A frugal life is an easy life!

Eon fitted us a smart key meter - after paying for credit to go on the meter, the emergency £5 credit was showing at nil and unavailable, Eon staff insisted that it was my fault and that I had used the "emergency" before my own credit ran out!
Here is a list of excuses given by Eon customer service staff to myself, regarding problems with our "new" and "more efficient" smart key meter:

• "The engineers add £10 emergency credit when installing a key meter" - this is incorrect!
  The £10 credit they put on our meter was credit and still left £5 emergency credit, which my first credit payment paid back.
• "You have used the emergency £5 credit already!" - factually inaccurate!
  Once the £10 credit was used I activated the £5 emergency credit, using £1.87 of it. I then entered the smart key into the meter with £20 on it, which paid back the £1.87 back on to the emergency credit, which left me with £18.13 in credit.
  The £18.13 credit was used over the next two weeks and when the key meter was showing less than £1 I attempted to activate the emergency credit reserve, which showed as being nil and unavailable.
  Can I physically use emergency credit whilst also using paid credit? No was the reply, well how can I have used the emergency credit then? The advisor had no answer!
• "The meter takes a few weeks to bed in!" - utter tosh, it is an electrical device, it should work correctly and accurately from the moment it is installed!
• "Key meters remove the need to send people round to your house to read your meter" - a blatant lie!
  At present, by law, a meter must be read at least once every two years (It was previously every 3 months) Your meter must still be read once every two years, no difference what-so-ever from the law, as it stands today.
• "Any difference in price of electricity from when you put credit on the meter until you put more credit on it, is written off!" - completely the opposite to what the three previous advisors told me. I am more inclined to believe them as our six monthly statement showed a shortfall of more than £50 for electricity that is paid for in advance. This outstanding amount fell to just £12 by the next statement, clawed back by the meter settings.

It is time that big business was punished severely for misleading customers.
For the past ten years the regular line has been trotted out by managers and senior company staff, "This has identified a training requirement."

It is not a training problem highlighted all to often with big business, it is blatant misleading of customers and knowingly giving out inaccurate information to explain away their profiteering, at the expense of the customer!

Eon smart key meters costing customers more money
Eon want to fit key meters - why?
Eon customer service number

There are a vast selection of fancy creams and lotions around to help prevent and to relieve nappy rash.

Without doubt the best method we have come across (and one of the cheapest), is good old fashioned vaseline.

Rubbed well in, vaseline creates a barrier.

Other creams such as sudocrem, might be the market leader, but on our baby - who is now almost 4 months old - we found after two days of using sudocrem, nappy rash started appearing.
We returned to vaseline and within a day or so, the nappy rash cleared up.
After about 12 weeks, we ran out of vaseline and used the sudocrem again for about three days, once again the nappy rash returned.

So we went back to vaseline and are staying with it, because it works!

Direct line car insurance - not just direct line, but all insurance companies.
(I have chosen direct line as they do our car insurance)
Why is it that what ever I do always ends up costing me more money?
I changed our vehicle today, went through all the information with a woman on the phone - after about 12 options selected first - took me 15 minutes, told them the old car, told them the new car, only to find that I was incredibly lucky and that the policy on the new car would remain the same price!

Hold on a moment... the old car was almost brand new and direct line informed us to insure it would be more expensive than our previous car as it was "newer and parts for it were more expensive!" (previously they increased the cost of the insurance every year as "it is getting older and parts are harder to find should it need repair!")
Our old car was newer, more efficient, same engine size, kept at the same premises, etc, yet still the insurance increased every year.

So back to this "new" car, which is a lot smaller engine (from a 1600cc down to a 1200cc) same place kept, same mileage used per year etc.
Why is it more expensive to insure?
The lady didn't know, she could only tell me "that's how the system works!" - yeh bet it does!
I was informed everything was sorted out and the new car was on the insurance policy. I could be transferred, if I wanted to, to a department that deals with discounting policies and adjusting the prices. OK lets have a word with them and see what they can do. (I wasn't holding my breath)

I was greeted with "hello?" - not very professional - I gave all my details yet again and confirmed my identity for a second time.
I was told the price would be the same, as I was at the midway point in the policy. There was a £15 "admin charge" for changing the vehicle which was not being applied - whoopy! - so why not just cancel the policy and start a new one?
There is a £26 admin charge for ending a policy!

Queue the wild rant at the advisor...
- You are a bunch of crooks, why is there an £11 higher charge for cancelling a policy and starting a new one, over the cost of changing a vehicle, when the exact same paperwork (which is computer generated) is sent out automatically?
* I don't know sir
- Is the vehicle we have just had put on the insurance cheaper to insure than our former vehicle?
* It is listed as being around £48 cheaper should you be a new customer sir
- You cannot transfer this over so I get the discount?
* No sir, the system will not let me do this
- So I can cancel the policy and start a new one?
* Yes sir, but you will incur a £26 admin charge for ending the policy
- Do you value your customers? As we have two vehicles insured with you!
* Yes we do value your custom sir
- Show it then by transfering the discount across that a new customer would get?
* I am sorry I can't do that sir

I was then told I could write in and complain to their head office. blah blah blah.
It then transpired that despite all the discussions with the previous advisor lady, nothing had been changed and the old car remained on the policy! (What was the point of telling her all my information then?)

How many times have you been into Argos (for example) and ordered or returned goods for a refund and been told at the counter, "that's x amount sir/madam, plus a £10 admin fee?" - No I haven't either.
No matter what you do, insurance companies sting you all ends up, it's a blatent rip off and legally, something should be done about it.

Don't get me started on the price of my insurance increasing because they have had more claims over the previous 12 months, of which I have not claimed a single penny piece!

As a child, I had a pro biotic everyday of my life during the 1970s, it was called unpasteurised milk and I had it in my brews and on my breakfast.

Of course, it would never be given to a child under two years old or to an elderly person, much the same as the various "pro biotics" that we are sold in supermarkets today. They are still available today, but the laws have been changed of course, so that unpasteurised milk can only come direct from a farm in your local area and not be on a supermarket shelf.
The only differences with todays products are:

• They didn't cost any extra - coming directly from our milkman and in with our milk
• They didn't generate any carbon emmissions or affect any carbon footprint, as unlike todays probiotics, they were not shipped in from countries as far away as New Zealand!
• They were completely natural in origin, nothing added to them.

Just another way that industry has taken a product that contained something good for people, stopped providing it for free and now charges us an absolute fortune for.
Not to mention what damage it is doing to the environment that governments and business care so much about (yeh right!) with all the exporting and importing, when it used to come from round the corner from where we lived!

FACT - The world of retail loves nothing more than confusion for it's customer base.

The more clouded an issue for customers the more money it can edge out of our pockets without the customers realising!
With the impending return of VAT, from 15% to 17.5% - confusion is abound and people are being mislead!
I would dispute that the reduction in VAT to 15% in December 2008, actually happened at all.
Companies have been claiming all year, that importing costs against a weak pound forced prices upwards, they also imported products at 17.5% VAT (as this wasn't included in the tax office reduction).
As one commentor on a news website asked: "Did anyone witness newspapers reducing in price by 2p or a bar of chocolate?" - I witnessed prices going up instead of down.
In the confusion created by the reduction, I have no doubts at all that overall prices of everyday things increased, whilst many were advertising "VAT reduced prices!"

Exactly the same thing has already happened for all of us, as prices have increased in the two months up to Christmas - it gets worse for the UK consumer, as now we are witnessing major high street retailers saying one thing and doing another!
Before we go any further, let me give you an example about how easy it is for our imaginary store to mislead you: If I had a pencil on the till of our shop, that has been priced at £1.00 for 28 days and I reduce this to say 20p, I can now legally advertise in my shop window an "Up to 80% off sale instore now!"

TESCO:
At the beginning of December 2009, in an interview with the retail magazines, one of their finance people would not speculate or give any information regarding how the company would change its prices as regards the VAT increase due on January 1st 2010.
By late December 2009 this had changed to them claiming that they were helping their customers by having a "£12 million VAT freeze on thousands of products!"

As always, the devil is in the detail - the VAT freeze will not cover all products, the VAT freeze will not be happening in all of their stores.
The most alarming (and disappointing) thing for me, is once again finding that big business on the high street is treating customers with scant regard - by increasing prices prior to an advertising claims of helping customers.

Industry data, seen by a competitor to Tesco and leaked to the media, reveals that businesses have been increasing prices prior to Christmas and in the run up to the VAT return to 17.5%
"Tesco claimed yesterday to be freezing the price of Fairy non-biological at £4.50 as part of a “£12 million VAT freeze” on thousands of products. However the data shows that the non-biological washing powder was selling for £4 in October" (Source Daily Telegraph)

Tesco increased 500 prices, earlier in December, in bedding, cooking equipment, crockery and other items that are subject to VAT by similar amounts to the increases due on January 1st 2010.
It is not only Tesco that have been doing this.
The data also shows that Boots increased the prices of over 1,500 product lines by an average of 2 per cent in the last 12 weeks. Morrisons, the supermarket, increased the prices of 400 products earlier this month by an average of 2 per cent, raising the price of pet food, health and beauty items and cleaning products.

Sadly, it would appear that official bodies are once again, doing little or nothing, to protect the individual, who, as we are seeing more and more, are being bombarded with half truths and mislead by not being told the full facts.
Confusion means increased profits for businesses.
Be careful out there gang....