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?

Ariela However not wasted on me - we have peak insulation/doubleglazing/solar etc. We're looking at water efficiency, rainwater storage and waste water recycling as we feel this is another area bills will vastly increase.

All this takes a certain level of money or credit (and ability to pay it back) though. If I won the lottery tomorrow the first things I'd do is get a new boiler, replace the double glazing - and get the roof sorted.

RedWingBoots Apart from my living room windows all mine can have off the shelf curtains so it won't cost thousands. Thinking about my siblings homes it tends to be the living room which has very large windows that aren't standard size.

Our living room window is wide, so it has four (velvet, lined) curtains. What we need to do is sort out something for the french windows. They're hard to get to as there's a heavy table in front of them - it's where DH works as he needs good light. But it means getting to them to measure up and put up the curtains is a pain and opening and closing the curtains will be difficult, but we have to find a way.

the domestic bills are bad enough but there hasn’t been as much coverage of the impact in businesses

on the radio yesterday some bloke who ran a cost cutter shop said his electricity bills at the moment were 25k a year. He said that is going up to 100k in a few weeks. He inferred unless a miracle happened between now and then it's game over and directly and indirectly 50 people would lose their jobs

Multiply this by tens (hundreds?) of thousands of small business too, unless hugely profitable or able to demand a much higher price for goods / service from the customer.

It’s easy to forget that a huge number of small business don’t make a large profit, they are small shops, restaurants, services etc not law partnerships or consultancy firms and they don’t sell or provide the type of goods that you can just increase in cost by double, triple or more - the customer simply won’t be able to pay it as the issue extends to their home finances too.

Anyone willing, or able, to pay 2-3 or more times for their takeaway Chinese this Friday? £25.00 for a fish and chips?

The same will happen to Child-minders or those who work from home as well
You need to be warm in your own home if your there all day.
How will anyone afford to stay indoors and keep warm?

Its a disaster isn't it. I work with the poorest members of society and this is going to be horrific for them. In fact its going to be horrific for us all.

Wow I hadn't even considered the childcare element of price increase. 😳

@AlecTrevelyan006 yup. People are moaning at businesses for rising prices but they have no idea. One thing I can recommend to businesses as well as households, give meter redings regularly. We have SSP and they are great. The DD is way higher than it was so we started provided proper regular readings and it went right down to normal-ish levels. Managed to fix early luckily.
I wouldn't look at DD quote, bit at unit costs. There was cheaper DD offered by another provider but units were slightly higher. I think that DD was lower to catch people.

Places are folding or about to fold. small and medium enterprises are the biggest employers (about 60%). IT eill be horrible when they start folding in numbers

Childminders, totally. Wfh person? Not necessary. My bills certainly don't cost more than bus ticket when I wfh even with stuff plug in all day.

Exactly. Takeaway food has already got more expensive in the last year, before further utility price increases. And these sorts of businesses have to use a lot of energy, plus ingredients and especially cooking oil, which has rocketed in price.

We've been going to the same little Chinese takeaway for over 25 years. We've seen the young teenager who worked on the counter grow into a 30 something man and up until a year or two ago, the order we got for the two of us was £10-12 and we'd go at least a couple of times a month.

Now it's over £20 and will probably increase again, plus the quality has decreased and due to this and generally being a bit more mindful about our spending, we haven't been for ages, so it's a perfect storm for this type of business - they have to increase their costs to make a profit, at the same time as their customers cutting back on their product, because it's become a luxury they can't afford.

And while all ths happens, there is little sense that the current government are treating it as the catastrophic priority that it should be. They are too busy playing make-believe-Prime-Minister and having their little bun fights. God, I am so angry at them.

Yes, it’s restaurants and takeaways etc I just can’t see coping - these are high energy businesses by nature so it will just destroy them.

Energy increases aren’t great for anyone or for any business but it would, you would assume, be a relatively minor cost increase that would be need to be passed onto customers for a lot of businesses. Cooking however … And add to the fact that for many a takeaway is probably one of the first things to cut in a recession. It’s the most brutal double whammy.

Our fish and chips already is £25 though and has been for ages … London prices though…

You should see the cost of wholesale chicken compared to 2 years ago as well...
It'sdeath by thousand cuts

Chicken was always my go to meat once lamb and beef became too expensive.
The way it's going now I may end up vegetarian.

I think this winter we really need to get thick curtains in front of our French doors. They are single glazed which is the problem (we are single glazed everywhere but have shutters over bedroom windows and it’s alright apart from the condensation.)
I should really sort that out ASAP.

Yes, it’s restaurants and takeaways etc I just can’t see coping - these are high energy businesses by nature so it will just destroy them.
I'm sitting in the hairdresser. A high energy use business too.

I know a few people who have inherited thousands lately ( for different reasons ) and they all still moan about the cost of fuel and food etc.
As someone whose parents had left us nothing I don't feel too sorry for them, but higher costs do affect everyone regardless of their circumstances etc and bills still have to be paid.
Plus many use that money to help out their own children to buy a place too.

I think it’s very common for people to think about lump sums/capital and regular income in different ways. In general, I think it’s a good strategy - have always tried to live within my regular monthly income, and if I needed to dip into savings when there were some extra big bills, I’d be wanting to pay it back in over the next month or three.

Major planned expenditure such as a house project or new car are a different category from paying for an “ordinary” holiday (as against once in a lifetime one) or subsidising regular expenditure. They are rare events, and they are the sort of things you save towards, so it makes sense to use your savings for them.

Inheritance, bonus, lottery win etc can only be spent once. Energy bills keep on coming. So it’s not unreasonable that people who have inherited are still concerned about their energy bills.

I think people are going to start opening up chimneys that are not suitable or swept, in order to keep warm.

@AlecTrevelyan006 Yes the effects on business are going to be huge.

I mentioned this before on here, also written to my MP, she talked about all the help they've given and completely ignored my question.

Then there is the NHS and Schools, energy hikes is coming of their bottom line with no extra funding, so that impacts our kids education and our health.

But if you're a millionaire, you wont be using these services, so don't care.

Had a Chinese last weekend and OMG the portions were tiny much smaller than before. Paid £25 thinking we could get another meal out of it but 3 tiny boxes of food and 4 miniscule spring rolls, nope not doing that again.

I have yet to eat a Chinese meal in this country which cost less than £20 per person unless it was something simple like duck rice. This is in London or even in Manchester. I am Chinese so I am picky! But I think most people that I know who come from China, Taiwan, HK, Singapore, Malaysia do pay these prices (we tell ourselves its cheaper than a flight home) but a lot of locals seem to think that Chinese takeaway is a affordable treat. Maybe the Chinese restaurants are equalizing the prices?

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/17/two-thirds-of-uk-families-could-be-in-fuel-poverty-by-january-research-finds

with these being the previous estimates from University of York at the start of August. Cannot yet see the research paper behind the Graun article

cpag.org.uk/news-blogs/news-listings/fuel-poverty-estimates-uk

www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2022/research/fuel-poverty-uk/

Dreading it, will have to cut out all non essential purchases

We often have chicken balls in batter

Always been 10 since maybe 20yrs of us using rhem

now get 9 of them

Which is actually sadly good deal considering how much every single ingredient in that meal risen (i also like chicken balls)

Not the same price. Think dish went up 70p. Most gone up 75/100 so our order was around 31/32 is now 38 plus £1.50 for delivery as we are out of location

we live at the bottom /along road where Chinese is. - maybe 1/4 of a mile tops