how are you preparing for October?

[nickthefox]

When prices are set to rise again and temperatures are going to plummet. We are buying curtains and have got some fleece throws second hand. Got in lots of easy and quick to heat 'meals' read tinned soup and noodles but I'm afraid it won't be enough.
We have recently moved and in our old flat ot was cold but at least we had people above and below us and to the side, we were insulated by other peoples flats. Now we are in a house ans last winter was freezing and we have lots of drafts in the windows, single glazing and no carpet!

I have been stocking up on tinned food and long shelf life products over the summer where costs are lower to try to keep the shopping costs down in the winter when the electricity will be shooting up again.

I have hot water bottles and a few thermoses (is? 's?) too.
What else can we do?
We are a family of six by the way so, food is quite a big cost anyway.

This all brings back depressing memories of my slum tenement student flat in Scotland in the 1970s, during a winter when the outside air temperature was minus 20C. We literally stuffed rags into the holes in the stonework round the windows to block the wind whistling through, huddled round a paraffin stove for warmth, and thawed the frozen toilet and single tap with a hairdryer every morning to get water. Ok, we survived, but it was grim.
It is shocking that modern Britain is returning to such deprivation.

We moved into a Victorian terrace house a couple of years ago and learnt very quickly that it's extremely cold, practically no insulation, gets absolutely freezing in winter. We bought a couple of heaters and an oil radiator from Argos, costs considerably less to run than the heating, we also added an extra layer of insulation to the windows with a kit from Amazon, works great, filled in all the gaps around windows and doors with insulation foam tape from wilko, got thick thermal curtains and have a stock of supplies like blankets, hot water bottles, fluffy socks...etc to hand ready for the cold season.

The £400 will cover most of the additional cost, plus I am fortunate to be able to absorb the rest plus I will be in the office more so won’t need to heat the house on the days when I’m not in it (manual heaters). So I’m not doing anything different.

I'm looking to buy some thick interlined curtains for my living room. They are £££ though!

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/264885858720

These blankets are amazing and thick. They are from Turkey. My dh comes from sanliurfa and winters can be very cold. Minus 5 most days. And 40°c in the summer so extreme temperatures. They use these blankets. They live in the village and don't have central heating. They are amazing. I brought back a couple with me when we last visited. I'm going to buy more.

Only down side is cleaning them. They are quite big. And I had to get them dry cleaned. In hsi village they hand wash them in the summer but because it is ridiculously hot I their area they dry quick outdoors. I hand washed mine in the bath last year and it was a batch to get down the stairs as it was so heavy and took 4 days to dry in our summer weather.

Sorry long winded.

I want to enjoy living in my house, not sit around with a fleece and hot water bottle. I've made economies in other areas - reduced food shopping down to £70 from around £84 and cut out most of the top up shopping, so the savings there will go towards heating costs. I have cut down on buying new clothes. I go to exercise classes when my DH goes to the gym so we only use one car. At the moment I'm cutting down on gardening costs and collecting seeds from plants overhanging from other peoples gardens, growing all my own herbs and this years plants in pots are mainly from seed. I struggle to clean my car and have it looking presentable so i do the inside myself and just have the outside done at the carwash place. We have spent years getting our house how we want it and I just want to enjoy it to its full extent.

I wonder if this will impact the property market long term. I live in the kind of terraced new build some MNers roll their eyes at, but it's incredibly cheap to heat.

@PurpleButterflyWings

What a smug, entitled, judgy, tone deaf post. Why on earth would you put that here? Some who is struggling is asking help and support, and you feel it’s appropriate to boast about your summer plans, insult people who care (or were forced to care) about money more than you and simultaneously blame them for not putting away the savings you say they didn’t make!

I glad you are going to have a lovely summer, but it would be polite not to brag about it on a thread where people are already worried about how they will cope this winter.

If you haven’t got carpet and don’t want to fit it over laminate etc then rather than rugs that cost a fortune. Buy large ‘end of roll’ carpet which is often ridiculously cheap for the size.
most carpet shops offer a hemming / binding service which isn’t too expensive and so you can essentially cover the floor pretty cheaply

It costs he £67 a day to go I to work. I spend £75 on gas and electric, which will probably be £125 in winter. So going into the office doesn't stack up for me and I've told my boss this!

£75pm!

I invested in fleecy blankets and hot water bottles a few years ago when we were poor rather than prices were extortionate!

I might consider stocking up on tins but tbh I live literally opposite a food bank so it seems particularly obtuse to do that when others are genuinely struggling.

I’m actually dreading the summer. Our Victorian terrace always seems to be hotter than outside temperature on warm days and colder on chilly days. At least in the colder months you can use cheap methods like double socks, blankets, etc. When it’s 35+ degrees inside despite keeping curtains closed there’s no choice but to run air con.

Its enormously depressing that we seem to have about eight cheap weeks per year before it becomes unbearably hot or cold and we have to run machinery to regulate the temperature.

fleece lined track suits!

Can you get something to help - shades over the windows for example ( like a baseball cap brim ) ?

Anyone know where I can find the tariff prices for the October energy price rises. I can't seem to find any. It's hard to work out if I'm better fixing or not without the expected October rise rates

Foam weatherstripping around door frames.
Double sided draught stoppers on all doors.
Wear thermals, jumpers, slippers and fingerless gloves etc when at home.
Electric throw blanket on couch, electric blanket plus wool duvet on bed.
I just bought an Oodie rip off.

It's a reasonable temperature and I don't often turn on the heating.

No, we can't do anything to the outside of the building as the houses have protected status. We just sit in the dark all summer or in the garden, which gets no sun at all and is very cool (albeit noisy since it's next to an extremely busy railway line, otherwise we would definitely sleep there).

You can get windows serviced. It's not expensive, just a guy going round tightening everything that's not quite as it should be. My parents had it done a few years ago and the difference was amazing, there were no more drafts.

I’m having my curtains remade with interlining. I live in a listed building that costs £££ to heat normally, I’m dreading this winters fuel bills.

If you've got draughty windows, it might be worth getting some draught excluder from a diy shop. Has a sticky back and can bridge the gap. If it's a bit too expensive, tissue paper might be a good option - we used to put it in the gaps in old sash windows.

They're not set yet, it's currently speculation.

Rugs on hard floors will help with the chill, lined curtains (buy from charity shops if you can't make them and money is tight, or buy seperate curtain linings that can hook into existing curtains - Dunelm do thermal ones too), thermal blinds behind curtains, door curtains and draught excluders to stop draughts. If you are replacing the mattress on your bed, get a memory foam one. They are a bit warm in summer, but I've never needed an electric blanket in winter since I bought one, they are warm and cosy.

I’m annoyed with Martin! Because of him I didn’t fix last year!

Thank you.
I did wonder if somewhere it had been estimated. I know from a Google search the speculation is 40ish%
My current provider has offered a fix but I can't work out if its worth it. The unit price is 3-5p extra but standing charge is 20-30p more and its a 24 month fix