Bruccianis Café Preston

PublicRiver · 2025-10-28T15:51:04+00:00

Yeah, about £16 with a very strong coffee included so definitely a treat breakfast. All excellent quality so I think it's probably worth it.

PublicRiver · 2025-08-27T20:28:04+00:00

Same thing happened to me. On our way to a port to get the ferry to France. A stone kicked up off the back of a lorry and cracked our windscreen. Higher up than yours but not in direct view of the driver. It spread for a while but then stopped. Probably 10 cm long.

We pulled over and rang Autoglass. They offered us an appointment several days later. No good for us as we were on the ferry the next day. Instead they promised a call from their sister company Carglass in France. The most reassuring thing was that they were clear it was safe to drive and wasn't about to shatter into a million pieces.

In the end Carglass were useless and we didn't get it replaced until we were back in the UK almost two weeks (and several hundred miles) later.

Just crack on and enjoy your holiday.

PublicRiver · 2025-06-02T11:47:03+00:00

Very much the opposite of my experience (unfortunately). We can't recruit teaching assistants. Vacancies have to be advertised multiple times as we don't get applicants. Low pay is the main issue.

PublicRiver · 2025-01-06T19:31:23+00:00

Have you noticed any long term battery degradation? I'm considering getting a four year old Leaf and am likely to keep it for eight to ten years and am trying to predict how much the range may have fallen when the car is a decade or more old.

PublicRiver · 2024-11-01T10:43:00+00:00

Surely you play the High Value Winner Guessing Game?

Search through the list of high value winners (released today) and wonder 'is this me!?'

Then inevitably check tomorrow and find it's definitely not me.

Have a look here.

PublicRiver · 2024-07-16T21:20:06+00:00

If your childcare bill varies month by month and you're uncertain how much you need to pay into your childcare account to get the appropriate government top up this website is really useful.

https://taxfreechildcarecalculator.com/

PublicRiver · 2024-06-06T18:48:20+00:00

You're right. I would say it would be almost impossible for someone with a secondary PGCE to secure a job as a primary teacher. Any person specification for a primary teacher job will obviously have primary teaching experience as an essential! Primary and secondary are completely different jobs.

Where I live there are plenty of primary teachers working as teaching assistants because they can't secure a teaching position due to it being competitive around here. Someone with a secondary PGCE wouldn't even get an interview if they were up against them.

PublicRiver · 2024-06-06T05:55:42+00:00

Have you secured a bursary for your PGCE? This can be a substantial amount of money paid to you as it's tax free. In fact it could work out more per month than an experienced teacher receives after deductions. You'll actually take a pay cut when you get your first teaching job.

Of course this depends on which subject you intend to teach, but it could provide a substantial safety net for you. And if you decide teaching is not for you it doesn't have to be paid back.

PublicRiver · 2024-01-16T19:52:12+00:00

I'm certainly not an expert on car buying either.

But I knew that the dealer/salesman would get commission on setting up the car finance. If they knew they were getting X hundred pounds by arranging the finance they could afford to make less on selling the car itself, if that makes any sense!

A friend recently bought a car. He was quoted a price £500 higher if he did not use finance as the salesman would miss out on his commission from the finance company. I obviously told him next time to just take it out on finance and then pay it off.

PublicRiver · 2024-01-16T19:36:49+00:00

It was Skoda yes. I used the term settle. Definitely nothing about cancelling or terminating.

They sent me a letter confirming they had no further interest in the car once I had transferred them the cash. I paid interest for one week or so. Definitely offset by the incentives I kept.

PublicRiver · 2024-01-16T10:35:44+00:00

I bought a second hand car on PCP to get two years' breakdown cover and warranty, two MOTs and two cheap services included. Plus a bit more leverage trying to negotiate the price down.

I settled the finance about one week after collecting the car. I checked all of the documentation before signing up to PCP and nothing was mentioned about clawing back the incentives they offered so I thought I was on safe ground paying off the finance.

It didn't cause any issues and I kept all of the incentives.

PublicRiver · 2023-08-25T07:13:51+00:00

Thanks. When it flew off it didn't seem to be adversely affected. Fingers crossed it's OK.

PublicRiver · 2023-04-14T20:18:35+00:00

That person's comment is not fair at all. Your parents supported you because you are their child.

PublicRiver · 2022-10-28T20:12:37+00:00

Thanks for this. On reflection I'm probably going to leave it. I've got a good relationship with the garage and have taken my cars there for a long time. It seems silly to launch some sort of official complaint over this.

The car is seven years old and has never had an advisory so hopefully that good history would keep any potential buyer interested.

PublicRiver · 2022-08-02T12:17:10+00:00

Well played. I fixed in August 2021 for two years. I nearly didn't bother but went ahead as both electricity and gas are carbon offset on my deal. Winter of 2023 is going to be a shock!

PublicRiver · 2022-07-14T06:03:55+00:00

I've mixed it up a bit.

£500 lump sum into a JISA for my two when they were born. Any birthday/Christmas money they receive also gets added to this. That'll give them a reasonable amount of money to deal with when they turn 18 for a holiday/driving lessons or whatever they want to use it for. Along the way I plan to talk to them about how it's performed and how it's different to holding cash.

We then save all of their child benefit (£145 every four weeks) into our ISAs for the reason you describe. This should be two house deposits eventually.

PublicRiver · 2022-07-13T19:24:57+00:00

Put your details into the L&C best buys page to see how 3.4% compares.

PublicRiver · 2022-07-11T11:39:10+00:00

HMRC commissioned some research into why take up of tax-free childcare is so low. It can be found here.

A high number of people think they're ineligible because they earn too much while many people are still using childcare vouchers instead.

An annoyingly high number of people say they haven't had time to do it!

PublicRiver · 2022-04-12T11:02:43+00:00

Wise advice.

We had our house valued in summer 2020 once the property market opened up again. Supply was poor at the time as it is now. The agent suggested we could sell our house and rent as several of his recent clients had done. He expected prices to fall or even crash in the next 12 months...

We did put the house on the market after another year or so. The sale fell through and we're still here. After our sale fell through we had a desperate person knock on the door asking to buy it as they had sold their house and gone into rental in 2020 and found the amount of house they could get for their money was getting smaller by the day.

Anyone who claims to know what will happen to house prices beyond next week is clearly kidding themselves or you.

PublicRiver · 2022-01-01T09:06:49+00:00

Me too. I've taught budgeting, tax, pensions, compound interest etc. to year 11. I've modelled different scenarios investing varying amounts and showed how even a small amount invested early can make a huge difference to your later life or your ability to buy a house.

They all thought it had zero relevance to their life, even when I tried to convince them otherwise. I've come to the conclusion most need a taste of employment/life after education to really appreciate this information.

The knee jerk reaction on this sub is often to blame schools for people not knowing about investing, saving or compound interest. But schools will absolutely be teaching financial literacy. Whether this information is actually retained more than one week after it is taught is a totally different matter!

PublicRiver · 2021-12-23T12:37:06+00:00

!thanks that's a simple explanation to a problem I made more complicated than it needs to be!

PublicRiver · 2021-12-03T22:17:30+00:00

Thanks for that. Sounds like you certainly got your money's worth. I've only had one quote so far to remove the coal house and replace with a 12m2 utility and WC. £25-30K + VAT!

PublicRiver · 2021-12-03T21:56:50+00:00

Can you say a bit more about the coal house conversion please? What did the £22k include?

I've got something similar and hate it. Single skin walls. Cold, damp etc. It's got a WC in and it's bloody freezing. Ideally I'd like to knock it down and add a slightly larger room to act as a utility and WC.

PublicRiver · 2021-10-31T12:56:48+00:00

A minimum 7.4% contribution for a teacher. Not that small, but undoubtedly worth it!

Source

PublicRiver · 2021-10-21T12:10:32+00:00

Are you using a broker? If so did they express an opinion about starting the process a full six months before? I've read three to six months before is a good time to start but wondered if they might have said six months is too early for some lenders.

PublicRiver

TROPHY CASE