Gas and electricity bills to soar

[Cosmos123]

This is worrying as it will push many into fuel poverty.
Rising food prices and empty shelves.
Is anyone worried?

I've been looking to swap, price comparison sites where giving me an increase of 250-450 a year. Avro energy were only £100 more expensive...they weren't on a comparison site...going to get a quote off octopus too as I don't think there on comparisons either. Crazy isn't it tho! I'll have to stock up on jumpers 😐

@safariboot

Major inflation is coming. It's not just energy. Not enough everything = price rises. Well, that'll teach savers a lesson - since 2008 the British government has been desperate for everyone to borrow borrow borrow spend spend spend.

Why do savers need to be taught a lesson. Since the stupid cuts to interest rates and savings rates now often 0.01 % - savers have been suffering for a decade. All so that the feckless could spend, spend, spend on over-priced houses and useless tat.

@Peanutsandchilli

We're one of the lucky utility point customers (who have just gone bust) so now ofgem are switching us to whoever the hell they like. We've been told not to try and switch, in order to protect our credit balances. Can't say I'm not worried.

We are also with Utility Point, second provider to go bust in a year. I think you're right, we have very little credit if anything with them. Sounds like I might be a bit late to the party! 😩

@Mumtofourandnomore I'm in MSE club and Martin Lewis has been telling us to get fixed rare for a few months. My fixed rate with So has come to an end and when I did a comparison all were higher.

I've just fixed for 12 months with Ovo.

Are you saying I should have stayed on so's variable tariff? Thanks

I don't think i'm feckless frittering away money on an expensive house. I didn't have a choice that I became a young adult when it was impossible to make money on savings & house prices soared. I would love to have less money tied up in a mortgage but I'm not sure what I can do about it?

I've just managed to lock into a duel fuel tariff at £90 pcm til November 23. More than I'm paying now but I can't spend all winter worrying about being warm.

Christ, our income has already halved due to the effects of Covid, IR35 meaning companies are off shoring work and brexit.
Seriously thinking we'll have to sell up and move to a much smaller house.

Definitely look at the price of the standard variable tariff. There's a price cap and I think the variable tariff can't exceed this, so worth considering if fixed prices are above the cap.

Incidentally, I've just done a comparison for us and it looks like a minimum increase of about £300 per year, but we're on a fix until next March, so obviously staying where we are for now. Some of the new fixes were literally double what we're currently paying. Why bother offering that price, as no-one's going to take it? Or is that the point?

If you've only just fixed, I think there might be a cooling off period, so there could be a get out if you decide you've made a mistake.

At work the other day we had constant power cuts. Turns out the suppliers had decided due to the energy shortage to reduce the electricity to areas they thought wouldn't need it and decided a special school should be one of them.

Food has gone up considerably, we are now paying £168 a month for gas and electric up from just over £100, add on the public sector pay freeze and the NI increase and we will be around £4000 a year worse off

I was on a very good deal with outfoxthemarket, but it was variable rate, so they estimated an uplift of £36 per month. Dual bill DD would of then gone from £69 per month to £105 per month. We already have solar panels which knock off a lot anyway ( 3 bed, heating all day in winter) . Plus we had some credit going into autumn, although not much, so some other it was the increase in costs and some would of been them wanting more to cover winter.

So I've gone for a fixed rate as I don't want to have more rises, went with with EON, £89 per month based on my last years usage. Will try to be more careful on lights, although I try already.

I only switched Friday, so it is possible to switch over online. Interesting to read on here some people saying to ride the variation rate, which I had been doing.

Which companies are looking like they might go under? I've been with outfoxthemarket a good while, they had their moments, but prices have been good as long as I switched about on their deals. I tried to switch to Avro at one point about 6 months ago but a glitch in their system wouldn't allow it. I guess they maybe in trouble?

I can't see any companies named in this article.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58610561

But it says that there could be as few as 10 companies left by the end of the year, which would be the 'Big Six' and a handful of others, down from 70 at the start of 2021. So it could be that many many people will be caught up in this, although I don't know if 'brands' that are actually owned by the larger suppliers count as energy companies in their own right, eg Sainsbury's Energy is owned by British Gas I think.

Thankfully, no gas here but it is scary. I am sure the reality won’t be as bad as predicted and we will all manage though.

pricing is driven by supply relative to demand. The best thing we can ALL do to help everyone is use less energy.

Turn the heating down to 18 and layer up on jumpers. Have a shorter shower, use less bath water. Find as many ways as you can to reduce electricity usage.

We all need to get used to using less.

It is scary. I used to be paying £80pm a few years ago, I moved house in August and I’m now paying £150. I can’t believe how much it’s going up!

@saggymattress

Which companies are looking like they might go under? I've been with outfoxthemarket a good while, they had their moments, but prices have been good as long as I switched about on their deals. I tried to switch to Avro at one point about 6 months ago but a glitch in their system wouldn't allow it. I guess they maybe in trouble?

I was looking at switching to utility point a couple of weeks ago, a glitch meant I couldn't, luckily!

I am really worried my supplier will go (Bristol Energy which is owned by together Energy). I might see what British Gas tariffs are like right now.

I don't think there's really anything to worry about if your supplier goes bust. They just move you to one of the big suppliers, possibly on the same terms as your current deal, and any credit is protected.

I just did a comparison to see if it was best paying the exit fee and getting a new deal now. A 25% increase in monthly costs already. Thankfully come the end of contract in January I will be able to cover it but it will make things tighter.

I already do all I can to minimise use but with a disabled child who can’t get cold and who needs a pump plugged in to feed him I’m limited. For just me I would always just use layers and blankets rather than heating

@BarbaraofSeville

I don't think there's really anything to worry about if your supplier goes bust. They just move you to one of the big suppliers, possibly on the same terms as your current deal, and any credit is protected.

Oh right, thank you barbaraofseville. Best to just sit tight then as I have just renewed with them at a fairly reasonable price.

But still, blue passports right?

I was with People's Energy which went bust this week. The idea is that the big six bid for the customers - but apparantly the big six aren't really insterested in new customers at the moment because of the hike in prices and the price cap (not to mention all the credit in accounts they will automatically take over) - so I am wondering where that leaves us. I've heard anything from a few days to a few weeks before a new supplier takes over. With four more companies rumoured to go bust this week, there will be a huge surfeit of customers needing a new supply.

While Ofgem guarantees your supply won't be cut, your credit is safe and you will be appointed a new supplier... I'd also say this is a bit of a new situation unfolding, so trying to be prepared for anything!

Let's just say that I'm stocking up on alternative ways of heating, cooking and lighting - just in case!

Prices are really dynamic at the moment- they are rising quickly. The standard variable rate is protected by the government price cap - it won’t be increased until March. So moving onto an SVT in this environment does give some security of it being ‘fixed’ even though normally being on an SVT is expensive. If you can find a good fixed then great, and a month ago you might’ve been ok - but for those fixing right now, you should be careful that it’s not actually higher than the price cap.

It’s terrible that Ofgem allowed so many small suppliers to set up - this was always a risk. People think the big suppliers rip them off but they have the volumes to manage ups and downs and have sophisticated hedging strategies to protect customers. Hedging means that whilst ‘buying’ physical energy to sell to customers, the company enters into financial instruments to ‘sell’ energy too (but not physically). Hence when prices go up they lose on the ‘buy’ but gain on the sell and it matches off. The issue is is that when the big companies suddenly have to pick up customers they didn’t know they were going to get, they aren’t ‘hedged’ so they are exposed to the higher costs. And when a supplier goes bust, one of the big 6 might step in but most costs will get spread around the remaining suppliers through a levy process, which will also end up getting passed back to customers. So these little supplier failures impact on future customer prices too and are really unsatisfactory from a regulatory perspective.

The prices are worrying, but also the prospect of a real energy crunch this winter is also worrying.
Already we are seeing knock on effects with a shortage of co2.
Long term weather prospects this winter don't look especially helpful at present either. I hope that the predictions don't verify.