A frugal life is an easy life!

All the toys and teddys, all the people in and out, all the music and dvds, all the animals walking past and the noise, all of which make no difference at all to sprog2.

When she sees her feet, that's the centre of her world!

I grew up in the 1970s with the addage that eating everything in moderation is good.
We never had central heating until into the 1980s, we had ice on the insides of windows on winter mornings, then again we rarely knew anyone with asthma.
We ate everything as kids, worms, dirt, things we had dropped on the floor. We drank corporation pop in the hot summer days, lived for the school holidays on jam butties until teatime.
Allergies were rare in the heady days of my youth, the theory that was the norm then was that if you were not exposed to or fed things, then you could in theory develop allergies to them, much the same as the body is given innoculations and builds a resistance.
Sprog1 was brought up with the same theory during the 1990s, with no ill effects.

So with sprog2 fast approaching the age of solids (how fast does the time go!) an appointment with the health visitor to "advise" us about moving from breast fed to bottle fed then on to solids.

Health visitor lands and lectures us on the dos and don'ts of baby feeding.
It goes without saying that dairy products are no gos, but most things that we eat can be put into a blender and fed in small amounts to sprog2.
Then we were given "advice" that I questioned immediately - asking how if kids are not exposed to certain foods, can they build up a tolerance to them?
The answers were contradictory!

Wheat:
The advice we were given was not to feed weetabix, until after the baby is 12 months old - as babies don't build up resistance, they "instead develop allergies to it!"
So imagine my surprise when a week later I am walking the aisles in Asda, looking at packets of baby rice, I see that recommended baby rice for a 6 month old baby, has wheat proteins added to them!
So who is correct? The government advice via our health visitor or the food company that has been feeding babies for decades, stating that wheat protein benefits our baby from as early as 6 months old?

Honey:
Now I knew this one, babies should not be given honey as it does not go through sterilisation processes, the health visitor confirmed this stating that children under 2 years old should not be given honey.
Today, whilst out shopping, we picked up some Johnson's baby soap - when we got it home it reveals it has an expiry date on it?
Soap that has a shelf life?
As it contains honey!
So who is correct? Official guidelines of the government via our health visitor or Johnson's a company that has been specialising in baby products since well before I was born?

It is not advised to let our baby eat honey, but it is ok to smear her in a product that contains honey?

It is a minefield for parents these days with all this conflicting advice, you pin down a health visitor to give a straight answer and they simply cannot, so what chance do parents of babies have?

Surveys and awards serve no purpose other than to protect or increase sales for the companies involved - it is a simple message but one that needs to be remembered.

The latest shining example (of many out there in "marketing land") of how a false perception is given, comes from the Grocer magazine.
The Grocer magazine's customer base is retailers. This is through it's advertising, marketing even jobs promotion.

I followed a link to read their latest report, but it was "subscription only" - I would have to pay to read it! (No thanks)
The next best thing then, the Grocer gave their report to the BBC website to generate publicity and they published the headlines from it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8476315.stm

"Supermarket alcohol promotions reduced"
You can laugh now, I did.

"Research for the magazine showed that the number of deals on alcohol in January this year made up 22% of all promotions, compared to 26% last year"
How many big occasions are celebrated after New Years in January?
Why not look at the deals for December?

"Instead, offers on fresh food have risen. This year they made up 14% of promotions - while last year they represented only 11.5%"
Is this because these are the latest promotions for supermarkets?
January each year, more people start eating healthier food after the big eating season of Christmas and New Year?

"The Grocer said the trend was most marked at Asda - Drink deals there fell from 27% to 13%"
I would dispute this totally!
It is certainly not the case at my local Asda!
Is it not only natural for drinks offers to fall as the New Year celebrations are over?

"A separate study for The Grocer showed that, on average, alcohol was selling for 2% to 5% more in the run-up to Christmas in 2009, compared with 2008."
A seperate study that didn't make the headlines?
A seperate study that shows that despite inflation being at 1.5% for months, supermarket's put their prices up on alcohol by up to 5%
That is more than three times the rate of inflation (On just one product area) - no wonder supermarket's are making millions of pounds in profits!
This displays the exact opposite to what supermarket TV adverts are saying to the public does it not?

The entire credibility of the report is destroyed at the end, when the real reason is revealed as to why the report has been put out:

"The research comes as politicians consider introducing minimum pricing rules for alcohol as a way of tackling binge drinking"
Need I say anything more...

When paid by direct debit, a pensioner friend of the website was paying £40 per month for their gas supply.

Back in August 2009, their six monthly statement showed they were in credit, but as we hear all to often, it "will level itself out over the year."
They were advised to check they were on the lowest tariff - which they were, paying by the "cheapest method of direct debit" - which they were.
Imagine their shock at being presented with a new monthly payment plan that would increase their monthly direct debit to £125 a month!

On contacting the company, they were informed that they now owed the gas supplier more than £550 - from being in credit four months earlier.

Within two weeks, their request to have a card meter installed to pay for their gas and collect the so called arrears was honoured.
Our pensioner friend now pays £20 per week for their gas supply, having £13 per week taken from this amount for their arrears.
During the cold winter months, our pensioners are advised to "not worry about the expense and put their heating on and keep warm" - how are a company allowed to get away with increases that are more than treble what they were before?

In October 2008 the energy watchdog ruled that companies must lower their charges before the end of March 2009, after they were increased by more than 40% for the year (the time of the year when more energy is used).

In March 2009, energy companies did lower their prices, but not by much, one company only lowered its prices by 10% if the customer took out a long term contract for joint gas and electricity supply - taking into account the previous rises of over 40% this left their customers more than 30% out of pocket.

It appears from our friend's experiences, the gas suppliers have simply held off the increases until winter 2009.
Can a gas supplier justify an increase of more than treble the monthly direct debit charge?
I doubt it very much, as our pensioner friend only has their heating on for two hours in a morning and two hours in an evening, as they live alone.

It is a shameful way to treat people - or is this just an isolated case?

ADDITIONAL:

It appears that this is not just an isolated case!
Another pensioner friend of the website, who is with a different gas company to the one referred to above, has seen the amount that their gas company demand in monthly direct debit payments, shoot up.

They were paying £45 per month, it has now been increased to £113 per month.
Yet again, this is disgraceful!

We see it everywhere we look, on every sign, on every piece of promotional bumph, included to refer us to some small print that we hardly ever read, until it is too late.

The dreaded asterix *

The sprog came home from college today, prevented from printing his assignment off, because the establishment have changed their policy on printing for students.
Not content with charging £3500 per year for his course (An increase from £1800 it was three years ago) but now they are demanding a payment be made in advance for using the college's print services.

A minimum payment of £5 must be made by debit or credit card and each page printed will cost 6p and this will be taken from the £5 deposited.
I asked sprog1 where on the course paperwork was the asterix? Where is the *?

Of course there isn't one, but it is going the same way as everything else that business tries to sell us.
Flights are a prime example, you click to buy a flight only to find that airport taxes, baggage allowances, etc, have an * after them and they bump the price up to nothing like what you were clearly led to believe in the advertising on the website or in the newspaper or shop.
"Upto 70% off sale *" - This is a common one, the * normally means that it's only applicable to new customers (you being an existing customer of course) or you cannot use it to buy certain products (almost always the product that you wanted) or to get the benefit of the offer to which the * is attached to, you have to pay more than you would normally for the product or service, in which case you are not really benefitting.

There of course is the other type of * the invisible one!

Ever bought car insurance?
I have had the same policy with the same company for 14 years now.
Until 3 years ago, my "Fully comprehensive policy" used to have a courtesy car within that package.
Until they applied the invisible * - now I have no courtesy car as well as a higher price each year.
The same invisible * applies to my excess fee, payable by me incase of an accident, even if it is not my fault. It seems to keep on rising but the price of my insurance never reduces when each quote comes in to renew.
What about "gap" insurance, where your car that is worth £10,000 on a fully comp policy, if it is written off a year later, if you don't pay for the extra for the "gap insurance" the fully comprehensive policy only pays part of the £10,000 value of your car. How fantastic is that!

Becareful out there gang, until someone high up comes along and stops these misleading practices, then it is down to us and only us, to stop it being applied to us!