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.

My plan is to keep topping up as if winter in summer for gas and electric so I build some up
Just bought another clothes borsd so i need to use the dryer yes and always use the line when possible i the nicer weather as well as sometimes put airer outside
Told kids showers need to be limited and not two a day like they sometimes do
Said to ds when he goes to the gym to shower there rather than come home if he can.
We have a newish build so its well insulated so heating isn't too bad and we have a lot of radiators switched off anyway and i use the thermostat
Reminding all to not run tap when brushing teeth etc and may start filling flasks with hot water when we boil kettle in the day so that we can make teas from that
Have stopped leaving so many things on standby , i unplug microwave when not in use as has a digital clock and we don't use it for the time anyway
Can't think what else we can do
Other than that can't think what else we can do

This is an entirely foreseeable consequence of Brexit.
I actually think it is because of the billions that were spent on covid, and war in Ukraine.

@Ddot yes we used to go a lot as we go water sporting but petrol is going to be too much to go often and train is just as expensive as well as limited times
My dh does a lot of miles for work yet they won't be putting up the amount he can claim back ( goverment that is) think it last changed 10-15 years ago and when you think how much petrol has gone up

@Jhjhjh3 its too easy for some to blame it all on brexit its happening all over
Having french companies own electricity companies doesn't help
This is not all due to brexit , some is but not all
Many companies putting up prices seem to be making hefty profits

I was doing some calculations earlier and figured out we could do all our meals for a week for £48 including hob/microwave for a family of 4. That was to include at least 5/day fruit & veg, tea/water to drink and about £1 a day for the kettle/hob/oven, which would be enough to cook everything for us (may well be a bit of an over estimate). That would do us Porridge with sultans or banana for breakfast, an egg/cheese & coleslaw sandwich or beans on toast with an apple, or pear, carrot sticks & a small sultana scone for lunch then lentil based Bolognese or roast veg sauce with pasta & cheese, sweet potato daal & rice, bean burger, chips & coleslaw or jacket with tuna, sweet corn & coleslaw for tea. A couple of nights we’d get a pear/kiwi/apple/banana fruit salad. It would be a bit boring but nice enough. Price includes things like oil, spices etc so if you repeated for a few weeks it would be a bit cheaper in later weeks. I’m sure plenty of families don’t have that much to spend. It would be less than half that cost to have weetabix & Uht milk for breakfast then bread & margarine twice a day with some value crisps and lots of own brand digestive biscuits. It would also be over 2000 calories a day per person on second option vs 1800ish on the first. It’s definitely cheaper to buy processed food for the same calories

Nieces mortgage just increased by £189 rent going up.
I've been collecting wood for next winter, one good thing after the storms plenty of branches to cut up

How would it make a difference ?

Branches snapped off tree. Who ever suggested having a wash with a bucket in the bath, just tried it with a huge washing up bowl I use for dyeing clothes, bloody marvelous ta x

sobby
sorry didnt get what you meant. Wood makes a difference to my Bills not to nieces, different issue

My last fuel bill was so high that the heat has been off since. I dread the increase. I live in a two-bed house with my son. I have no idea why our bills are so huge to start with. Meanwhile every utility is increasing as is rent. Any time I start to think about it I get paralysed by fear.

@Harmonypuss I was going to say exactly the same thing to that poster. Only I don't know how to quote things! Benefits don't get 'topped up' to pay for energy bills. There's minimal available, like a cold weather payment of about £5 /per wk if the weather is below freezing the majority of the week, and even then that's only for vulnerable, elderly and those with small children and that's not going to cover the fuel rises. There's some one off payments of about £140 but it's a limited pot (not everyone will get and you have to qualify, not earn over a certain amount, even if you have a bigger family and house because of that). Benefits are already capped at 2 children, bedroom tax for spare rooms, have to pay some council tax, £20 uplift taken away. So in effect, cut, whilst food prices, petrol and rents are going up.
The 'grants' they speak of are either loans (no good if you haven't the spare cash to repay) or home grants like for boilers or insulation which you have to be the home owner to get, so in lots of people's cases, that's the landlord. None of the help offered is no where near enough for people already on the breadline to cover it when bills are going up to over double current payments. Also many poor and benefit claimants are already paying a higher rate if they're on a prepayment meter. I appreciate it'll also eat into the disposable incomes of the rich which isn't desirable for them, but the poor haven't got anything spare as it is, it will literally have to come out of their already stretched food budget.

Electricity and gas bills for a typical household will go up by £693 a year in April, a 54% increase.

The Ukraine crisis has only affected fuel costs at the moment, but are expected to affect energy bills around October.

Energy bills prices skyrocketed in Europe last year and has nothing to do with the current conflict. It's due to a year of lockdowns and cold weather in 2020 / 2021 putting pressure on supplies and reducing the the amount of gas stored.

Just to reiterate, the UK gets little of its gas from Russia directly, if Vladimir Putin were to constrict supplies to Europe, it would drive up wholesale prices worldwide, including in the UK.

I hope this helps.

Sources:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58090533

www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/energy-crunch-what-causes-rise-energy-prices

If you have a garden get some potatoes planted this year. use old ones that have sprouted or buy seed potatoes. Plant some borlotti beans too

I'm old enough to remember not having central heating and it was bloody grim. Just a coal fire in the lounge. Not particularly safe either, kids nightclotges were often catching fire as were chimneys/houses.
We have planted up some fruit and veg that are good croppers and expensive to buy in the shops.
So rhubarb, blackcurrants, runner beans, spinach, chard, raspberries. Potatoes seems a bit of a waste of space to me as they take up such a lot of ground and are relatively cheap to buy.

Potatoes may be cheap to buy at the moment, but with the way fertiliser prices are going up globally (along with the natural gas to manufacture it) they won’t be for long. Try to grow as much as you can this year, both to help your own household budget against food price inflation and to offset the large shortfall in global food production that is predicted.

In order of priority:

1. Calories. If you don’t eat enough calories, you can’t work effectively, whether that’s paid employment, gardening, house/child care etc. Potatoes, root veg, squashes, corn etc.

2. Macro- and micro- nutrients. Protein and fats, vitamins and minerals. Colourful veg, fruits, nuts, beans, eggs if you can have hens.

3. Taste and enjoyment. Herbs, spices, chilli, garlic etc.

Share gluts with your community and pickle/preserve surpluses.

Even if you can only do a few cherry tomatoes in hanging baskets and potatoes in a stack of tyres on your doorstep.

With a likely worsening of public health due to economic constraints, keep your T cells in fighting order by getting gentle and sensible (ie don’t burn!) amounts of lunchtime sun over the summer, or take a decent vit D supplement.

@GrazingSheep

This is an entirely foreseeable consequence of Brexit.

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

As if the belt tightening just started a few weeks ago! There has been an exponential increase in the use of food banks since 2010, heartily cheered on by a certain party, or is that the war also? It has been a deliberate ploy to shift the responsibility of government onto charity and the kindness of strangers, saving billions which does not get put back into society.

[quote AlphaJura]@Harmonypuss I was going to say exactly the same thing to that poster. Only I don't know how to quote things! Benefits don't get 'topped up' to pay for energy bills. There's minimal available, like a cold weather payment of about £5 /per wk if the weather is below freezing the majority of the week, and even then that's only for vulnerable, elderly and those with small children and that's not going to cover the fuel rises. There's some one off payments of about £140 but it's a limited pot (not everyone will get and you have to qualify, not earn over a certain amount, even if you have a bigger family and house because of that). Benefits are already capped at 2 children, bedroom tax for spare rooms, have to pay some council tax, £20 uplift taken away. So in effect, cut, whilst food prices, petrol and rents are going up.
The 'grants' they speak of are either loans (no good if you haven't the spare cash to repay) or home grants like for boilers or insulation which you have to be the home owner to get, so in lots of people's cases, that's the landlord. None of the help offered is no where near enough for people already on the breadline to cover it when bills are going up to over double current payments. Also many poor and benefit claimants are already paying a higher rate if they're on a prepayment meter. I appreciate it'll also eat into the disposable incomes of the rich which isn't desirable for them, but the poor haven't got anything spare as it is, it will literally have to come out of their already stretched food budget.[/quote]
Some of my wealthier friends and acquaintances might not even bother filling at least 3 of their cars! The poor things. Thinking of doing a whip round.

I have one shower every 10 days and wash over the sink daily. Washing the hair over the sink took some getting used to but works really well now (long hair). It saves a lot. DH only showers at work and DS (5 months) sits in a bucket when needed. I’m the most expensive with my showers and might need to reduce.

@N1no

I have one shower every 10 days and wash over the sink daily. Washing the hair over the sink took some getting used to but works really well now (long hair). It saves a lot. DH only showers at work and DS (5 months) sits in a bucket when needed. I’m the most expensive with my showers and might need to reduce.

Is that to save water or save heating the water?

@N1no

I have one shower every 10 days and wash over the sink daily. Washing the hair over the sink took some getting used to but works really well now (long hair). It saves a lot. DH only showers at work and DS (5 months) sits in a bucket when needed. I’m the most expensive with my showers and might need to reduce.

Need to reduce down from once every 10 days? How long do you normally spend in the shower? On ship we'd only have a very very short time allowance to shower because of hot water and also availability of water itself- it's more than possible to have a clean so you're hygienic but quickly.

@daisypond

I don’t put the heating on at all, and haven’t since January. I grew up in the north with no central heating - the only source of heat was a single gas fire in the living room. It’s normal to me for bedrooms to be very cold, for example.

I also grew up like this but it never seemed normal and made me thoroughly miserable. I could never live like that again and hope I won’t be forced to.

sadly, I'm having to live on Universal Credit, the very princely sum of £324 a month. To say that my belt is tightened is an understatement! I am 62 and trying to gain employment is rubbish. I was offered a job at B&M for 12 hours a week, so not full time equivalent. I had to drive 11 miles to get there. However, the Universal Credit people take 65p in every £1 I earn. It worked out that it would cost me £95 a month to work there. What would you do? I hesitated, so much. A toss up, between "it's a foot in the door" or, "can I afford this".
I could not sustain that loss. So, I'm still unemployed.
People talk about luxuries. I vaguely remember those. A bit like "savings"!!
I've literally just had a letter from my Landlord (Council based) and my rent has tripled! I have to pay a proportion of my rent, which I don't disagree with, and I have to pay £25.56 a month, together with £11 Council tax. My rent has increased, from April, to £102 and my Council tax is now £16 a month. Sadly, my bills are what they are, and I have reduced them by about £10 a month, but this rent increase is not manageable. Just for info, for anyone out there on Universal Credit, I have found out that BT are doing a deal for people on UC, where they only have to pay £15 a month for broadband. This is currently costing me about £40 a month. Because I live very rurally, I don't have broadband options. It's called BT Essentials.
I try to remain positive though. I apply for so many jobs, every day. I know that my age is against me. I am doing free courses, that I can add to my CV, not useless courses, but hopefully, courses that will help me to achieve. I love the interviews that ask me, "where do you see yourself in 5 years time"
At my age, hopefully still above ground! Makes me howl laughing! Not in your seat? I've had my own company, but I don't put that on the CV. in case it's seen as threatening. I do not want someone elses job. I am not here to usurp any person. Very sadly, I think, possibly, because of my age, I have more expereince than the person interviewing me. I don't know what to do about that.
In the meantime, I'm tightening my already tight belt. BTW, I can't tighten anything much more. I'm 4' 11" and 7 stone, on a good day with the wind behind me.
Please be aware, I am not looking for sympathy. I'm looking for a job! I don't feel bad about claiming UC, I paid into the system for over 40 years. My eldest son complained that the Job Centre "gave" me a laptop, but I needed it, for online courses, virtual interviews, et al. Honestly, I think I paid for it myself, during my years of working and producing 3 children who are now contributing to this country's future health and wealth. My rent increase is causing me SO much anxiety. I don't know what to do about this. The LA has suggest talking to them direct, but their website "is experiencing technical difficulties".

Sorry, that was a long rant!

I remain positive though! How can you not?

I definitely won't get that job!

yes of coarse its brexit,