I reckon hang onto it. It’s done most of it’s depreciation already and it’s a brilliant car.

Say it’s worth 10kish now, probably less. In 2 years with another 60k on it, it’ll still probably be worth 4-5k.

The depreciation on a newer car for two years and 60,000 miles would be much greater, surely?

Yes, pricey, but even if you don’t go in it’s great to just have a wander around outside and over Tower Bridge. It’s an amazing spot!

Get yourself to Greenwich. Check out the maritime museum and/or the observatory. Then take a boat up the river to the Houses of Parliament with the option of jumping off at the Tower for an hour or so, then the London Eye and a wander around the Houses of Parliament, then tube or cab via Trafalgar square and up the Mall past Buck Palace and on to the Natural History museum.

The commentary on the boat can be excellent, and it’s a really great way of taking in the layout of the city. Some amazing history along those banks, too.

Get some active speakers, plug in yer phone, job’s a good’un.

Either something like the Audioengine A5 or A2, or some proper active studio monitors like these:

Studio Monitors

How tall are you? I have a 60cm 2007 Kona Jake the Snake which needs to go. I used it almost entirely as a road bike until I bought a proper one, and it seemed to do a very fine job!

Think it’s quite a bit less than 13kg!!

Pics somewhere in here if you’re interested…[/url]

Sorry for the hijack.

Google Apple Airport Express.

Job done.

Something like this:

Mercedes e320 cdi Sport

This particular one is mine, but I’ve decided I’m not going to sell it, coz it’s just too damned good to get rid of for that money.

37mpg, 7.1 sec 0-60, 7 seats, lovely.

For something a little more economical (and cheaper to buy), the 220 cdi is a good bet, or the e280 for a detuned version of the 320.

Seats in the boot are definitely for kiddies only, but they love being in them!

Okay, looks like some googling required. Hopefully it’s not serious.

Cheers all.

Now?

We did this a while back, and you have my complete sympathy.

Took me the best part of a year to recover using a large range of techniques, think they’re mostly covered here or in the old thread.

Old thread here:

EDIT: for shonky url…

old thread here…

They seem great, I bought my Mrs a Paperwhite, and now I have eReader envy.

But! They have a small downside in that they don’t work with UK libraries like some others do (including iPad/iPhone using Overdrive app), which would be 100% of awesome.

Whether this will change in time is another matter, but it’s a terrific service if you can get it.

Time Atacs replaced my eggbeaters and Candy2s and lasted for years with nothing but brilliant service.

Wish I had known about them from the start.

£6k fees on a 300k sales!

Including VAT, but yep. There seemed to be an agreement *cough – pricefix – cough* among local estate agents.

I have had experience of this from both ends. We had a place in London rented out and are renting a house in Kent while we figure out what we want to do with our lives.

Last year, our tenant in the place in London asked us if we’d sell the place to them, we agreed to get some valuations and come together to talk about it.

The tenant put an offer of about 300k on the table. Sounded pretty good. Three estate agents came through the door, two said to list for 330 and 335, with an expectation of achieving 325-330.

This was SO much more than the tenant was offering that we couldn’t accept the tenants offer. The tenant left, sadly, and we listed with the shiny-suited estate agent who, predictably, had given us the highest estimate.

Long story short. We changed agents after no nibbles in 8 weeks, listed for 315 and sold for 300. We then had to pay 6k estate agents fees on top of that, so we would have been a lot better off accepting the tenants’ offer.

This year, we asked our landlords if they would sell their place to us.

We then watched as EXACTLY the same situation played out for us.

The estate agents told the landlords that they would achieve 40-60k better than our best offer (which we felt was probably 10k over true value). The landlords saw the pound signs and turned us down.

We are now leaving, after having an offer accepted on a place up the road.

The moral of this long (sorry) post, is that estate agents are bastards. They over-inflate the listing price to get you on their books, then will wait the weeks and months it takes to slowly erode their fictional valuation. The price will drop, and somebody on the open market will get it for a bargain.

Suggest to the landlord that he puts it on the open market. Leave your offer on the table. If it sells for more, good for them. If they get bored and sell to you, good for you.

<pinkoLeftyLiberal>

Build a bike together. Find a bunch of cheapy second-hand bits – I’m sure for a good cause Singletrackers would come to the party. I will.

Teach him the feeling of putting something tangible together for himself.

EDIT: He gets to keep the bike, of course…

</pinkoLeftyLiberal>

These guys got me a painless mortgage in principle in the last month or so. No extra fees on top of the bank fees (up to 650 in some other companies, I found). They base eligibility on your contractor day-rate, so not sure what would happen in your particular circumstance. Give them a shout, they’ve been excellent to deal with.

http://www.contractorfinancials.com/

Cheers

On the A20 at the station road junction in Ditton heading towards Maidstone?

I pondered that too, for a moment. Decided they were idiots and carried on.

I bought a 56 plate e320 cdi sport estate in January this year.

The ultimate dadwagon for me (well, the E55 AMG might nudge it off that spot) – 7 seats, 7.1 sec 0-60. Lovely.

Real world mpg about 33mpg for me. On longer runs it would nudge over 40 fairly easily I’d say.

Running costs seem okay so far. Has an 80 litre tank so the first fill was a bit of a surprise, but you know you’re buying a 3 litre V6 so I’m guessing you’re okay with a three figure tank-fill.

Merc garage did a freebie first check-over, and I think I’ll probably use them for the first year or two and then my local independent.

Lovely car.

Say what you like about the exterior of that Bentley, but I think the interior is quite something…

Chromebook seems like a very good option if you’re only after a netbook.

Also comes with about 100gb of free cloud storage for a couple of years, IIRC.

I have an 07 E320 cdi.

7 seats, 40 mpg and 7.1 sec 0-60.

What’s not to love?

EDIT: The rear seats are perfect for the kids, but they are definitely kid’s seats. No need for boosters there though, as a bonus.

Only if input > output vat

Agreed, but if you have any big ticket items > 2K then you can claim those separately, and depending on the main focus of your business the actual flat rate varies to fall in your favour. I’d be massively surprised if 9/10 businesses didn’t benefit from it.

If you use the flat rate scheme, though, the admin is minimal, and the government gives you free money every quarter.

What’s not to love?

Cats And Dogs[/url]

The Sequel: The revenge of Kitty Galore

Sounds like the second one from memory.

Yup, about 5kg. Each time. Three times.

D’oh…

molgrips – Member

Elf and safety gone mad innit.

Oh, the ignominy…

I’ve been experimenting with this a little recently as I’m off to Paris in a couple of weeks and wanted to travel light, but not at the cost of stability.

The interesting thing for me so far is that, as mentioned above, the actual effect on balance once you;re moving seems to be pretty minimal – even a standing sprint from the lights the unbalanced load seems to be minimally affecting the way the bike behaves.

But – and it’s a biggy for me – there is obviously some effect because each time I have finished the ride (just under an hour normally) with a sore back on one side. I’m guessing that there is a subtle difference in the way the bike behaves and that your body naturally caters for it.

I’m going to stack two panniers on for the next week or so and see how I go.

EDIT: I am prone to a dicky back, tho, YMMV…

Contractor Financials[/url] have been pretty useful to me.

Jumping tabletops with Jedi.

Well, even though I seem to have been unceremoniously dumped from the spreadsheet, I’m still here.

110.3kg this morning, down from circa 119 at the start 3 months ago, so coming down alright, if a little slower than I had anticipated.

Cheers all.

EDIT: Good work Kristoff!

I’m in West Kent near Borough Green and I have one that you’d be welcome to come and have a look at. Fantastic bit of kit and the kids love it nearly as much as I do.

I may be looking to sell it as my kiddies are all getting to the point where they don’t need to be dragged about so much.

Give me a shout on my email and we can sort out a vist.

Cheers

Ours went from an absolutely astonishing 1600 a year to around 350 after we had one put in. Family of five with three littl’uns. Totally worth it for us.

Do we need cycle lanes at all? Would all the money that was being used to create physical cycle lanes on roads be better spent instead on driver (and cyclist) education?

Well, I’m going to throw this out there. It’s probably not very STW-Chic, but I just picked up an 07 e-class estate for under 11k.

Bigger than any of these, with 7 seats, 0-60 in 7 seconds and 40 mpg. Lovely interior, wonderful drive.

The vast majority of your depreciation is already done with, and you’ve got 14k in your pocket left over to cover your 20% greater fuel bill.

I seriously don’t understand why you’d buy a newer, worser car for much more money. If anyone wants to fill me in there, then I’m all ears.

My 2p.

Oh, and you can buy my old Beemer on the classifieds if you wanted to save yourself another 10k on top of the 14k you’ve just saved.

7:08 for me. Pretty pleased with that, but I think I could break the 7:00 with a bit of training.

Blip! Up 1kg this week to 115.5.

Still down 4ish kg overall though..

Too much booze and steak!

114.5kg. 1kg down for the week. A win’s a win…

Good start for me – 3.5kg at the first week.

EDIT: I know most of this is fluid loss, as most of you probably know too, but nice to get good numbers up first time out…

Hmm. New scales arrived over the weekend. It’s worse than I thought. 119kg. Have updated spreadsheet accordingly…

Righto. I’m in. Currently 117kg, I’m aiming for 95kg. That should be quite lean for me.

Riding to Paris in June, and a sportif or two in between, so looking to up my cycling to levels not seen since my kids arrived 7 years ago…

Wish me luck…