Brain recalibration - a cost of living/modern life thread

That's a fair point, and kind of ruins my own strategy. 🤬 I've had similar experiences of constructive criticism reviews being rejected, far less bad reviews. Anyone know if Defacto are worthy of anything?

Seems like a 1% problem…

I personally would not bother fixing or indeed making a claim for a scratch, but then again, I am not on six figures and mybcar is probably worth 3 or 4 grand. I would like to think that those with a 30+ grand car worth fixing should have better things to worry about than 100 quid extra on the insurance… that doesn’t even buy a bottle of Dom Perignon, does it?

I mean, my car got vandalised, it's not just a scratch.

I don't know how the premiums would compare but we have been with NFU for some time and have needed to claim about 3 or 4 times in 30 or so years.

Every time, the process was pretty painless and the service from NFU was great.

Most recently (about 4 years ago) we had an unfortunate incident whereby a stock pot simmering away with bones in it boiled dry and continued to cook (we went out for 20 minutes and came back three hours later having forgotten the pot on the hob!). This filled the entire house with an acrid smoke that stuck to all surfaces. After assessor had been out, the house was thoroughly cleaned at insurers cost which still didn’t get rid of the smell. Consequently the kitchen, utility room, living room, dining room, hall, stairs and landing all had to be stripped and re-decorated and ceilings repainted. We got a quote from a decorating company (highly recommended to me from a friend) who, due to their reputation and service, were far from cheap! NFU approved this without question and, from memory, there was no increase to our subsequent premiums.

I would have no hesitation in recommending NFU (incidentally our bikes are on the same policy and covered for damage/theft even when not in the house).

Re insurance, my youngest piled into a house on her second outing when learning to drive. Car was nearly written off, and the house owner was a bit of d*ck, to the extent that his son apologised for the distress caused, given that both Dad and daughter were in something of a state! Anyway, though I feared the worse, Direct Line just said "Leave it to us. This is why you have learner insurance." (With an unspoken "not particularly cheap" in there somewhere. All we had to do was pay the excess when we collected the cat three weeks later. They even sent us a cheque for £60 for not fixing it within a week, which was very generous, as the car was in numerous pieces when it arrived at the repairers!

How did the cat get involved..?

(I checked, that cat was fine)

The last two pairs of overshoes reviewed on Road.cc have been £91 and £100.

I don't mind paying for decent gear but that seems crazy for something that is essentially a consumable that is likely to wrecked after a year or two.

A ticket to see HMS victory is £36. In my mind it should be £10.

A black box at age 40? Probably pretty unique.

Ask around. Had been told about prices getting to £400 round about here. Used the firm who my re-roofers used last year, so ok with accessing up The Slope. 8 cu yd / m one at £200. Ok, that'll do. Filled and gone.

The mixed load bit forces the price up. I’ll admit there was a smorgasbord of crap in there. 😀

For your zoo?

Yeah sorry, annual membership at one of the ones in Bristol for a family of 4

As the cost of road bikes has gone through the roof, I find myself recalibrated and now a Brompton seems a rather affordable proposition… used to hink the price was very steep. Even the supa dupa 7.5 kg titanium version at 4.2k seems good value. You don’t buy a 7.5 kg road bike at that price