To think that very few people can manage £4200 energy bills

[Butterflyfluff]

news.sky.com/story/energy-bills-forecast-to-rise-even-higher-than-previously-thought-12668906

This simply isn’t manageable for the majority of people.

Where’s this going to end?

Thanks @ChilliPB !

So would you say we should look at this in terms of short-term and long-term solutions?

It seems like actually there are quite a lot of long-term options in terms of renewables, storage, diversifying, etc.

So it is more the short-term problem of how to get people through the next couple years where a huge portion of the population cannot afford these prices?

Should we then treat this as a short-term crisis along the lines of Covid, when the government did spend billions and that's just what you have to do in a crisis.

I might live in a bubble but I feel like the majority of people will absorb it, probably cut back in other areas. I'd be interested to know the proportions.

Truss and Sunak are waiting out the winner - Truss so they have their own leadership election in the bag before announcing some 'help'. Having a general election and fuck right off would be a good start but they won't be doing that, sadly. The Don't Pay pledging campaign which is like the Don't Pay poll tax campaign in the 90s is now up to 95k pledges they will probably reach their million target by default as it's easy to imagine a million of the worse off households completely tapped out and unable to pay - campaign or no.

dontpay.uk/

My mortgage is paid off in September, but the payment will just go on gas and electricity.

< Marie Antoinette has entered the chat >

Question though: If they were lucky enough that the war ended tomorrow & Putin was no longer around, do you think Germany etc would go back to buying energy from Russia? Or is this the point where we all say NO MORE.

The Germans are currently desperately trying to get Nord Stream 1 up and running full pelt again to get energy from Russia right now.

Have you seen the Enough is Enough campaign, which has gained 100k followers in less than 24 hours?

The future feels bleak and no one in Government seem to give a shit. Worrying times!

The government have known for YEARS that we are over reliant upon foreign gas supplies and have not prepared us for the situation that is now being faced.

They should have been acting to decrease gas use both in terms of electricity generation and in terms domestic use.

We can generate our own electricity if we have the infrastructure, and using renewable sources means we aren't relying upon other countries.

Yet new buildings are still being built with gas boilers and no means of generating electricity.

Watching this from the other side of the channel with complete horror...

For context: my energy bills for next year will be 700 euros per year - with a 300 euro discount to help with the "increase".
No council tax
Very low rent has already been capped (and is actually going down)
House prices a third of what they are in the UK.

My advice: leave if you can. Learn another language, take the elderly parents with you.

Just get out.

It's only going to get worse and you don't have to live like this.

They can get a warrant to enter the property and install a prepayment meter

Oh, and I can actually get a GP appointment within a day and the health system works.

Our fixed rate tariff ended at the end of June and our energy supplier has put our direct debit up to £340. I submit regular meter readings so it's pretty accurate. We live in a 3 bed semi. Am really dreading October, not sure how we'll be able to afford it

I'm £1500 in credit, will get all of the £1200 support package & pay dd, even at the original predicted price increase I was still going to owe £450 by March next year. I physically don't have any spare money for my dd to go up £100 a month. I'm disabled, housebound & scared stiff because I don't want to get in to debt, I fought hard a few years ago to get our of debt & I don't want to slip back.

Damn this government - and the last few - for turning blind eyes to food and energy security.

Short term aims for short term visions.

@123ZYX Thanks for your reply. I agree it seems to be the least worst option....😫

@EilonwyWithRedGoldHair

the Age Okd question about the boiler. There isn't a definitive answer, there's a lot to argue either way. The best thing is probably to try a fortnight each way with everything else being much the same & compare.

How old is DS? Any SEN?

if he's very little I'd tell him the bath is broken and take him in the shower with me.

if he's 3/4/5 I'd put a shower hose attached to the bath taps, (you can still get the old rubber ones that are cheap & just push on).

if he's older hed just be told. It's not an option.

if he is little & wants to play in the bath, look at getting a large baby bath to put inside the bath.

Have you seen the clear stick on film for windows? It's not that expensive & really helps with insulation.

Look out for special deals on boilers, I think with the move to heat pumps, you'll get some decent deals and it will save you money, so it might not take too long to recoup the money spent.

In all prime industries (oil and gas, mining and farming for example), the price of goods is the result of global supply and demand. War in a country that produces or supplies a product will always increase the global price of that product as it reduces the amount available.

The war in Ukraine has increased the prices of both oil and wheat.

Shell, BP etc who are the producers (extracting the oil from the North Sea) do not set the oil price themselves. They have no control over the price.

They are however making super-profits and are paying a windfall tax (an extra 25% tax on top of usual taxes) to help the Government fund the extra relief being given to poorer households.

I guess one option would be for Government to increase the windfall tax rate charged on oil producers to provide more help for the households struggling with energy bills.

@baguettechick - I think you're absolutely right. I think long term, I will do exactly what you're suggesting - possibly Spain, although France may also be on my list.

@baguettechick but we have taken back control of our borders and sovereignty that hot air will keep us warm during the winter whilst you choke on your baguette. 😂

You joke, but in reality it seems the only way we as a species are going to adapt to a resource constrained world and maybe avoid the worst of climate change, is by having us forcefully conserve. Everything before that has basically been chump change for what we need to do with the pushing for LED bulbs, buy an EV, or make sure your airline plants trees.

People getting hit in the pocket because no one wanted to voluntarily enact what has been suggested for literal decades now, is the free market maybe waking up to reality.

Your children are not going to be (materially) wealthier than their parents. They will have to live in a time where such things are considered, as they should be, the rare and precious resources that we need. Because having the heating at 25ºC in your McMansion and driving the biggest possible car because you can afford it, simply doesn't fly now.

I could murder some cake right now.

😂

Which nation? Because the EU is fucked given the Euro and the energy crisis. Look at what's going on with Italy and Spain now relating to the Franco-German order. They're telling them to go take a hike because they got shafted (still are) since 2008 and now the French and Germans are telling them to conserve energy. I don't see the EU keeping its shit together if this keeps up, and the ECB knows it.

Thanks, but not really interested in jumping out of a frying pan and into a fire. I have friends and family in France, Lithuania and Germany. They're not painting this rosy picture. I'll deal with costs of living in a nation I know.

At the moment we pay £145 a month and it is increasing to around £190. I imagine it will go up much more than that. We both WFH so save a lot on commuter costs - I never thought that it might get to the point where it was cheaper to go into the office!

My elderly mum will prioritise being warm over eating so I will keep an eye on things and make sure her bills stay under control. At least I can afford to pay a chunk of her bill if necessary.

While residential customers can only restrict their usage by so much, the same is not true of businesses, who should as a bare minimum start turning their lights off overnight.

The Tories are utterly ideologically opposed to giving what they think of as handout to people who don't make enough money for the economy in their eyes.
However one way you can get a tory to shift their mind set is to basically tell them there WILL be a recession, possibly quite deep if they don't somehow free up people's money. Basically the service/leisure/tourism industries are going to be destroyed by this, and at a time many are only just starting to finally recover from the lockdowns/covid problems.
he Tories don't care if you are poor and struggle severely, but they will care that the economy gets damaged due to the sheer inability for them to accept that sometimes the state HAS to help people out.

@dreamingbohemian I’d definitely agree there’s a need to do something urgently for this winter at least to help people. So more support for those that will struggle (which is unfortunately going to be a lot of people) - this might be through windfall taxes from producers, or from other sources.

And yes definitely think that we need to learn from this and think about the medium/longer term to avoid this happening again. Stuff like renewables, better energy security, but also better insulation to reduce energy needs.

We should also think about regulation, the price cap and how it all interacts and make sure the system of regulation is fit for the future - when things will be very different. The current system is based around the producer sells to the supplier, who sells to the customer interaction. But with renewables we might have customers also producing (say if they have solar panels and sell back to the grid) and customers might also be storing energy (for example in car batteries which they can then sell energy from - which can help stabilise supplies during peak demand). It’ll be a completely different model so we’ll need a whole new way of regulating it.