Cashpoint - from Reporter 113, Feb/Mar 2006

Written by Reporter, Jan 2006

Cashpoint, Mobile Charges, € Transfers, Car Budget

- Let’s start with some New Year gains and losses: If you’re an oldie picking up a French social security pension (régime général) on January 1st it got updated by 1.8%.

- And less need now to hesitate before calling a mobile phone from your landline. Under government pressure, charges for such calls have been slashed. If you’re talking on a French Telecom line to an SFR or Orange mobile the rate goes down by between 15.2¢ and 10.9¢ per minute, if you’re calling Bouygues you get a reduction between 19.9¢ and 14.6¢ per minute.

- If you’re transferring money by card or virement to another country within the Eurozone – that includes Ireland but not the UK, of course – up to a new limit of €50,000 (previously €12,500) the bank can’t charge you more than for a domestic transfer (that is, within France).

- Household insurance (multi-risques) policies are set to go up by an average of 5% this year.

- Watch out for price cuts at the hypermarket. The Loi Dutreil which has been implemented since January 1st encourages the big retailers to reduce their margins and slash their prices at the check-out. What can we expect? Guy Yraeta, number two at Carrefour, says “Look first for continuing reductions on our own-brands. Where other items are concerned, cuts have to be negotiated with the manufacturers that can take time.” hmm ...

- Over winter, we noticed that another cost is rising: that of domestic heating, whether oil-fired or using gas (GDF has just hiked its home-user rate by 2.6%). Here the solution is to use energy-efficient systems – condensation heaters, thermic insulation, solar water heaters – which often attract tax breaks as well as being technically very efficient. An insulated floor, for example, can reduce heat costs in a home by 50%.

- “It’s insidious. You just don’t know where the money’s going.” So says a reader who needed to do some calculations before realising that it was the cost of running his car that was putting his budget out of shape. As I write there’s little sign that the price of petrol at the pump will genuinely vary with that of crude. At my local service station the boss – presumably mouthing company propaganda – told me “don’t go on about cost per barrel, it’s the price of the refined product that really counts, and that’s got us really under pressure”. So what’s the solution? Frankly, save by getting about in other ways: take buses and trains (much cheaper than in the UK), get on your bike, join a car-pool – or walk. If you insist on your own wheels, do what one in three of the French are doing: downsize your vehicle.

- Hoping this Sunday to buy or sell something at a local vide-grenier – what the Brits call a boot sale and the folks back in Wisconsin refer to as a garage sale? Well, you’ll soon find that possibilities are more restricted. Under the loi Dutreil non-professional participants in these events will only have the right to show up twice a year and will need to register before taking part. Guys in uniform will be making regular checks. This move is part of the government’s crack-down on “black business”. Professional second-hand dealers – brocanteurs – have been trading at vide-greniers as private individuals and so dodging social and other charges.

- A doleful Irish girl showed up at the office the other day who’d come here to look for work – “I wanted to be in the South and near the sea” – but after six weeks hadn’t found anything. Well, maybe her prospects are about to improve ... if she’s willing to follow one of the traditional paths of her male compatriots ... and go on the building. Paul di Natale, just re-elected head of the PACA construction employers’ association, says he wants to see more women brickies, carpenters, plumbers and electricians. Currently only 1.2% of building workers are women.