Cost of living - have you noticed any difference yet?

[Newhere31]

Just wondering how people have been affected so far.
Have your energy bills risen massively? Cost of food?
I have noticed a rise but it hasn't made much of a difference for us but see stories in the news of people not being able to eat ect.
Is it really that bad?
Live a fairly sheltered life in a small village, would just be interested to know what it's like for people in larger towns and cities..
For reference I live in a 2 bed terraced and my energy bill has only increased from £65 to around £80 p/m , food shop has gone up from £60 to £80 a week for 2 adults and 1 infant.

Haven’t really noticed but it also was timed with my in-laws moving out. What we have done is invest in some household changes that have needed doing - changed the thermostat on the central heating to a portable one as the only one is in the wall in the main lounge which we don’t often use. That cost us £150 and saved us more than than in oil on three weeks. And similarly we’ve changed the lights in the kitchen from 15 low voltage 50w bulbs to 12 5w led bulbs - brighter and so much cheaper. Started charging my phev car at work.

so for the last two months our electric has halfed.

Other things were doing is kicking some home renovation into the long grass but been struggling to find anyone to do it.

and we are lucky but we over pay mortgage and save quite a bit each month - but also switch everything at the end of every contract. Have made the most of bank switching. Also Making the most of cash back by using several different bank accounts so earn £20-30 a month on that. We’ve never had sky, virgin, gym memberships or any other subscriptions.

also menu planned, taken packed lunches.

all this comes from when we had kids 20 years ago and our income dropped by 2/3rds and we’ve tried to save any extra ever since. Never bought expensive cars or wasted much so we are also sat on plenty of savings.

as the kids are both home from uni now and working for the summer - both have two jobs so they can earn and save for the next year at uni. that also reduces our weekly outgoings by nearly £200 a week till they go back as the only increase in home expenses is food.

sorry about my rambling.

Gas and electric went up by £100 a month. I did manage to get it down but I've got debt that needs to be paid.

Trains - even with a railcard and booking in advance, still expensive.

Phone bill went up by 10%. Once it's finished in November, I'll be switching to a cheaper sim only.

You just said your food bill has gone up £20 per week. That’s £86 a month. Ours has also gone up by £20. Last week I didn’t buy meat to keep costs down. We are also 2 adults and an infant. Everything has gone up. Even a little all adds up.

diesel is the main one. I remember being really narked when it went to 140ish about 5 months ago!! If only!

Food I’ve noticed my weekly shop has gone up by a £5er or so.

Gas/elec up from £70 a month to £150!
Food budget is £80 a week which used to include luxuries a couple of years ago. Now it seems harder and harder to cover the basics each week
i used to spend £20 per week in petrol and now it seems to last about 3 days

Im dreading what the nursery fees will be when they go up in September!

Electricity, cat food, normal food and fuel are the big ones here.

We live on the outskirts of a large city. Everything has gone up but luckily it’s not affected us.
I find it bizarre you haven’t noticed it.

I am in a luckier situation than a lot of you in that my heating is included in my rent and I am in a housing association flat, though the rent goes up every September! Believe you me I am very grateful for this. (not the rent going up but the fact I can still afford heating, though I never have it on in my room, but appreciated the hall being heated in the colder weather).

I don't tend to do a regular weekly shop of the same stuff but of course I have noticed how stuff has gone up and was talking to a friend and we both agree that we have noticed a lot of empty shelves recently.

One for instance, since Covid actually, my local small Sainsburys never seems to have black plastic bags. I have been to a few shops and also found this to be true so now I order some from Amazon.

I had a new boiler late last year so I'm doing well comparing price increases to the old cost of running an aged machine. But petrol and food costs are just 😮. Every item in the supermarket is going up weekly by 20 and 50p, not just pennies. Some things I wouldn't have even thought about putting in the trolley before, I'm not even buying because of the cost.

I think the issue is that no one can see the end, things just keep going up.

Everything - food, petrol, energy. October is going to be very tough when the energy price cap is lifted just at the time of year when people are using more electricity and gas.

Everything is up.

I'm used to have very little spare a.month, but now I have 0 spare a month.
I'm reliant on universal credit, £343 a month, that has to pay electric, gas, food, insurance, council tax etc etc.

It doesn't go far.

The larger Lurpak tubs are £5 now 😲

Council tax increased by about £14 a month. Energy increased by £75 a month. Food gone up a lot. Other bills have gone up a little but manageable. Mortgage gone up as well.
I don’t drive. Dh has a company car so although he’s taxed on it, we don’t have to worry about that too much.

This month it is really starting to hit. Due to DS disabilities I can’t work (single mum) so the governments change on the triple lock meaning benefits didn’t go up the amount they should have isn’t going to make things tight. I am hoping tomorrow something is done to help those in similar situations.

Petrol prices have obviously increased hugely. I'm sticking to more local activities, or keeping jobs until I have a few to do in the same area to save travelling. Luckily DH is going into the office less frequently than before so that saves a bit.

Our food bill has increased by nearly 50%. Luckily we have fairly low food costs in the first place and I get a lot of stuff reduced especially meat. That saves a lot.

Our car insurance has actually decreased this year bizarrely.

Definitely. I used to be able to save a bit every month, now I'm taking money out of savings - and that's with being really careful about fuel use, shopping etc. No idea what I will do when the savings run out.

You'll notice when you go back to work and are horribly busy.
I didn't spend much on either maternity leave. It was easy to budget when I wasnt rushing around and tired.

I did my weekly food shopping yesterday and I'm SHOCKED!!!
I never paid £4 for Actimel or £2.80 for basic line gluten free bread.
It's easier if you don't have any allergies or dietary requirements. I'm coeliac, so every single item for me is almost double the price. I'm just thinking now is it worth do make some things from scratch if gas and electricity are so expensive?
Even fruits and vegetables- every single item at least £0.20 more. I'm sure my shopping bill is minimum +20-30% , which is a lot, as I didn't get and won't get 30% pay rise.

Yes and no, my DH is a bit of a geek when it comes to electric costs as he is in IT and has a lot computers, servers and IT things. So over the last few years he been future proofing towards energy rising costs. So we have solar panels fitted a few years ago. And last year he had batteries fitted to catch the excess electric from the panels. But we were on a fixed rate that finished as the prices rose and our rates went up buy 130%. But we are still what we can to reduce our electric where we can.

Yes food costs are going up week on week. So I am being more careful what we buy while trying to build up extra store of foods we eat regularly.

Petrol is probably the biggest cost to our household at the moment. Luckily for us DH is only going to the office once a week so his diesel lasts months as we use my car more as its petrol and better for shorter journeys.

My biggest worry is that with energy bills going up again in October as we are going into winter and I fear that we are going to have a long cold winter that we haven't had for years and people just won't be able to heat their houses.

Energy is up £25 per month. And we have virtually nothing on at this time of year. Nearly all standing charge, which is terrible. That’s the main thing I noticed, and food.

Elderly and vulnerable people will die this winter. Fucking Tories.

@Meklk Asda have a good range of gluten free and dairy free products at a reasonable price. We have to cater for both due to allergies.

For us, our shopping has increased from £90 a week to £140. We buy Sainsburys basic toilet paper, it was in a pack of 9 at £2 something. This weekend it was a pack of 18 at over £5. Yes it will last longer, but if you've budgeted to the penny then you will have to buy a smaller pack of the more expensive paper or do without. Another example of hitting the poorest.
Our petrol has gone up so we are using the cars less.
Our gas and electric has seemingly tripled in the last month, I gave a new reading yesterday and they said it was over £1000! I have to speak to a different team to get it sorted, that's today's job.
Our mortgage payment has increased by £35 a month.
I wouldn't be surprised if the suicide rates start to increase as people reach their end point and give up.

@Ohwowhoho You say your landlord is putting the rent up £100, you don't say if you're paying £800 or 8000 a month but the lower end it's quite a hike .

Can you negotiate you stay if he increases the level of insulation in the loft or some such spend that reduces your fuel costs? (Rather than you leave and he risks having the place empty and loosing more than the cost of the improvement)

If you are in contract for a phone with one of the big companies look if you can move to another company especially if you have paid of your handset. I have just moved to a SIM only contract with Tesco and 3 times get more data for £10 less a month than with o2 and I can pay using my club card vouchers.

Individual items on my sainsburys shop I have noticed have gone up and petrol obviously although it’s only amounting to a fiver or so hear and there so I’m not hugely noticing it at the moment. I have just fixed my energy bill at £115/month (was £77) although I only spend about £40 at the moment so I won’t spend all of that money. My mortgage is on a 5 year fix started 2021 so not massively impacted yet

Not really. We barely use our car (work close to home so walk), so whilst petrol prices have gone up and we're obviously paying more, it's not really hitting us. We fill up every 6-8 weeks and I suppose it's costing about a tenner more to fill up each time, so not really a big issue.

Not seen any gas/elec rises yet, standing order still the same and we're still in credit (we were VERY much in credit last year), so I suppose the standing order will have to increase eventually when we've used up our credit but now it's Summer, we don't have the CH on much, so probably Autumn/Winter when it'll hit.

Re food, we've been noticing food prices rise, i.e. tins of our favourite soup up from £1 to £1.50, so we just buy it less and buy cheaper ones instead. We're also using B&M and Home Bargains and Poundshop more for branded items as they're now a lot cheaper than the main supermarkets. We've always been very cost conscious and shopped around rather than being loyal to the same supermarket, so we're already in the habit of buying things when on offer, knowing which supermarket sells things usually cheaper than another etc. Again, our weekly shop has gone up but probably only around a tenner or so.

So overall, yes, things are going up, but nothing that really worries us, as we barely spent much anyway.