To think it’s not going to be a case of heating or eating for many families

[LadyCatStark]

We can forget heating altogether! I know it’s a nice little rhyme but for many, many families it’s going to be a case of eating or putting just enough petrol in the car to get you to work to pay all these increased costs. Eating yourself, or feeding your kids (hopefully most people will choose their kids). Eating healthily or eating cheap rubbish.

I’ve just nipped to Aldi as I had a work appointment cancel in the area and spent £40 just on the few bits I needed, not even a proper shop. I could have cried that I’d driven even just the 15 minutes to my appointment and it was cancelled and every drop of fuel counts.

@Yorkshirelass04

This is an entirely foreseeable consequence of Brexit.

People got what they voted for and so have to accept what comes with that.

No it is not .

You are talking about commodities that are affected by world wide supply and demand .

Plus a war where Russian oil is being turned away . The war will also affect the price of wheat as the Ukraine are massive suppliers of wheat .

@ISAR & less immigrants to work in the NHS, Care & in agriculture & qualified people in technology science & industry. Many of those ASYLUM seekers were working for us in Afghanistan & many we have left behind at risk of their life - WE OWE THEM. If we allowed them to work & supported them into proper organised accommodation & allowed them to work they could be self supporting & valuable members of our society.

7 of us here and I've told the teens that showers are to be treated as the end of week treat. We are reverting back to our cultural way of bathing which is to sit in the tub, fill a bucket, lather scrub and wash off using a measuring jug.
Saves so much electric .
We've done it before when the shower broke one summer a couple of years ago and that years electricity bill was so much smaller. This year it's a necessity.

Yes and those in the middle will suffer again. Rich will just carry on, those on low income and benefits will get top ups and grants but those who earn say 25-30 k will foot the bill they can’t afford and be cold and/or hungry

Red diesel, as used by farmers and fishermen, is being phased out. There's a cut off date after which it can't be supplied, which is fairly soon.

What are you talking about? Fuel prices have rocketed because of the Ukraine crisis and greedy fuel suppliers.

I have been through very bad times in previous recessions and I dont particularly want to go back to them .

Buying meat at a market ( not sure how we did not get mad cow disease)
All clothes from jumble sales
Have lived in houses with no heating or double glazing . ( hated it )
We had no shower . No foreign holidays , no mobile phone or expensive telly contracts .

Interest rates on mortgages 15%

However this fast and high increase on everything is going to be very hard and I am not sure how long it will last and that is scary .

@LidlMiddleLover

Yes and those in the middle will suffer again. Rich will just carry on, those on low income and benefits will get top ups and grants but those who earn say 25-30 k will foot the bill they can’t afford and be cold and/or hungry

Unfortunately the rich will still have to pay the bills and may have to cut spending in other areas so that will still have a knock on effect .

Well I remember poverty, real poverty when I was a kid, 60 years ago. It was ####ing horrible. No hot water, no heat, damp flat. I was dirty, we all were!! We all got TB too. What's going to hit us is going to hurt very badly. People will get sick and starve. This government couldn't care less, murdering the poor would help them out. What a despicable country this truly is! Tory voters should hang their heads in shame.

@Sh05

7 of us here and I've told the teens that showers are to be treated as the end of week treat. We are reverting back to our cultural way of bathing which is to sit in the tub, fill a bucket, lather scrub and wash off using a measuring jug. Saves so much electric . We've done it before when the shower broke one summer a couple of years ago and that years electricity bill was so much smaller. This year it's a necessity.

Naive question.

Do you heat the bathroom? I'm thinking of family members with arthritis etc. for whom getting in and out of the tub is a production and they'd have to be warm while doing the washing and rinsing of themselves.

@oviraptor21

Brexit may be responsible for many things but rising fuel prices is not one of them.

I'm not sure how true that is- we've not got the leverage on anything that we had when we were part of the EU, and we can't expect to share EU storage for gas. The UK government also allowed our own major gas storage facility to close some time ago, despite being warned it would make us vulnerable to Russia and other bad actors, so it's hard for us to build up gas to tide us over difficult periods.

@Diamondsareforever123

Well I remember poverty, real poverty when I was a kid, 60 years ago. It was ####ing horrible. No hot water, no heat, damp flat. I was dirty, we all were!! We all got TB too. What's going to hit us is going to hurt very badly. People will get sick and starve. This government couldn't care less, murdering the poor would help them out. What a despicable country this truly is! Tory voters should hang their heads in shame.

I find it weird how much people's family history differs on this. All of my parents' generation and my grandparents' generation had TB and it had a substantial impact on their health.

And yet other people don't seem to have been affected by it, or only a small number of them had TB.

It's different diseases now, but there are still people who are badly affected by overcrowding, poor housing etc. I'd hoped that were were moving away from that and yet it seems we aren't.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus I feel the cold so what I have done is used a small electric heater for a brief period (about 15 minutes) before I have bath & turn it off when I go into bathroom (I plug it in from corridor so I have to turn it off) the bathroom is small so it doesn't take long to heat or a big heater (I have a tiny dimplex) this should keep the bathroom comfortable without to much expense. In the old days we either had those dreadful (useless) heater lightbulbs or a bar fire high up on the wall. or a (yuck & lets suffocate) oil heater.

@GrazingSheep

This is an entirely foreseeable consequence of Brexit.

I’m pretty sure it’s an entirely unforseeably consequence of war in Europe

Translated "I voted for Brexit"

@ThroughThickAndThin01

On the second paragraph, I wonder if people say “the” because it starts in a “U”

Rubbish sentence examples but you might say

“I’m going to the United States” vs
“I’m going to America”

Or

‘I’m going to the UK” vs
“I’m going to England (Scotland, NI, Wales)

I'd say if it was called 'Ukrainia' we'd assume it didn't have a 'the'. I think it's ending in 'ia' that makes me instinctively think it's a 'the' country. People say it's because 'the' implies a region and not a country in its own right. They need to explain that to what we call 'the' Netherlands. I've never heard of that being an issue. Maybe it is but they are too polite to tell us? I am trying to remember to drop the 'the' when mentioning Ukraine but we in the UK have called the place 'the' Ukraine for a long time, and it's difficult to remember it all the time when I, for one, only heard it was an issue about a week ago. I get more than a bit cross when someone makes an issue of it when the only reason I see people here mentioning Ukraine in the first place is because they are supporting them against Putin. When people are keen to find offence where none is intended, they'll always find it.

I'm not sure how true that is- we've not got the leverage on anything that we had when we were part of the EU, and we can't expect to share EU storage for gas. The UK government also allowed our own major gas storage facility to close some time ago, despite being warned it would make us vulnerable to Russia and other bad actors, so it's hard for us to build up gas to tide us over difficult periods.

This unfortunately is true. Gas prices may be going up around the globe. But they will go up more in the UK because of brexit.

I'm thankful that one of my AC has just secured a permanent f/t public sector job after being made redundant last month. Better pay. NHS wfh. Financial security is everything.

We were never totally reliant on Russian gas as we only imported 3%. Most of ours is from the North Sea and 50% from Norway.

@TomRaider

I don't think it is going to be eating or heating. But I think it is going to make people stop and think a bit more.

Use summer to build up the extra credit on gas and electric rather thank taking advantage of the cheaper summer bills. People are going to have to be a bit more savvy about energy use around the home.... Do you really need two showers a day? Do you really need a shower each day? Do we really need those vanity lights on around the house?

I think you're underestimating the effect an increase of £50-100+ a month extra is going to have on some people.

Our energy usage is already low for a family of 5 compared to others seemingly, but we are left with a few quid at the end of the month as it is. We are lucky enough to be able to put £50-100 a month away for emergencies currently, but when the standing price goes up our energy bills will rise regardless of usage. So when we can no longer afford to save that emergency money, we are likely to have to use credit cards and loans for emergency car or home repairs. And we're the lucky ones.

Others won't be so lucky, and will certainly be looking at choosing between heating and eating. The ones struggling are already on 1-2 showers a week and limited/no car usage. Others have no choice but to drive for work because they can't afford house prices where the jobs are.

It's not Brexit. I'm in Australia & it's the same. Luckily it's rare we need to heat/cool our house, our mortgage is small & no other debt.

Groceries & petrol are up massively & still climbing. Interest rates are about to start climbing, fast. You're looking at up to $200 month extra by the end of the year per 500k owed. I know people who owe twice that.

People are cutting luxuries, like eating out, holidays, outings & even kids' sport. That will have a huge flow on effect in the economy.

I'm looking at going back to work now, before my health allows as we're starting to feel the pinch. No idea how I'll cope or what I can do, but it's not a choice.

@LidlMiddleLover

Yes and those in the middle will suffer again. Rich will just carry on, those on low income and benefits will get top ups and grants but those who earn say 25-30 k will foot the bill they can’t afford and be cold and/or hungry

You’re not seriously suggesting those on benefits and low pay will be more well off with a top up than someone earning 20-30 k?

@daisypond

I think people expect more now - and they assume it’s normal. On the “will you host a refugee” thread, I’m surprised by people saying they “only have one bathroom”. I think having one bathroom/loo is normal. Everyone I know only has one.

Most people i know only have one too. But they probably don't want to share that one bathroom with total strangers.

@LidlMiddleLover

Yes and those in the middle will suffer again. Rich will just carry on, those on low income and benefits will get top ups and grants but those who earn say 25-30 k will foot the bill they can’t afford and be cold and/or hungry

Woeful ignorance there

You need to decrease your fuel consumption by at least half, petrol is a killer of tourism, which if us will now pop to the coast 30mile away.

@LidlMiddleLover

Rich will just carry on, those on low income and benefits will get top ups and grants but those who earn say 25-30 k will foot the bill they can’t afford and be cold and/or hungry

Do you really think those of us on benefits will get 'top-ups and grants'?. Approximately 2 million disabled people didn't get the £20/week uplift that those on Universal Credit got last year and the High Court and the DWP seem to think its acceptable to discriminate against us, so no, it's highly doubtful that we'll get anything to help us put food on our tables.