Fangs a lot, George!

The draconian Budget announced by the Chancellor the other day, and in particular the rise in the rate of VAT on 04 Jan next year have upset my carefully laid cunning plans. I was due to purchase my new equipment for the 'shop around about April but the tax hike means that for every £1K I spend, I'll have to fork out an additional £25 (if the sums are right...not a strong point, as you may have gathered!) and being a parsimonious sort of soul, I'd rather spend it on shiny tools than give it to George.

The new kit will now have to be purchased before Christmas and then installed in the 'shop, but one slight problem stands in the way...the floor. This is a pretty light weight affair and won't take the additional load of much heavier cast-iron machinery and so will have to be upgraded, which in turn means that to finance it, my existing equipment will have to be sold earlier than anticipated, probably in August sometime.

The upside is that the Alan Peter's Media Unit is really coming along very well, so much so that apart from drawer making, the finishing line is on the horizon. Once it's been finished and installed in the lounge, I'm going to allocate three weeks in September (annual holiday, but we're not going away this year) to do the work (which will also include upgrading the 'leccy)

It looks like SWIMBO's credit card is going to take another serious pasting in October, but fortunately it'll all be paid back when I finish work in January.