Surely they can’t expect us to pay 240 per month for power!

[Ellie198712]

Just read Martin Lewis’s latest email and it’s predicting average bills of £2900 per year!! Surely the government will need to step in and subsidise this cost. Our current bill is about 100 per month, and this just seems untenable for the vast majority

@ThistlesAndUnicorns

Call me naive, but surely if many people have to cut right back they aren't making any more money?

I already know I can;t afford the increase. Fortunately (which is ironic!) my house is awful for heat retention, boiler hasn't worked properly for years (awful, awful landlord!) so we would be ok without heating for half the year.

I really don't see who is benefiting from this if most people will have to cut back. I am terrified (despite being not too stressed on the heating part during the summer) I will not afford our electricity bills, food increases etc plus my rent.

Ironically,

The best thing we could do to stop (or maybe just reduce the severity) this recession is spend (public investment) into home insulation and heat pumps over the summer.

This way we improve the housing stock/insulation, and reduce energy usage and expenditure while creating jobs.

Clareabee1: well said. BambinaJAS One day you will be 55

We are in the income bracket that gets no help at all but our wages are not high enough to cover all (if any) of the major increases we are facing from every direction.....my dh was saying hes going tell them to switch us off gas and do to wood burning to heat the house and cook with (going in the middle of the night to get free wood). I hope hes not been serious but if we needed too......

When I did a quick search the other day ours said that we are going to jump from 100pm to 400pm. I honestly don't know what we are going to do. I feel sick to my stomach. We're already frugal with heating.

@hoopmatrix

It’s absolute madness!!!! British Gas profits are up 44%. They are taking the piss!!!!

FFS they made £118 MILLION profit.

British gas said my bills will increase by at least 54%, its diabolical!

That's a huge amount for those bills! Have you tried getting them down? I've just joined Giff Gaff mobile which has a great SIM only deal for just £10 a month. I just slashed Broadband costs in half by changing supplier, and if you threaten to leave Sky they will cut their prices too!

I was brought up in an era when the average home did not have central heating. We had a coal fire in the kitchen, a paraffin heater in the living room and a gas heater for hot water in the kitchen. There was no heating upstairs and in the winter it was common for there to be ice on the inside of the bedroom windows. We did not die of hyperthermia, we wore warm clothes indoors and had hot water bottles in our beds. I’m not suggesting that we go back to such conditions but we might have to get used to lower temperatures in our homes.

I worked out today that my bill will be 20% of my income. You are considered to be in fuel poverty if your fuel bill equals 10% of your income.
Despite being in hospital, in an odd way I’m grateful, that’s two weeks of fuel saved. How sad is that!

Everything is going to shoot up and going to result in some difficult choices for people. I've seen people reporting DDs going up to 300/400 per month! Not to mention the cost of petrol. Of course all these increases will push up food prices too. It feels like we are going back to the 70s

@bossyrossy

I was brought up in an era when the average home did not have central heating. We had a coal fire in the kitchen, a paraffin heater in the living room and a gas heater for hot water in the kitchen. There was no heating upstairs and in the winter it was common for there to be ice on the inside of the bedroom windows. We did not die of hyperthermia, we wore warm clothes indoors and had hot water bottles in our beds. I’m not suggesting that we go back to such conditions but we might have to get used to lower temperatures in our homes.

I grew up living in a 4 bed council house with 1 gas fire in the living room, no fitted carpets and like you said ice on the inside of the windows. Usually we got dressed under the covers or ran down and did it in front of the gas fire.

It's the 21st century ffs!

I don't want my kids to grow up as I did in the 70s. Though that does seem to be what those who voted leave and tory wanted....

It is not unreasonable for people who work ft to expect to be able to keep their kids fed and warm.

@ThistlesAndUnicorns

Call me naive, but surely if many people have to cut right back they aren't making any more money?

I already know I can;t afford the increase. Fortunately (which is ironic!) my house is awful for heat retention, boiler hasn't worked properly for years (awful, awful landlord!) so we would be ok without heating for half the year.

I really don't see who is benefiting from this if most people will have to cut back. I am terrified (despite being not too stressed on the heating part during the summer) I will not afford our electricity bills, food increases etc plus my rent.

They know that we are going to hence the standing charge practically doubling on electric. This means even if you don't use your heating you'll still pay more than you did before.

Sadly, as anyone of the 3 million of us who got left out of any government support at all during lockdowns, they do not care if you can't manage.
Same with those on disability benefits who had them cut, or who were sanctioned because they weren't deemed to be ill/disabled enough.

It's only that this time it's affecting more people. The only people who can do something are those that don't vote: do it next time and vote tactically to get this government out. And those who did vote for them last time: please remember this and vote them out.

It is really frightening, but they have been like this for years now. It's just they've only allowed minority groups to suffer before, so it was underreported.

Someone blamed Putin,nothing to do with him, people in the UK asked for sanctions and that's what you get, if energy prices were increasing before by turning away Russian oil ships, cancelling their trade, what do you expect? it's the same people who clapped like well trained seals for the NHS, used "free",masks,did pointless tests and downloaded 40 BILLION pound "NHS" app. UK can't afford to be involved in Ukraine war,not financially,London needs their Money and not morally (the country who's responsible for the biggest genocide in the world or to recent times, wars in Syria,afganistan etc)

@LowlandLucky

Clareabee1: well said. BambinaJAS One day you will be 55

I am 43 and not concerned.

I make a high income, have multiple passports, and am multi-lingual. Same with SO.

If you want the UK to go flounder based on blind ideology, I will not be going down with the ship for your benefit. Thats for sure.

Everything will be much more expensive. Because the cost of materials and manufacturing costs are going up too.

Just saying what goes on is all planned, check out Klaus scwab and wef, by 2030 the plan is no one owns a house,goes on holiday,don't own or can't afford to drive a car, smart meters are used to cap energy use etc.makes an interesting read, it's all going as planned.

ChiswickFlo What do you honestly expect the government to do ?
We should start up the coal fired power stations, decades of coal left underground

Can’t pay well take it away

I had an email today from Eon saying the increase I must pay will change my bill from £500 to £750. That's 50% more. I'm a widow working to keep my family, nothing but that coming in. MPs have just given themselves a raise to £85,000 pa plus expenses. I don't have a quarter of that. How can we manage?

I’m currently paying £115 a month, according to the Martin Lewis calculator that’s going up to £470?! Surely that can’t be right. I thought it was 50%. I really don’t understand :(

@HereComesSpringAgain

all our contracts will drop off throughout spring/summer

i'm a 70's child

i remember the constant power cuts
i remember the drought with no water in the taps
i remember food being a lot scarcer than it is now
i remember having just one coal fire as home heating

we need to adjust our mindsets now....as harsh as it sounds, its how many other countries manage. it can be done and we all might be a bit better off in other ways. it doesn't have to be as miserable as we think

This. There will be significant lifestyle changes, tumble dryers will be a luxury, as will eating out/takeaway, frugal living will return, extra layers of blankets/clothes instead of 20° thermostat settings, showering every 2-3 days, tying your hair up instead of straightening it, boiling minimal water in the kettle, not using the microwave for everything, slow cookers instead of the oven.

And so on.

It'll be shit.

Well, if they are 'allowed' to absorb the price rise, it will reduce their profits.

Their profit is large, because they are an extremely large internatonal company.

A large part of that profit is reinvested in the company, partly to realign itself fm being purely an oil and gas producer.
If their profits are cut, then this will also lead to lower dividends, which have been reduced the last couple of years anyway.

Lower dividends mean, I, and many others will have lower income to pay the substantially increased energy bills we all face. In case you think this only applies to 'rich' people, anyone who has a pension will find their provider has invested in Shell and other energy companies. So that pension security depends on reliable income.

Yes ours is going to 273 for my 2 yr old, partner and me. My mils is going up to 600+. My nans is going to 240 and she lives alone and barley uses anything.. its ridiculous :/

An additional change would be:

White goods will be developed that use less energy (thus more energy efficient).

Necessity is the mother of invention after all.