Is it now the norm not to.switch heatimg on / choose between heatimg amd eating?

[neesbees]

Not on any benefits .
Retitired public sector. Both work.part time to top up pension .

Food prices up., petrol.etc.
A friend came to our house unexpextedly today. ( wealthy , doesnt work) I could tell she was cold and rushed to put heating on for her.
(. I wear dressing gown all.day over clothes so keep warm)
Felt mortified that she was cold in my house.
It caused me ponder.. we just cant afford the heating on much now unless we have guests for.their comfort.
As posr grad level ex.profs in public service role for 30 years we never expected to be making such.choices and often helped people in our jobs who did..and it made me wonder if how we now live is the norm now for average in the middle folk..?
Ie we make choices between heat or eat.. only put heating on when guests arrive etc..

I agree with the person who asked where the money was going.

I find it hard to see how a two-income household with (presumably) two full public sector pensions (presumably) topping up two full state pensions should be unable to afford heating, unless there's some other factor sucking the money. I think the blame for the money shortage is being put in the wrong place, possibly because it's intuitive to blame the bill that's changing rather than the overall financial situation.

Heating should be affordable even if both worked as bin-men rather than professional jobs, and neither was working now. I know I've made a couple of presumptions, but to the extent they are wrong, that may reveal a more appropriate place to put the blame for the shortfall.

It's reasonable to assume that there are more people economising now than in previous years, but in a country where so many people usually have regular foreign holidays, it will be a minority in this situation. It may be "common" to economise, in that millions do it, but it isn't "normal", in the sense that most household do it. (Of course it depends on where you draw the line for the meaning of economise.)

If it means giving up monthly pedicures and high end skincare I would sooner not have to choose. However a jumper is much cheaper than wasting fuel. Winter is nearly over for us now which will also help.

@BigWoollyJumpers

The actual minimum recommended temp for good health is 18c, so anything under that is not good. There is also the argument that heating a house from cold all the time costs more than keeping it at a steady ambient temp.

Mine only drops by 2 or 3 degrees

Looking at my own household budget, and which bills I would prioritise, I reckon I'd need a net household income less than 10K plus accommodation costs for heating necessarily to be restricted. That's assuming 3K out of the 10K is for electricity and gas at the April prices.

No it's not the norm.

@NotEnoughCheese

I'm on oil heating. It was £230 to buy 500litres in November. I've tried to put an order in today and it's £430 for 500litres. I underestimated how much oil we had left. I can't afford £430. So we're going cold

Gosh 500l here is £315

I grew up in a very very cold house, we couldn’t afford heating or eating sometimes. It was hard.

I swore when I grew up my house would never be cold.

We now live in a tiny house that we keep warm.
We’ve chosen to stay in a tiny house and not have children because security is the MOST important thing to me.

However that is a trauma response and not having children is hardly an option available to most people.

Our gas has doubled in the past month, we can absorb the cost but I would imagine most people can’t. It’s terrible.

I agree with the posters wondering why you're struggling so much as a two income household. If you're choosing between heating and eating then what hope is there for those of us not bringing in two incomes and two pensions.

I live alone and have definitely changed how much the heating is on, and made changes to my other spending. I think for a lot of people the choice is currently cutting down on non-essential spending when the basics like heating bills are taking up more and more of our incomes. I work for a business that sells a kind of an everyday luxury product and I'm quite worried about our survival as a business and losing my job.

Heating or eating has been my way of life for 30 years since I was widowed with 6 kids to feed.
It has been the norm for many people for a long time but it is distressing to hear of so many others now having to make the same choices.
I built up a tolerance to the cold, I now only ever close my back door to keep out the wind/rain/snow or if the pig is out.

I would be happy to have the heating lower but my husband gets colder than me and is usually in 2-3 layers when I'm in t shirts, so it's usually around 20 degrees or so. I'd be happy at 18. We don't work so we're home all day.

I can't imagine having to choose between hearing or eating. I was horrified when I visited my mum one day a few years ago and her house was chilly so she could save money. We paid for her heating for a couple of years until she got a windfall so she didn't have to economise on keeping warm. It's really tough to have to choose 😢

As soon as we realised what was happening with fuel we put our DD up almost 50% more. Cant afford to get into debt with it all so hopefully we have a little buffer. We are currently looking at solar as its been on our list for a while. We are high electric users though and getting an e car soon so it makes most sense.

We also have lpg rather than gas and that is reliant on petrol prices so also horrendous. We have been turning the heating off and using log fire to bolster heating having had alot of tree cut down 2 yrs ago.

But yes the cost is v high

It always makes me laugh when people say they ‘can’t stand being cold’. Yes. Because the rest of us love it 🤦🏼‍♀️

Also when people talk about saving energy by turning radiators off in unused rooms, exactly how big are your houses? I don’t have any unused rooms in my 4 bed semi!

@Polyanthus2

I grew up in a home with one coal fire that heated the water. So as long as that was blazing we were born. Now everywhere has central heating throughout the house it's hard to just keep one room warm.

I would like to see advice on how much it costs to run one plug in electric heater in one room compared to heating the whole house. As surely that is the best move.

We have thermostats on each radiator so eg bedroom ours is set to low and it's significantly colder than other rooms (like a cold bedroom), the 2 rooms we don't use much are set to off unless we're using them, and the kitchen we took the radiator out as we didn't use it so we could pop a bigger fridge/freezer in its place.

@GrealishHairband

It always makes me laugh when people say they ‘can’t stand being cold’. Yes. Because the rest of us love it 🤦🏼‍♀️

Also when people talk about saving energy by turning radiators off in unused rooms, exactly how big are your houses? I don’t have any unused rooms in my 4 bed semi!

I think some people are more sensitive to the cold though. I can be teeth chattering with a hoodie and dressing gown, while my family are fine in a floaty dress. Once me and two others were complaining we were cold and as we had a temp probe near by, decided to test, and their fingers were 22c and 24c while mine were 6c.

Mine goes off and on as needed, I hate being cold, 19 from 21, my ex used to insist on 15 far too cold.
I can afford heating so I will , gone mad tho

@GrealishHairband

It always makes me laugh when people say they ‘can’t stand being cold’. Yes. Because the rest of us love it 🤦🏼‍♀️

Also when people talk about saving energy by turning radiators off in unused rooms, exactly how big are your houses? I don’t have any unused rooms in my 4 bed semi!

We have an unused box bedroom (two people in a 3 bed semi). My bedroom is also unused in the daytime so no need to heat that, I shut the door when the heating is on in the evening. DS sits in his bedroom but he doesn't feel the cold so the radiator is only on low. The only room we need to heat if it came to it is the living room.

@GrealishHairband

It always makes me laugh when people say they ‘can’t stand being cold’. Yes. Because the rest of us love it 🤦🏼‍♀️

Also when people talk about saving energy by turning radiators off in unused rooms, exactly how big are your houses? I don’t have any unused rooms in my 4 bed semi!

We have 4 beds (but are nearly empty nesters) so the 2 unused bedrooms one of which is basically box room, the other not much bigger, means when kids away are not heated - radiators off, no point. If it was a vast house then I guess you'd need some residual heat in big empty rooms perhaps?

@JustWonderingIfYou

I would be surprised to go to someone's house in the daytime and them have the heating on. Always been normal for us to just have an hour in the morning and maybe a couple in the evening.

Heating on in the daytime means your lazy and sat around not moving enough

I have it on in the day because I'm WFH and can't move about Usually set to about 18 though and I have a blanket over me too

Heating on in the daytime means your lazy and sat around not moving enough
I love these sweeping statements on here from people who know all about others' lives. In our case it's on during the day but my husband has heart issues and his circulation means that he gets chilly. We're both home all day but very active and hardly sit down at all!

We have our thermostat set to 18°c so the heating comes on for about half an hour in the morning & 2 hours in the afternoon, other than that it's set to 5°c so it basically doesn't come on. We only turned the heating on at the beginning of December & we're probably going to turn it back off (back to 5°c) in the next couple of weeks.

My DGF died recently & I'm spend my v small inheritance on buying thermal curtains for all rooms, & a blind for the living room which is south facing & gloriously warm in summer, but completely exposed as we're on a hillside so it's freezing in winter. DH & DD don't know yet in case it falls through or there isn't enough, I don't want to disappoint them, I was planning to make the curtains. The blind will be a bonus.

We don't use the radiator in our kitchen though - surely if you're in the kitchen you're either washing up, cleaning or cooking, so you're warm either way, or you're eating so the oven or hob has recently been on. We never turned the kitchen radiator on in our previous house either.

DD & DH are naturally warmer than me. I just wear more layers & a blanket (or 3) in winter. We do all have our own blankets on the beds though, & on our chairs downstairs too.

H moaned last night as I’m sticking to heating on specific hours (total 6 hrs so hardly nothing and thermostat at 20) rather then all day and night - his preference along with walking around in shorts and t shirt. I sent him a screen shot of the bill to date- smart meter. He went quiet.

I then pointed out it’s going up again in April. Plus I’ve reduced usage for last quarter but we still had to pay £60 more due to standing charge increase.

So not got to the point of choosing to heat or eat but at the point where it’s on less.

Could you find a small job to help fund the price increases? I don’t like you having to make the choice between food and heat.

I read some threads on MN about the temperatures people keep their homes and I'm not surprised they're shocked at the rising prices.

Of course, many people struggle to have it on at 17 degrees for two hours a day and eat, but many also are used to over-heated homes and not wearing jumpers in January.

Ah ok, we’re a family of 4 in a 4 bed semi with two home workers. Bedrooms aren’t used during the day but I don’t fancy switch radiators off and on multiple times a day. I just use an oil heater in my office and DH does the same but even that I try to use sparingly and we don’t have the heating on during the day. We replaced all of our doors and windows last year and hoped that would make a big difference but hasn’t at all really. We’re on holiday at the moment and I’ve switched the heating off and checking the thermostat now I can see the indoor temp is 11 degrees 😐