sure though
No timing needed, no wasted power when the ball isn't rolling.
I think it would work anyway. Not sure about voltage/amp requirements but you only need a little bit to balance the friction/air resistance losses.
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It's 1.4% on premium bonds. you don't get anything until they've been in for a full month, so if you buy them today it'll be 2 August before any interest is paid out. Then you've got a few days' wait before you can withdraw.
Wouldn't bother personally - I'll be withdrawing mine this month. Used to be alright when the rate was higher than savings but that's not the case any more as a normal Chase savings account will give you 1.5% easy access. Here's my referral spam - they're closing referrals tomorrow at 11.59 so don't hang about https://link.go.chase/emNK/refer?code=BCkjd8YB can always move it back into PBs later although you do miss out with that one month waiting period
But I would probably stick £10k Vanguard All World if I didn't have any short term plans given inflation rates at the moment