How are people who WFH managing their energy bills?

[confusedlots]

A few years ago most of us would be out at work all day, no heating on in our homes, no energy being used to heat up lunch etc, sitting in nice warm offices and using their electricity to make cups of tea etc. It seems like madness that in the cost of living crisis, that lots of people are expected to WFH, heating all those individual houses every day in this awfully cold weather, or else just freezing if you can't afford it.

Are people trying to get back into their offices to try to save money on heating their homes during the day? Or to stop them freezing if they can't afford to heat their homes?

I keep the heating at about 16/17
Heated throw over my legs
Mostly get cold because I can't move around, so I try and move on my lunch a bit, after 3hrs sitting it gets cold!

^ this

DH is saving around £60 a week on travel, not to mention the potential extra lunch, coffee etc (he has ADHD so even if we make packed lunches and a flask he's liable to forget it).

I'm on mat leave but would be saving the same if not - plus we can manage childcare drop offs and pick ups better when I go back, no late fees for the inevitable days that the trains are delayed.

We also save around 15 hours a week each in commuting time, which has really improved our wellbeing, & enabled DH to study for some work-related qualifications.

I bloody love WFH.

Heating not on normally from 8.30 am to 5pm
Kids all off ill so I've had to put it on, costing me a fortune even at 16/17°

Normally I just get up and do something for 15 minutes to warm myself up.. house is clean 😬

I just haven't needed to have the heating on so v little change

Exactly as others have said i spend 13 quid when i go to the office on the train. I spend much less to wfh. So whilst the price has gone up and we are trying to use less gas during the day, its still cheaper to wfh than to go to the office

Dh sits wrapped in his electric. Blanket

Don't know where you work but none of the offices I've ever worked in have been "nice and warm". 🤣 Always horribly cold and I'd be sitting there in my coat and fingerless gloves. Much prefer being at home where I can control the temperature. I take your point about costs though. I guess lots of people use hot water bottles and electric blankets and just keep the heating on in one room during the day if it's just them in the house working.

For those asking about wfh roles. I wfh and just before I started this job I was looking for wfh roles only.
The following are some of the roles I was interviewed for/offered. All wfh, completely remote, no chance of ever working in an office:
Collections Mortgage dept Computershare
Customer Service Insurance Adrian Flux
Customer Service Utility Warehouse
Customer service Tesco Mobile
Customer Service British Gas.

Salary varies from 19.5 to around 24k just to give an idea. All entry level roles, no real related experience required.

Plus saving commuting costs! A roundtrip to my office costs over £50 so heating is much cheaper!

We've worked from home intermittently through the last few winters. Previously I would always have got to the point where I put the heating on during the day. Now that doesn't happen. We fill a hobill t water bottle. We put on more layers. We wrap up in blankets.

its better for family for me to WFH for the most part, so I do, but I am bloody frozen. It’s 12c in our hall, 14c in the room I work in.

we get up at 6.45 so for the sake of the DC and getting out of showers/wet hair I have heating on 6.30-7.15, then off, then on again 4-5pm. Wood burner in front room heats the room we sit in in the eve.

during the day I wear ski socks which go up
to my knees, fleece lined leggings, a long sleeved thermal top and a jumper and something round my neck (scarf or snood thing). When working sitting still I’ll add slipper boots, an oodie and fingerless gloves. Oodie hood up.

not denying it - I look like an absolute tit.

fuel bill (octopus) 12/11 to 12/12 was £380. So I really don’t have any options to increase the usage.

Still saves me money.

I have storage heater in the room I work in so it's either on or off (i.e it went on at beginning of December and will stay on til March).

I have been through more wood for the stove but it costs less than a 60 mile round trip (and saved me being stuck in snow drifts for hours tonight as roads round here are chaos).
I boiled the kettle on the stove and even heated my soup on it. Didn't put any lights on so very little power draw

As I am on economy 10 I also stuck a chicken in the air fryer so significantly reduced cost of making tea as it would be twice price later in evening.

For me it's still a no brainer

It cost me over £50 to fill my tank and I need to refuel every 3 to 4 days. I’m saving loads now not commuting. The price of petrol is so expensive now.

Blimey that’s a high bill for having the house so cold and barely using the heating!

We don't do loads of home working anymore, I usually work one day a week from home, often that's not even a full day as I may have an event or meeting elsewhere. DH works one morning a week from home only.

As a general rule, the heating doesn't go on when we are WFH, because we can't afford it now our bills have doubled. We have a heated blanket so we sit under that to work. I work fingerless gloves, hat, big jumper, socks + fluffy bed socks + slippers and feet up on pouffe and under blanket, scarf, etc whatever is needed. And drink hot drink after hot drink. Sometimes I go and work from my DP's house instead as they're much wealthier and always have s nice warm house. We only put the heating on whilst working if it's to dry laundry. Which to be fair is probably about half of the time anyway, as we have a lot of it.

Several layers of clothing and a large dog that rather conveniently likes to lie on my feet when I'm working. It is normal now where I work for people to turn up to video conferences wearing all sorts of warm clobber - heavy outdoor jackets, woolly hats, Oodies etc - and nobody bats an eyelid.

Yep same as PP - we save massively on the cost of fuel! Previously we were using about a tank a week, whereas now a tank lasts about a month, if not longer, saving about £240 a month more or less

Yep even at current prices the commute is more than heating - even without lunches, coffees etc.

I go in one or two days a week, on days when DH works from home. On office days, I spend £16 on transport, will have at least a coffee and usually buy lunch. I'm home days, I make coffee at home and have a sandwich, usually. We have the heating off most of the time - it kicks in at 14 degrees but if it's super cold we have little oil radiators to warm the room.

When we were both in the office full time, breakfast club was £16 for both kids, parking at the station so we'd be in time to pick them up from after school club was £12, and then train on top was the same as it is now.

Even if I had the heating on constantly, I'd be financially ahead.

My friend is a PA and does this from home! She works for a smallish firm that has an office but it's more of a "base" for meetings than a regular place they work in.

My travel to the office costs £8.40 a day and the sane for DH. I don’t think we are spending an extra £80 a week in energy.

It costs me £35 a day to travel to work. I’m doing fine WFH!

DH WFH sometimes and it is much cheaper than his commute. One of my friends who has a crazy commute of 2.5 hours saved thousands over lockdown. She is livid she is being made to go in two days a week. She is still far better off WFH.

My old office was within walking distance and i used to bring my own lunch so I haven't saved anything on petrol/eating at work so every penny spent on heating the house is an additional cost compared to my overall living expenses 3 years ago.

I refuse to spend a fortune on heating so basically I've just got used to being cold!
I don't find it toooo bad, I use an electric throw, hot water bottle and layers, keeping a hat on makes a huge difference!

Only costs me £5-£10 to travel to work and I save that wfh. I don't have the heating on and use a heated blanket which costs pennies to run. Usually about 14C in the house. If I do put the heating on, it's still not outweighing the commute costs

Im half in office, half at home now. I do this. Electric blanket on bed and wooly hat. No heating on, thats just for the kids. Lots of cups of tea.