Cost of living crisis: are you feeling it yet?

[whatthejuice]

Posting here for traffic...
Have you felt the cost of living crisis yet? Has your disposable income taken a nose dive?
I've noticed a massive increase in our food bills so that's the main difference at the moment and we probably have £150-£200 less disposable income per month as a result. I'm trying to save a separate money pot for help towards the heating bills this winter - but worried it won't be anywhere near enough to eat up the increase.
It all feels a bit terrifying at the moment, especially after I read the German government in local towns are bringing in energy saving measures already like switching lights off etc....

This is a thread of how the other half live.

In some ways this crisis would be a good chance for some of the people who are comfortable to know what it is like to not have lots of money but unfortunately it will be just the poor who feel the brunt of it instead.

We are on a really high fixed gas and electric tariff but have cut back usage massively (no tumble dryer use, hardly any oven use) so haven't seen the actual spend increase. That will change in winter when we will turn the heating on.

Food shop leaves me WTF at the prices and needs much more headspace in store to stick to budget.

Mortgage fixed until March so head in the sand about that one.

Lucky to be able to jiggle things around in the budget but furious at tory Britain 2022.

For me this thread shows the disparity (once again!) in this country. We're the fifth richest nation and some people will have to keep the lights and heating off this winter. It's not right.

@SheeplessAndCounting We use about £2 electricity a day. So yeah the 54p standing charge is actually quite a large chunk of our daily payment.

we use a smart meter and a variable prepayment meter (thanks to the previous owner!!) but actually I like seeing how much I use daily and knowing I won’t have randomly hiked direct debits. I just stick £55 a month on the electric meter app on payday and it’s sorted.

2 bed bungalow with 2 adults and 1 child.

anyway my point is, yes a 54p standing charge is quite a lot for us

@SheeplessAndCounting yesterday we used £1.37 of electricity even with cooking dinner. So that’s why I only put £55 a month on the meter (didn’t want anyone thinking I can’t do maths 🤣).

I was made redundant so it worries me. but our electricity usage includes tv, Xbox, wfh and cooking. On days we do washing it goes up to £2.

I have done an October budget and increased the electricity amount to £65 a month and we’ll just have to see how it goes.

Another thing that really winds me up about supermarkets - their pledge to "Price Lock" - well given that even special offers are more expensive than the normal prices the goods used to be, that means they're going to lock that profit in for however long. Bastards!

Where do you think is the cheapest supermarket now? I always thought it was Aldi but did an Asda shop last week and it seemed a bit less expensive?

We're ok for now.

What's just hit me, is that DD has funded herself for uni this year (grant, lockdown earnings), but as it's her final year she'll get a lower grant as they don't pay for the full year. She's in a very expensive area for student rentals and is looking at £700pm. Typical student lets are old buildings with sash windows and it's a cold windy city. We've previously agreed to give her a higher amount this year, but I'm starting to wonder if our contribution and grant is going to cover her rent, utility bills and food, let alone the £200+ journey to come home at xmas. Very hard to get a job is in the city as students from three major unis chasing.

One positive is that our energy usage is low and I'm good at keeping to a low food budget (haven't had to increase it yet and still room for tweaks). We're only using the car for work, to check on my elderly Mum, and we've cut back on our usage massively so petrol is working out less.

I’ve doubled the size of our log store and have twice as much wood seasoning for this winter to cut down on on gas and electricity bills. I’m considering taking down a few more trees and opening up another fireplace if bills continue to increase at the current speed.

@SheeplessAndCounting We use about £2 electricity a day. So yeah the 54p standing charge is actually quite a large chunk of our daily payment.

we use a smart meter and a variable prepayment meter (thanks to the previous owner!!) but actually I like seeing how much I use daily and knowing I won’t have randomly hiked direct debits. I just stick £55 a month on the electric meter app on payday and it’s sorted.

2 bed bungalow with 2 adults and 1 child.

anyway my point is, yes a 54p standing charge is quite a lot for us

Wow that is incredibly low usage. I can see that for people using such small amounts the standing charge would make up a higher proportion of the bill. But still only 20% ish of the total from what you've said? But really this is not typical at all, for most people the standing charge is fairly irrelevant (the price cap is based on average usage and generally standing charges are a tiny, tiny proportion of that figure).

Yes. it is terrifying.

More worried about the world really. Food. gas and grain shortages...

fuck Putin

Ours is similar, summer bills are about £55 a month, so less than £2 a day. Two people in a three bed. We fixed in March and while the unit rates are higher than the SVR, the standing charges are lower at 51p combined.

The average usage may be much higher than ours, but I think there are many people with low usage for whom the standing charges are a significant proportion of their bill. Low income people without disability or age related need for a higher usage. I've heard on here that some people on prepay don't top up meters in the summer, then are hit with all the standing charges when they need heating in winter.

Apparently you can cut dishwasher tablets in half & everything will still get cleaned. I can't confirm this as not got room for a dishwasher! It was on MN forum, frugal tips or something.

"Huge queues of people at Dover or in most Uk airports full of UK citizens going abroad for a summer holiday recently doesn't portray a country with a cost of living crisis"...this is what a good friend of mine messaged me from the U.S last week.
Tbh, I had to agree with her.

No, I can't say I've really noticed. Well, apart from noticing some pubs/restaurants seem a bit (or a lot) quieter in some places?

I'm sure if I was to look in detail at shopping receipts and energy bills I would notice, but I can't say I ever really look at individual item prices for staples when doing the online supermarket shopping. The direct debit for energy changes automatically so haven't noticed that, either.

I imagine it will be when things really catch up with everyone that it becomes more noticeable?

One thing I would say, we're waiting for builders to quote us for quite large piece of work doing and it's still difficult to find people with any availability so assume there's still a lot of spending on home improvements, etc., going on (in this area at least).

True but they probably booked before the prices started to rocket. For example they may have booked before Putin invaded Ukraine.

Agreed re food bills. With that and the increase in energy prices me and DH have each had to up our joint account contributions by £150.

We've been paying in the same amount for 10 years with only occasional topups if we've had an unexpected cost or a blowout.

Oh and I appreciate how fortunate we are to be able to do that.

I will be upping my donations to our local food bank too over the next year as I realise it's going to be a really tough winter for many people.

Not cutting back on essentials but disposable incoming is evaporating rapidly.

I’m ok right now because I’ve gone from part time to full time at work but school summer holidays always tricky and I dread winter

No. DH's company is just going from strength to strength, plus he inherited a substantial sum last year when MIL passed away. I shop at Waitrose and M&S, and we eat out regularly. Last year we bought a buy to let, for cash, and the monthly rental covers both our DDs' living costs at university.

But I do know how incredibly, incredibly lucky we are. DH only started this new venture 3 years ago with no idea of how successful it would be. Prior to that he was still self employed and making a good living, but I think keeping both our DDs at university + this cost of living rise would have crippled us substantially.

We are ok but that is because we finished paying off our mortgage in 2019, (we got a reasonable lump sum when FIL died in 2020 so used that ) and we arranged a 3 year fixed tariff direct debit for our gas/ electricity which doesn't run out until Sept 2024. I realise just how lucky we are though I certainly spent a lot of time with very little money when I was younger . So for now we are ok but that can change fairly easily I think so am under no illusions about that. It is so awful for so many people

We are really noticing food prices rising. I've also noticed that our local supermarkets seem to be stocking less and less of their budget/ value range products. Petrol too- costs over £90 to fill up now whereas I think around a year ago would have been £70ish, maybe less.

Our fixed gas and electricity rates end next month and I'm terrified about what we'll have to pay! Currently it's around £100 per month for both.

I consider myself very lucky that we should still be able to pay the bills and cover essentials, we'll just have lower/ no disposable income.