How the f*** are you all managing your electric bills?

[cofingalthetime]

I don't have gas...
Electric has gone up from 139 per month, to 225, and now the latest is 450...

I don't know how I'm supposed to manage.

Do you all pay by DD. I don't want a meter, I had one before, and it was a nightmare, so expensive.

If 450 goes out of my account next month I won't be able to buy food or petrol or clothes

I got the 150 from the council, and paid it immediately into my electric ,b ut that's a drop in the ocean. How are you all managing.

I'm really really scared.

He was having issues with his old supplier, who said he had to have a new meter. When they sent someone round to do it, he was told that because the area is served by overhead power lines, the whole area would have to be isolated and it would cost £1,500 or something ridiculous. He's on benefits because of MH problems, and there's no way he could afford it.

He asked me who I was with, rang Octopus, who were happy to take him on, and they told him changing the meter wouldn't be a problem or cost him anything.

He sounds pretty well at the moment, so I don't think he's imagining it all.

I've found my clothes are no less clean if I do them on a cold wash, @skybluee. It makes the wash cycle quicker, too.

Admittedly, I'm not a builder or a mechanic, so they don't get that filthy, but they come out fine. I use Tesco own brand liquid laundry detergent.

Turned my heating off and still getting into debt 😄😁😁😁 looking foward to prices increasing further this autumn. The one thing that helps me cope is knowing that I'm not alone and every time I feel like throwing my life in the bin I remind myself the arseholes who have created this situation are not worth it.

*turned my heating off but using my fan heater and hot water bottles so going to try and use threm both less/ don't need to as much as its getting warmer.

My electric blanket is less rhan 2p an hour. We got a gismo to plug into each appliance. The fan heaters was 40p a minute. Not joking. Kettle was about 3p a boil. Can’t remember what the appliance was called but we got rid of an old freezer that was costing us 24p a day

I'd get an electric blanket and not use the fan heater, they cost a fortune to run.

I can assure you that claiming for being a full time carer is NOT giving up work! Don't be so snide until you have to do it and know the reality of it

The energy prices are a nightmare and I worry for poorer families struggling to keep their children fed & warm. This past winter I was stingy with my central heating, putting it on maybe once a week. I'm lucky in that I'm in a new well-insulated house, so with extra layers & throws I was fine. My monthly bill has gone up from £40 pm to £120 pm (4 bed detached), but I'm frugal, 2 loads of washing, no tumbler etc. If I still had my 4 children at home I couldn't expect them to do homework in cold bedrooms. We have a Govt who cares nothing for normal working families, a Chancellor who gets a £10,000 helicopter ride to save him time. The elderly will die next winter, children will become malnourished & unwell. Meanwhile the Tories cling to their lying leader simply to.keep their jobs. We are doomed.

In case it's any help to anyone:

Martin Lewis (MSE) has issued advice to EXISTING customers of British Gas and/or E.On about switching, from standard variable, to the fixed term tariffs they are now offering.

Obviously, "price caps" are predicted to rocket again in October and then in January 2023, so this may peg the energy bills back a bit.

www.mirror.co.uk/money/martin-lewis-issues-urgent-advice-27056182

Our bills were always large before, so we were worried. Luckily, we have been able to have solar fitted recently and calculated that for us, even with the finance option, it would still work out cheaper. We figured holidays are not something that's likely for us for some time, so we invested in this. Also, we have switched to cold-water rinsing of things and basically using cold water instead of hot, as much as possible, has made a noticeable difference. We have suddenly been using our smart meter to help us make savings.

@Garliccoriander I'd take 12 hour shifts over having a child so poorly I can't work and then with such complicated ongoing medical issues that childcare that isn't a medically trained Nanny (and thus other unaffordable) isn't an option. So yeah, thanks for my £67 a week, it makes signing all those operation consent letters when I didn't know if he'd come back alive SO worth it.

I have told my adult son he can't use his air conditioning in the summer, no matter how hot it gets. When I cook a chicken I am trying to put sausage rolls in for lunch boxes and jacket potatoes in too. So use all oven space. Tonight I am making a toad in the hole so I will be putting a cheesy pasta bake in oven at the same time for tomorrow. Then tomorrow I will dish up cheesy pasta bake and microwave for a few minutes and serve with peas so not having to use oven again. I read somewhere, ovens use a lot of electricity. Drying on line instead of tumble dryer. No heating on ATM and water on timer 1 hour morning and 1 hour evening. Boiling less water in kettle. I don't know how to save any more. It is worrying.

These are all good measures to not only reduce your costs, but one which we've all been advised to do to help the environment.
They will have minimal impact on the quality of your life i.e. you're not going without.

It's rarely hot enough in the UK to need household aircon.
Using the oven more efficiently makes sense, you just need to be a bit more organised.
The other things (line drying, less water in the kettle, being more aware of how much heating and hot water you're using) have long been steps we should all be taking. I think once you've done these things for a while, they'll become normal.

What do you mean?

They mean there are no energy savings to be made but if you sign up for something else there may be a saving on that.

Sounds like a lot of effort for not much gain tbh

Well we are all going to get £400 squids towards our energy bills & some people on benefits and pensioners will get more. Not sure if the controversial £200 loan towards energy is scrapped or upped? I'm still waiting for my £150 one off payment from the council towards cost of living crisis. Tightwads. At least it's a big help towards the spiraling costs. The government know things are going to get pretty bad for a large proportion of people & how unpopular they are so had to do something.

@CherryRipe1 the £200 loan has been converted into the £400 grant, and as far as I can tell if you pay by direct debit it goes as a credit on your account. That should put my account about £600 in credit for the winter, which will help quite a bit. Not eligible for any of the other stuff but that is fair enough.

It doesn't change my mind about the government one bit, though. Because Labour has been calling for a windfall tax for a very long time now and it was always no, no, no until now when it's electorally disastrous not to. This is just another good idea the Tories have lifted from the opposition and will no doubt take credit for. And the mugs who vote for them will swallow it whole.

Not sure there is any gain. Energy is at the price cap, broadband is the same price as what we've just signed up for with BT, except they don't seem to offer a landline, which we need due to poor mobile signal and the mobile SIMs are twice the price of all the other SIM only deals.

Plus researching it on MSE and Which makes it look very much like a MLM, with 45000 'partners' in the business of earning commission for signing people up.

Don’t cancel your DD. Paying monthly is the most expensive.

I daren't go back to direct debit. They wanted nearly 500 a month off me! My monthly reading generates a bill of under 300.

How kind of you. I do hope that youre one step closer to your branded mini as a result of this little advertisement that you’re meant to pay for on Mumsnet 😜

During the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, I have never felt more proud than I do of the altruistic work of you and your pyramid schemes. Truly, doing great work.

Bravo

But are they amazing?