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?

The problem is “helping people that struggle.” I can tell you from my experience the poorest families are the ones who work, just enough to not claim benefits and get support.

I am not saying life on benefits is easy but if you’re in social housing, getting support with rent, benefits, targeted support payments, etc. PP children will have support at school, fsm, trips and other financial support. It’s the families who just miss out on top-ups and support with rent etc, paying eye watering rent who really struggle and can’t afford the school trips and the uniform (as the don’t qualify for the grant). Look on this thread, less than £400 pcm for a 5 bed council house. A family in the south will pay nearly three times that in rent for a modest 3 bed privately.

The issue this country has is its low wage, high cost, high subsidy economy. From the jobs which require the least qualifications to ones which require lots of up to date quals such as tech. That means no one is exempt from the struggles apart from multi millionaires. We are a low paying, service based economy.

The families who just tip into 40% tax will be the worst off. This tax was originally for the wealthy, it now hits the “ok paid” these people shoulder the highest tax burden, the highest costs of living with no state support. People on benefits will often “clear” the salary equivalent of a 40% salary after tax when housing costs are considered. This isn’t sustainable long term the whole economy needs to change and it needs to start paying what people are worth.

People who say it won’t impact them haven’t thought this through. We are a high earning household and can afford it. We fall into the 1%. Which means that the majority will not. So for example, those squeezed middle who can’t afford anything outside of rising bills and mortgages, that’s hospitality, beauty, leisure, construction, manufacturing, sales jobs gone. It’s never a good idea to piss off the people who do the heavy lifting when it comes to funding a country. The vicious circle gets even bigger. Schools and hospitals now are they going to afford these rises over the winter? They aren’t protected. That won’t mean less directors or procurement people in offices. It will be less nurses, drs, teachers.

I honestly don’t know what the answer is and the govt are asleep at the wheel. However, we will be worse off than other countries because our wages are amongst the lowest anywhere for all careers. Factor in a heavy need for state subsidy to afford to live, it’s going to be very painful.

I am paying 175 per month on actual readings and that’s for a 4 bed new build with an electric car on charge every night.

I envisage this to rise to £250 in the winter as the lights come on earlier and the price goes up.

I hear your plan!!

BUT you have to realise that 'Shareholders' aren't just Fat Cats, they're also pension plans/providers and numerous other things & following your plan would cause a myriad of other problems. Unfortunately.

I got a years fix from UW for 250 a month a couple of weeks ago. I still think it's outrageous, but cheapest I could find. Maybe worth a look.

When even Telegraph columnists are suggesting that the French approach is better (i.e. nationalising a major energy supplier and directly subsidizing the cost of energy), you have to raise an eyebrow.

Telegraph Story

The paragraph that stood out to me:

"The UK Government, for instance, claims to be providing a grand total of more than £37bn of support through a bewildering array of more than 40 different measures.
Both in nominal terms and as a percentage of GDP, this is possibly less than the French approach, but here's the point. By keeping the headline rate of inflation lower, the effect is to reduce the sense of crisis, and things being out of control.
Furthermore, it limits the chances of inflation becoming embedded through rising expectations and wages. Something similar is being proposed by the Liberal Democrats for the UK. Such is the impotence of current policy that they may even end up getting their way, with prices capped at the current level."

So, we may very well be paying just as much as the French to deal with this, but in a way which completely fails to mitigate the impact on the majority of households. How utterly British.

The £400 from the government will help a bit , but it seems that the prices bring mentioned are just going up and up and none of it is good news.
It's not just normal households having to find this extra either , it is the schools and the hospitals and our public buildings ; they won't receive any financial help for these increases.
Restaurants and so on will have to increase their prices too , small businesses will suffer more as they can't absorb the costs as much as the big chain places can.

I'm with SSE and for years I have been challenging my energy bills. I currently pay £250 per month and just received a bill today, saying I owe another £786.00 ! 😥 I had a d/d set up for this amount and in Oct/Nov they changed it to £430, so I cancelled d/d and continued to pay £250.

Martin Lewis's update is you must NOT stop paying, but rather put in an official complaint, this should stop further chasing/action until resolved. ( it never did with me ) For every complaint to the ombudsman it's cost SSE ( or other ) £500 per complaint.

You should also request a SAR, which is EVERYTHING the company holds about you, which they are legally obliged to provide within a month, or they will get a further fine. ( this takes time and a lot of paperwork )

I live in a semi detached 2 adults ( 1 wfh ) and a teenager. We have gas oven/radiators, the combi boiler.

I don't know what else I can do to lower my useage. ( havn't used the oven/grill ) for 10 months!

The problem is, as indicated at the end of that article, is if there is physically no gas available, this changes nothing. You can't pay for gas that doesn't exist. People need to realise this, that what France and other nations are doing is effectively subsidising the continued use of a critically short supply resource.

You absolutely CANNOT keep throwing money at this problem or reducing prices arbitrarily and have the system function. The ONLY way out of this, is to use less, or increase supply. Guess which one is actually happening.

@doodlywoodlydingdong

I'm sorry. It's going to be very tough, but for people in your situation it's very scary.

If you keep your mobility scheme (is that an adapted car?) would you be able to get out of the house/go shopping independently? If you could I'd seriously consider not ending it. Living alone & no means to get out & about is a dire way to live.

it's a shame downsizing isn't an option, but Uni kids are like bloody boomerangs, so I guess it probably wouldn't be terribly practical anyway.

would you consider a lodger? I'd hate the lack of privacy, but it might be the lesser if the evils?!

It sounds like you're pretty 'sorted' with things, but definitely make sure you're claiming everything you can & all aspects of the £1600 you can!

Do you have correct bills or are they estimated?

What is your annual usage of each fuel, which should be shown on your bill and how much does this cost? Are you on the price cap or a fix?

It's impossible to say what the issue is without this information. If your direct debit should have been £430 from last year and you've only been paying £250, then it's not surprising that a debt has built up. But those bills do sound high unless you use a lot or have signed up to a fix well above the current price cap.

@gnilliwdog agreed, Mick Lynch’s involvement makes me hopeful that some form of action can be taken.

It’s a sad day when Martin Lewis from MSE and Trade Union leaders are banging the drum about the Cost of Living crisis, but both the Government and the Opposition are silent….

Ive always appreciated that our family has a reasonably comfortable time with money, we are not rich but we can afford most things that we want within reason, we could do food shopping and get the brands that we want etc. But that’s now changed, haven’t used the dish washer for weeks, reduced takeaways/eating out significantly from once a week to if we are lucky once a month, stopped buying clothes unless really essential. We were just about to start on some major house renovations which we have put on hold. What on earth is this doing to the general economy, I don’t mean just our spending lol, but if everybody else is cutting back like us. We are fortunate cutting back hasn’t really Impacted us too much yet, we can still make cutbacks but they will start to hurt a bit. I’m just terribly sorry and feel for those people that are already at that stage and worse. What the hell is the government doing about this apart from squabbling amongst themselves like kids. It scares me lots.

You're definitely not BU. We are in the very small selection of households that can cope, mostly because we no longer have a mortgage.

If we still had a mortgage, or were renting, and were still paying for FT or maybe even PT childcare (like millions of households), we would have had difficulty with that, even with a household income well above national average. So that gives you an idea of how much of a problem this will be.

I wish Mick Lynch and Martin Lewis would go into politics. At least they give a shit

@ScurryfungeMaster I think a lot of families are going to have parents move in with them or recently flown the nest adult children, possibly both! It'll help with the bills, not so much the therapy!

Gordon Brown is really hustling to hold the government to account for the coat of living crisis and set out some practical considerations. Fuck knows where the shadow cabinet has gone?

I think it's frightening for people to face that our government is not going to sort this out. They are either incapable or uncaring. Either way they will allow huge swathes of the country to descend into poverty while preserving tiny pockets of the very affluent. None of them have any plan to realistically help ordinary people. Labour is absolutely useless too.

Yup.

Right now GB is a better opposition than the formal opposition.

People need to remember that even if you can cope with living in a home colder than a fridge that some heating is probably advisable to help avoid things like frozen pipes, damp and mould.

@the80sweregreat Absolutely, both of them are capable, intelligent people with a conscience. Let's hope!

We wouldn't struggle with that amount, but our childcare provider has upped their rates (we pay for 2 at the moment), along with fuel and everything else steadily climbing. I do wonder how people are expected to cope, in general.

@FourTeaFallOut absolutely- the PM from 12 years ago has been more vocal about this than anyone in current Government or opposition parties!

I was thinking this when reading about heated throws, also the fact it will probably feel much colder when you take it off.

Yes, the shadow cabinet are MIA as well. It's pathetic really, all of them are useless. In a pinch I'd still vote for Starmer but I'm beyond disappointed at how they're playing this.

I am very worried about how this is going to play out over the next few months / years. I live in an area of high deprivation and, even though we will probably be ok ourselves, I dread to think what life will be like for lots in our local area, and the impact it will have on the town and local economy. Homelessness and poverty are already big issues around here and can only get much worse.

I think many of us are still suffering from normalisation bias. It's hard for people who are used to managing ok/fine to visualise how bad things could get.

I have joined the Enough campaign - who knows if it will make any difference but I feel as if I need to channel this frustration and worry somehow.

I’d vote for that party! The current political vacuum and apathy is so worrying.