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.

We're already at that point and we've chosen eating.

I’m surprised people don’t realise some people already live like this? When I was pregnant and single in my 20s I often had to go without eating or heating and sometimes even electric! I went to bed when it started to get dark as otherwise I would be sat there in the dark. So I would go to sleep even if it was only 6pm.

Eating. We are only having the heating on an hour in the morning and an hour when kids are getting ready for bed. Sat on sofa with a blanket on this afternoon, watching TV, eating chocolate chip cookies(only 39p from tesco). Sausage, mash and veg for dinner, which is less than a fiver for 4 of us.

I was chatting with someone about this the other day. She said, well I have a baby and another one on the way, so they can't cut my electric off anyway.
I don't know if this is actually true or not? I know there's some kind of guidelines etc but I don't know what they involve.
However, for me I would rather have food. I can warm myself up with clothing, blankets and exercise etc if needs be, but I can't eat warm air, besides eating hot food naturally warms you up.

@nanbread

Mould doesn't come from not having the heating on, it's from having poor ventilation?

True but when it's freezing outside who wants to open the windows?

Ventilation and heating go hand in hand.

Do they? To heat your home the windows are closed.

Given a choice I'd choose freezing over mouldy, mould is horrid if you actually experienced it

@bitemyarsenic

No doubt will be flamed but seriously do people think that central heating has always existed? Ridiculous notion. You eat or you starve. Put a jumper and socks on, exclude drafts etc. Stop washing towels after every use.

Central heating may not have existed but there was usually some form of heat like a coal fire. My heating system broke in January 2021 and I wasn't able to get repairs done for a while. The temperature in my bedroom at night was 7 degrees celsius. I felt very cold.

Eating but not wasting money on crap food. I was in Aldi earlier and a couple had a trolley laden with crisps, sweets, cake and chocolate. The total bill was £80ish but I'd say £30 was crap. If they stopped that it's an extra £120 a month.
People have got to change their ways I guess.

Unfortunately some of us are already living like this. Not putting heating on all day until 4pm for when DC get home from school. Using blankets to wrap selves in all year round in the living room. Wearing socks, slippers, thermals, several jumpers, and sometimes a woolly hat (indoors). Going to bed early to keep warm in evening. Even rationing the hot water bottles, due to the electricity costs of boiling kettles.

So what are families like ours supposed to do? We are already doing as much as we can. At least it's normal for us, my DC are used to it.

Eating.

I can always use hot water bottles, wear layers, drink hot drinks and wrap up in blankets.

@Cyw2018

I hope Tesco repeat their offer of kids eating for free in their cafe during school holidays. As this is going to be desperately needed.

A group of churches where I live offer free food in kids holidays. So you go along, there's a few activities on offer for various ages. Then they all get fed. As a parent, I usually help dish up or clear plates, but it's not expected. There are 3 churches in the scheme so one does a Monday, one a Wednesday and one a Thursday.

I'm guessing other churches do this too.

You don't need to go to church either. It really is simply an altruistic community effort. They seem to get quite a few retired folk helping out too and it gives them a bit of purpose (they told me this)

I've had my heating on once this winter, and then only for an hour.
Eating. It's not really a choice.

@Nohypocrate

Eating but not wasting money on crap food. I was in Aldi earlier and a couple had a trolley laden with crisps, sweets, cake and chocolate. The total bill was £80ish but I'd say £30 was crap. If they stopped that it's an extra £120 a month. People have got to change their ways I guess.

Not everyone is struggling, though, and not everyone will feel the pinch with the upcoming increases.

I know it's not nice to hear, but the reality is plenty of people won't have to change their ways at all.

I'd choose eating every time. We can warm up with blankets and extra clothes, (and I remember as a kid the inside of our windows used to freeze up so I'm not averse to sticking extra layers on me and the DC) but empty bellies I'll never allow.

When I was first living alone as a single mum when my eldest DC were small, I fed them properly and I lived on toast or cereal. I can do it again.

When we moved in here I realised it was a pre-payment meter but it didn't really bother me. But the top up that used to keep us in gas and electric for a week barely lasts 4 days now. At the moment I can add a bit extra, but I'm self employed and still rebuilding my business after covid, so how long I'll be able to do that I don't know.

Heating plus moderate eating. A tin of soup, a bit of bread and some cheese, maybe the odd tomato, would do me but I could not bear being cold. Putting on extra layers of clothes (which everyone did when I was a child), wouldn't hack it for me, it never did. I always felt the cold and hate it.

I would eat cheaper food. Shop around for bargains. But I wouldn't want to be cold.

I also remember life before central heating. Only the main room heated by a coal-fire. Bedrooms literally freezing in winter with just the joy of a hot water bottle and loads of blankets and an eiderdown. Getting dressed in the morning under your blankets. Not much fun really but doable and I need food to live so I'll choose food!

@Nohypocrate

Eating but not wasting money on crap food. I was in Aldi earlier and a couple had a trolley laden with crisps, sweets, cake and chocolate. The total bill was £80ish but I'd say £30 was crap. If they stopped that it's an extra £120 a month. People have got to change their ways I guess.

Yes but the good thing about crisps, sweets, cakes and chocolate - and biscuits, bread, is you don't have to use electricity or gas to cook anything.

Eating if you are mobile.

Eat.

Already turned out gas central heating down a good few degrees lower the last two weeks as we are burning g through the monthly budget already

We all have oodies and thick bed socks and joggers etc so wrapping up warm is fine here.

We already meal plan as much as we can with four different palettes.

We probably eat slow cooker meals three to four times a week and then we can choose what we want other than that to a degree.

We've had a conversation this weekend about how much more over budget we've gone for food shopping since January but I absolutely refuse to tighten it anymore.

We shop in Aldi Lidl and Tesco for what we can't get in the others.

We buy fruit and veg when it's on the Aldi super 6 and decent meat for the meals we prepare.

We go meat free two or three times a week as it is. I buy own brand washing powder and comfort as well as own brand cleaning stuff lol rolls etc etc.

No more can I reduce the spend so we are having to up the budget by around £150 a month and even then that's tight. It's shocking.

We've cancelled as many unnecessary things that we can and have taken on an extra job as well as our both full time jobs so it's really tight and set to get harder but that's the only way to up the budget.

I really feel for people who can't take on extra work or tighten their belts anymore

It's a very depressing state for many of us and will continue for some time

You need to eat, obviously. But I would cut down on my food spend by forgoing treats and more expensive items and cooking a lot of pulse-based curries and stews so I could keep the house at a comfortable temperature.
I do appreciate that I'm lucky to have the scope to do that and some give in my current food spending.

I haven't switched the heating on for the past three years--and I found out that I earn well above average. It is just unbelievably expensive.

I worked on the continent for a few years and paid no more than £20 pounds every three months in one country. In another it was about £80 every three or four months.

It's miserable. I can't work when it's so cold and my last energy bill was nearly two times what it was this time last year. I dread the next one.

People voted for this though. I'm a scientist and do a lot of energy-related work. Even before the pandemic, energy was incredibly expensive. No one seemed aware of how much more expensive it was than in most other countries. People voted for austerity, which shut down research and infrastructure development. Then we got Brexit. I'm one of the few people left in a building that takes up an entire city block. Everyone got let go. And we no longer have the Germans, French, Dutch, etc, paying to develop new energy resources and do the various studies we need, then giving us the results for free.

I am seriously thinking of moving back overseas because I can't deal with being this cold every year and have no one to hang out with because everyone is so poor. It's awful.

Eating.

Easier to layer up the clothes and sit on the sofa with a duvet over you than to ignore a growling belly.

Rage-making that this is a choice so many people are going to have to make.

I think legwarmers will be back in fashion

There are better ways to manage some heating systems. So they can be on but the hot water in the system needs to run at lower temperatures and thereby maximize efficiency. (The boiler does not constantly power up at full throttle).

So it may not always be a case of either /or.