If it comes to it would you choose heating or eating?

[Tuliprain]

We were having this discussion the other night. I would choose eating and husband would choose heating - so we are already stuck. Im thinking we could warm up with blankets and hot water bottles etc but nothing you can do about hunger. He says the house will go mouldy and he’s rather be hungry than cold. Such a depressing subject to be considering.

Having lived in a properly freezing house I choose eating. Its no fun watching your breath condense and it being warmer outside than in. But anything is better than having a constantly sore rumbling tummy.

I know this thread has moved on but in answer to the OPs question. I would choose heating over eating. A hot water bottle under the duvet is all I need. Less food wouldn't be a bad thing for me. Obviously no food at all would not be great either so I wouldn't take it to that extreme.

Eating in summer, heating in winter. There are only a few weeks of the year I couldn't do without heating. But my kids need both all year round, so I guess I'll be skipping meals if it comes to that and having heating on low as needed and keeping them fed.

@UndertheCedartree I don’t have central heating and use a little electric heater, they are most certainly not cheap to run.

Due to some massive bits of luck and some paranoia about having to choose between them (childhood poverty), I think we’ll be mostly fine. We’re on a pre payment meter so I know how much it costs to get warm, and how much I can eke it out to get through to the end of the month. I’ve also been able to build up a bit of credit when we’ve had extra cash so I’ve got a starting buffer. My mum is 5 minutes away and also has a pre payment meter so if/when it gets to the stage where we can’t be warm every day, we’ll take turns and warm up/cook in the other’s house.

I’ve got an old duvet between my sheets and the mattress (makes a big difference) and loads of brushed cotton Christmas bedding which is very warm. I bought my mum thermals and throws. I was worried about power cuts a while back so I bought some extra hot water bottles, a couple of flasks, camping lamps and a camping stove while I had some spare money. I’ve got a slow cooker and I’m a bit of a food prepper so I have a stash I can fall back on to feed us all.

It’s 3miles each way to our nearest supermarket so I’ll either borrow my mum’s shopping trolley, take a rucksack and walk, or she’ll use her pensioner’s free bus pass to go to Iceland where they do free delivery for a £25 spend and we’ll split it. I’ve also got a few areas where we can cut back if we need to.

For people worried about clothes drying, if it's cold enough outside to freeze them and you have a line, letting them freeze on the line works better than you might think. They will be stiff when they come in but the moisture will sublimate away, especially if it's windy, better than it will inside.

We used to do this at my dad's place when I was a kid.

@purpleme12

After you've factored in the costs of getting a taxi to Aldi it's not really worth going there for food. As opposed to delivery from Asda

Unless your Aldi is very far or Lidl more than £10 back home. Aldi is cheaper than Asda by far everything is branded. Cereals are a lot cheaper than Tesco and so on.

We have only one radiator on as low as possible (storage heater 😢), kids wear thermals/dressing gowns/so many damn layers all the time and it’s so cold we live in just one room scuttling upstairs only for bed, and eat things like 5 bean chilli, pasta & tinned tomatoes, lentil soup, etc…we have already reduced all outgoings…the only thing I have left is eating less myself. Eating less isn’t just having a smaller portion - it’s turning the meals away so they can be put in the fridge for the others’ lunches whilst you laugh merrily and say you fancy some toast with a scraping of marmite. Cheapest bread. Evening after evening. Or laughing, again merrily, and saying you ate earlier, and having a mug of bovril. My portion will feed my children well, and that is all that matters.
OP, your DH has no idea.

I've got E7 storage heaters in my rented home & as of next month I'm turning everything off until at least October. I'll continue to pay monthly at my usual rate and hope that builds up a sufficient enough buffer for when winter arrives.

Eating has to be the priority. I'm a bit of a prepper so have enough to get by if we were really struggling. I would scale down my own portions and prioritise DD.

I've got two jobs at the moment but could stretch to a third at a pinch. Single parent so no income into the house other than what I bring in.

Echoing PPs - I was brought up in a council house in the South Wales Valleys and we were often cold, and often hungry. It's not a life I envisaged for my DD but we're certainly headed that way. There are one or two things that we could still cut back on but they're worth pence over the course of an average month.

For the majority of people this choice will thankfully be theoretical, as the average price increase will be around £13 per week. In the context of a family living an average type of lifestyle, with all the costs of that, including leisure activities, there is a fair amount of scope to cut back, without having to sit in the cold with hot water bottles and scraping ice off windows. So unless your income is so low that you can already only ever afford to buy from charity shops, never spend on personal care, make up etc, never go to the cinema, have a takeaway, never use Tesco rather than Aldi, never have a day out, or buy a book, or get your highlights done, pay for Netflix, pay for DC activities, then you're not going to starve or freeze, and putting your families through the discomfort of cold homes will not be necessary and may come across as a little dramatic.
However this is a vastly different picture from those people who already live a life where only essentials are affordable, and have literally no slack to cut. They already know all the money saving tips and use them already to get by. People in these circumstances are facing circumstances that have no place in a modern society and are rightfully concerned.

@5128gap

For the majority of people this choice will thankfully be theoretical, as the average price increase will be around £13 per week. In the context of a family living an average type of lifestyle, with all the costs of that, including leisure activities, there is a fair amount of scope to cut back, without having to sit in the cold with hot water bottles and scraping ice off windows. So unless your income is so low that you can already only ever afford to buy from charity shops, never spend on personal care, make up etc, never go to the cinema, have a takeaway, never use Tesco rather than Aldi, never have a day out, or buy a book, or get your highlights done, pay for Netflix, pay for DC activities, then you're not going to starve or freeze, and putting your families through the discomfort of cold homes will not be necessary and may come across as a little dramatic. However this is a vastly different picture from those people who already live a life where only essentials are affordable, and have literally no slack to cut. They already know all the money saving tips and use them already to get by. People in these circumstances are facing circumstances that have no place in a modern society and are rightfully concerned.

I don't care what the price index says, my gas and electric bill has already doubled. Not my direct debit, my actual bill. An extra £13 a week from April will just be the cherry on top frankly.

Haven't read the whole thread. Would cancel subscriptions and non essentials first then go by weather. Some weeks you need heating more than others, even in winter. To start with would turn it down. Cheaper food choices. Hopefully wouldn't get to the point of really needing to choose between the two as have children who need both.

It's very different today to the past as we have lost our chimneys and other ways to heat the house. If you have a wood burner you might manage more easily but it not you have no way of making use of wood or coal like households would have in the past.

@Chichimcgee

Such a first world problem.

Starving and freezing to death, such first world problems.

I was referring to the op’s original question which was either or not both. Far more die of heat and starvation in third world countries. The elderly die in both extremes of heat but there is no outcry in the summer months for air conditioning. The elderly suffer the most in the cold due. Perhaps the solution lies in “bunking up” if you have a spare room offer it out to an elderly relative who lives alone. As a nation we are pretty crap at caring for our elderly. Multi generational living has its benefits. We had an elderly aunt who used to stay with us during the winter. She used to close up her house and live with us. My parents benefitted from the childcare, she survived the cold winters.

So nice you’ve got a spare room. I’d say the people who are really worried about rising prices can’t afford a spare room. Do you remember bedroom tax?

I’ve also noticed that no one seems to mention the other necessity, the internet. I roughly added up our phone ,internet and tv costs each month and as a family of 3 we spend double on media, on average each month than fuel. Probably more if you were to include the cost of running and charging devices. Perhaps we should revert back to one phone ( landline) and one tv per household with just 4 channels.
Priorities are so different now.

There's a lot of posters telling us about how they survived as children with "no central heating only a coal fire".

A coal fire is heating. And that never used to be cheap to run either. If you have a coal fire, you're not living without heating. But lots of houses now no longer have a fire, or even a chimney. If you don't put the central heating on, you have nothing.

@Spitspotsput

So nice you’ve got a spare room. I’d say the people who are really worried about rising prices can’t afford a spare room. Do you remember bedroom tax?

There are a lot of people who live month to month, who have stretched themselves to the limit with mortgages and rental costs. Doubling of fuel bills and the increasing price of food will have a wider effect than you think. Add to that job losses as employers also feel the effect of increased running costs. Fuel poverty is universal.

@Almostwelsh

There's a lot of posters telling us about how they survived as children with "no central heating only a coal fire".

A coal fire is heating. And that never used to be cheap to run either. If you have a coal fire, you're not living without heating. But lots of houses now no longer have a fire, or even a chimney. If you don't put the central heating on, you have nothing.

It heated one room not the whole house. It was lit, if you were lucky in the morning and then again in the evening. The rest of the house was cold. We lived in a large house and as children, despite having enough bedrooms for one each we shared a bedroom because more bodies meant more warmth. In fact we often used to share a bed to keep warm. When central heating was installed it was a whole new style of living. We adapt to environment and we have become used to well heated homes so have nothing to compare it with. As a child it was the norm to get dressed in the living room in front of the fire. You had a good wash rather than showered every day. Lights were switched off. People were very careful with energy use not just because of the cost but because of the fuel crisis. I remember the power cuts during the 70s when whole sections of the domestic grid were switched off to divert to industry. Even petrol was rationed for a short while. Maybe we need to gradually reduce the temp in our houses and encourage everyone to layer up.

Just reiterating what's been said throughout the thread, about 'just cut back' .. What do you cut when there's nothing left to cut?

I don't think some posters realise that many people are already AT this point.

[quote AutomaticMoon]@UndertheCedartree I don’t have central heating and use a little electric heater, they are most certainly not cheap to run.[/quote]
Oh, that's a shame my one is. We only use it now and again, though. How about a heated throw? They are definitely cheap to run.

As someone from a medium income household this is going to be scary for us, our mortgage is a significant chink of our income (not a crazy stretch but still a lot) and increases in everything - council tax, electricity, car fuel, food, Internet, insurances etc. add up fast and will make things tight. We've already cut back where we can and hopefully it will be enough to get us through, but I feel massively for those with less than us who will really suffer. We will try to continue to give to food banks where we can, but I imagine they too will struggle if they can't get the donations they need. I'm hoping a warm spring will come early this year so that people don't have to make such awful decisions. I can't believe the position this savage government is willing to put people in.

Having experienced no heating for 6 days last winter with a broken boiler (and it was freezing out) I was quite shocked how cold the house became, down to 10'C in the downstairs rooms. We did have an oil-filled radiator we used to keep the bedroom warm, which is where I spent all my time during that period. It was miserable because I am hypothyroid and the intense cold in the other rooms was like walking into cold water. I began to feel really ill after a few days of that, even though most of the time I was not in those rooms, I just went down to make food. If we'd had no heat whatsoever then I just don't think I could cope! But without food, you have no energy going in, so I think I would have to compromise and keep one room warm and still eat, but look into economical foods that could be had without a lot of cooking.

It really is a miserable subject that no-one should have to be considering.

@Angrymum22

I’ve also noticed that no one seems to mention the other necessity, the internet. I roughly added up our phone ,internet and tv costs each month and as a family of 3 we spend double on media, on average each month than fuel. Probably more if you were to include the cost of running and charging devices. Perhaps we should revert back to one phone ( landline) and one tv per household with just 4 channels. Priorities are so different now.

Double on media than fuel! Our media costs come in at less than half what I pay for energy.

@Almostwelsh

There's a lot of posters telling us about how they survived as children with "no central heating only a coal fire".

A coal fire is heating. And that never used to be cheap to run either. If you have a coal fire, you're not living without heating. But lots of houses now no longer have a fire, or even a chimney. If you don't put the central heating on, you have nothing.

You don't necessarily have nothing if you have blankets, hot water bottles, and have/could invest in a little fan heater or heated throw.

A coal fire is heating. And that never used to be cheap to run either. If you have a coal fire, you're not living without heating.

It wasn’t cheap to run which is why often only one room was heated. The point being made is that drastic economies can be made if only one room is heated and that living in a house with heating on one room is a perfectly viable way of living. As many baby boomers will confirm through first hand experience.