Happy New Year! Here’s the invoice... Yes, it was cheaper last year. No, I don’t know how they have the ruddy cheek to be charging so much, I really don’t. I was telling Maureen at number 22, it’s outright scandalous it is. The very nerve!


Remember how that rotund buffoon Boris Johnson made promises of a better Britain if we all voted for Brexit? Headlines such as “we’ll remove VAT from energy” and the outright ridiculuum of spunking £350 million a week on the NHS?


Yeah, well neither of those happened, not that it’s any surprise which is why I voted Remain. Mind you, having worked in the NHS for seven years in a previous life, I can say they need better management over more money. The waste I witnessed to justify budgets is enough to boil the treacle off the piss of any patriotic taxpayer. £350 million? Yeah, sure, but blow it on the front line, not on back-end consultants, I.T. failures and vanity projects.


Anyway, you don’t want to hear about the £70M/year quango I worked for, the £30k I.T. project that not. one. single. person. ever logged into, the *four* (count ‘em) multi thousand-pound internal telephone systems installed into a single office environment over just seven years or even that I tried to save perfectly sound I.T. equipment for the charity my wife worked for only to be told we had to pay to have it all scrapped as it may otherwise look suspicious if we gave valuable and useful, albeit redundant (to us), equipment away.


Nooo, that’s not the cut and thrust of this article.


However, one thing we did get with Brexit was an excuse for any and every commercial entity to hike up their prices citing the difficulties and uncertainties of leaving the EU as an reason, whether such really were present or not. Then the bloody pandemic hit, and it gave ‘em all a chance to double-whammy us Brits under yet another handy justification for charging more!


Well, I largely kept my headline pricing the same until August 2020, only altering my own charges for certain work such as emergency call outs (which I don’t tend to undertake as this isn’t a 24/7 business and we’re generally booked up in office hours), and some changes to the pricing structure for EICR and PAT inspections. Standard hourly rates remained as they were.


I was in the minority however, and I know from my own accounts that world + dog… or at least, Britain + lipsticked hound, slammed up prices for pretty much everything else. I’ve never paid eye-wateringly more for fuel or energy, and I’m constantly having to amend my materials database as the nuts and bolts I buy in from the wholesalers lurch up month on month.


Cheers Boris, you massive wanker.

 

BorisTwatTWAT


I strive to keep pricing affordable; I don’t want to run a business catered only to the well-off. Those on a budget deserve to be able to afford a reliable sparky without it breaking the bank. For me, another reason for keeping things on the down-low was avoiding the dreaded VAT cliff-edge which would ruin my domestic business. I don’t want to charge more because I don’t want to hit a wall where I’m required to slap a ruinous 20% tax onto all my invoices. That risks putting my services outside of what many working families can afford and drives them into the arms of my less scrupulous competitors while simultaneously seeing my customer base plummet overnight.


But here we all are in 2022 with higher overheads and my business treading water as a result. So, up prices go, but I guess what happens going forward is future David’s problem... and I hate that guy because he’s fatter, lazier, his liver’s fucked and he’s dreadfully more dissatisfied with running a business in what is increasingly the banana republic that is modern Britain than even 2022 David is... even if he does seem to get more devistatingly handsome to the cougars out there as he gets older, that devilishly (and increasingly) silver-foxed BASTARD!

Gah!


As of 9th January, my prices have been bumped up a bit depending on the rate applied. It’s not much, although I appreciate it does add up on bigger jobs, but it has to rise, and this is the minimum I can get away with. I always encourage people to shop around; we’re not the only players in town, but we’re not the cheapest or most expensive either and you could do a lot worse.


If this website and our vlogs indicate anything, it’s that we’re open, honest, know what we’re doing and aren’t out to rip you off. If you’re still not convinced, read the reviews on Which? – a moderated review site, meaning I can’t just create a load of fake Gmail accounts and knock out false positives unlike on Google, Trustpilot or those shitty “trusted trader” directory drones.


Yeah, we use bad language, but we’re a down-to-earth operation. We are as you see us and we literally have a customer base in the thousands built up over ten years who can attest to that even if 99% of them don’t leave reviews (it’s harder to garner positive reviews than negative ones where people want to get their frustrations off their chest and I don't nag people to pen praise.)


There’s an excellent chance prices will rise again in 2022. Hell, there’s an excellent chance we’ll end up back on VAT from 2023, inadvertently allowing Boris to butt-fuck your piggybank even further to fund his garden parties and Christmas bashes while the rest of us proles are told to stay away from their loved ones even while they give birth or rot in isolation in a care home…


…or lie on their deathbed without their family by their side.


Cheers to a prosperous and happy 2022. And don't waste my time if you don't like my pricing.


BMAC
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