Making the Most of a Minimal Budget. Contact me at: skintsailor@yahoo.co.uk or on Twitter: @skintsailor

Monday 14 May 2018

Visit to the Boat and Car hunting

Just a visit to the boat on Saturday. Managed to take the boom off the mast ready for taking the mast down. Just the jib to remove and then I need to make up a crutch for the mast.

However it got a bit distracting as the coastguard helicopter got called out to look for a man overboard in the entrance to the harbour,


The guy had no lifejacket on and with the ferocity of the tide in the harbour mouth there was really no chance for the guy. The Coastie helicopter showed impressive endurance by almost hovering for over an hour looking for the guy. Plus two ILBs and assorted small craft looked for him. I'd have been out there as well if I had the engine on Sprite.

Sad to say after over an hour of searching they didn't find anything.

Sunday was another day looking at a car. I've started to look a bit more closely and I'm not impressed by the amount of Vehicle Excise Duty (road tax for oldies) that I'd have to pay on anything decent sized.

Why the bloody hell would I spend over £500 quid on road tax for a car that's 15 years old for God's sake? That's over a quarter of the price of the car!

My current car (Volvo V70) cost £500 to buy and it's £180 a year to tax it. It just seems a very cynical way of collecting extra tax just to jealously slap extra money on bigger cars just for the sake of it. I can understand £560 is a fraction of the cost of a new car, but really, why charge the same for a 15 year old banger?

Surely the VED should taper off over time to a more reasonable figure when the car gets to an old age?

Just makes me think that the government wants to stop me driving reasonably sized cars. I mean, can't have the poor driving decent cars can we? Bastards!

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