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?

dontpay.uk

@dreamingbohemian

Ideally, there would be a tax on those generating the energy (who are the ones benefitting from the prices) and using it to subsidise the consumer energy prices. That was the domestic suppliers are t losing out

Many are living on the breadline already with a week or so end of each month with nothing.

People won't be able to pay, and won't pay, and the media will say they are taking part in Don't Pay UK

Try putting 2 and 2 together...

We did an energy efficiency survey the other day and I was shocked to see how little you save in energy costs by putting quite a lot of money into house improvements (unless your house needs a lot doing). I would rather spend the money on more loft insulation and have lower carbon footprint but it's going to take a lot of time for the savings to even out and I'll be spending the money on bills instead.

My usage for June 2021- June 2022 under my previous tariff was £1007. My new tariff is £4100.

We're not big energy users, and are very careful. We can just about manage this, come June 2023 our mortgage fixed term ends, that is when we will really start to struggle.

We earn really well too, how the fuck the low income households will manage these costs I'll never know.

@UnnecessaryFennel 100%, it's so obvious

We spend much more on electricity and gas and have invested in an energy efficient washer-dryer and fridge. They were quite expensive at £1k each but they are rated A. I think we will save in the long run.

*much more on electricity than gas.

Most people have no idea what poverty looks like. Most people are lucky enough to never experience true poverty and the effects it has on mental and physical health. And then there’s the impact it has on children. The poorest and most vulnerable will suffer the most.

British Gas (Centrica) reported bumper profits of £1.2billion for the first half of 2022.

So a windfall tax on producers, why aren't the government considering this? It sounds like this is what Spain is doing.

@HereCToo
((hug)). I'm sorry, that's a really horrible thing to be dealing with.

I presume you have looked into ALL if the £1600 that has been promised to people really struggling & with disabilities?! Do you need any help with that?

I know sometimes nothing other than a fully warm environment helps, but would it help DD to have a heated throw & that kind of thing? They're apparently incredibly cheap to run & apparently the cheaper ones are better because they're thinner so are better for snuggling?!

Are these any grants available that might help you to buy something like an air fryer (they're so different to what I thought they were & im considering getting one to avoid putting the oven on (many people are getting larger ones so you might find some being sold very cheap or given away.). Do you have a microwave? Warm food really helps to stay warm, so even cup a soup type things would help (if you and DD can drink them?!)

curtains etc from Charity shops to cover blinds/add another layer to curtains.

do you have enough bedding blankets etc?

is there anything you can ask the LL (or council) to do, to improve insulation??

wishing you all the best for the winter xx

Hi
So Eon phoned me to say that my fix is coming to an end. So my DD will go from £197 per month (dual fuel) to a fix of just under £500 per month!!! She then later said, I could go on the variable rate for £288 per month, but that would be liable to price hikes in October and January, which may work out more. What would you do in that situation?

We've always comfortably managed bill before but I'm getting very worried. Our food bill is lower than average because I shop for bargains. I can't really do that with energy. They're all as bad as each other and constantly change anyway.

We have a wood burning stove in our lounge and I'm going to be gathering dry wood from the countryside around us soon to store for the winter. It's like going back in time.

Often is not fit for purpose , they are supposed to be the regulating body that liaisons with government and companies but someone at often is probably getting their pockets full of ££££ as they don’t cap it regulate anything .

Ofgem's remit is to ensure a competitive market in energy supply. Clearly impossible at present, but there is no way it would be allowed to set a cap that guaranteed most of the companies in the market would go bankrupt. Bear in mind that when a supplier goes bust, all its customers' credit balances vanish but - under current rules - the supplier that takes over their account has to honour those balances, so prices would have to go up even more to cover this if there were mass bankruptices.

So a windfall tax on producers, why aren't the government considering this? It sounds like this is what Spain is doing.

Big oil have governments over a barrel, quite literally. Although we all know huge profits are going straight into shareholder pockets the excuse is that they will not invest in green policies. Governments need this investment to hit environmental target so are stuck to some extent (allegedly).

The government actually don't want prices lowered as they want us to reduce consumption and high prices will supposedly put us off. However they're clearly not thinking about this sensibly. According to the IMF, governments need to subsidise our use to get us through this crisis. It can be done but our current crap show won't because they're hell bent on widening the wealth gap.

I was looking at fixing rates today.

MSE are recommending that if the current increase to fix is less than 100% of your current rate, then fix. It will be slightly more expensive temporarily, but worth it long term because of the October increase. Make sure you're comparing rates, not current payments. Your current payments might take into account deficits.

It is currently impossible to find a price comparison - no one wants to risk additional customers, because they risk increasing their losses.

I'm with EOn and the good news is that it looks like there isn't a cancellation fee, so you can cancel and switch at any time. Also, are you looking at their online tariff? It's slightly cheaper than their other one. You can switch by logging into your account through their website.

Unfortunately there aren't good options at the moment, just least bad ones.

The solution to high prices is high prices.

@dreamingbohemian I wish I knew! I don’t know there’s one single solution. I definitely agree something needs to be done to protect consumers from price increases.

Personally I think one thing is higher energy security - produce our own energy so we’re less vulnerable to global price changes, which might be a move to renewables, but might we also need controls on exporting energy (so domestic purchases don’t get outbid by overseas purchasers)? There’s probably something in there about storage as well, and diverse renewable sources to make sure we have a stable supply (so prices don’t go up because we’re not getting much power from wind one year or whatever).

I think the next few decades are going to be really tough in terms of energy as the world (hopefully) moved to decarbonise.

@1dayatatime

🇺🇦 please let the war end soon, for the Ukrainians xx

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.

obviously everywhere would have to get a shift on with renewables & the places supply already would need to price the supply more sensibly, but...

Truss will u-turn and give handouts when the time comes. Pensioners won't put up with it.

British Gas (Centrica) reported bumper profits of £1.2billion for the first half of 2022.
But you realise that even if you increase taxes to 100%, turning them into a non-profit, and distribute ALL of these £1.2 bn to the UK population as cash, that's only ~£18 per head?

Tax the energy companies.

Nope, most people won’t be able to pay that because most people are already struggling with life as it is right now. They can increase the prices but if people literally can’t pay it, there’s nothing they can do. They can’t cut your supply so just stop paying.

Liebig what do you think of windfall taxes?