to think it’s not just the most vulnerable households that will need help with soaring energy bills?

[Itsokay2020]

Just that really, I appreciate that all households will receive £400 from October (and we’ll be saving this money!) but we are a working household, with a mortgage but little other personal debt. We earn decent salaries, or at least they were, but if our energy bills increase from £130 to £350 plus, we will find things tight. We are not expecting any significant salary increases in the next 12 months.

We haven’t had a family holiday abroad for several years, our cars are 9 years old, we rarely had takeaways and have stopped them altogether now. We’ve performed a financial review of our household expenditure, we can cut back if necessary (gym/tv subscriptions) but even so it doesn’t leave a huge amount of room for manoeuvre. I would prefer to get a second job than stop pension contributions, and have started to look more seriously at this.

We’re questioning whether to sell up, and could potentially have enough equity to be mortgage free, but leaving family, friends and jobs we love stops us in our tracks.

So, AIBU to feel that many households will need help, not just those deemed vulnerable?

I must admit I don’t get this. Can you make cuts anywhere, why are you spending so much?

Are you joking? You've already identified ways you can cut back. Don't you realise that the poorest in society don't have any luxuries that they can cut back. They are down to the bare bones already

Was this directed at me? Cos I was responding to the person who said they have a top income but will be overdrawn.

Really? You have a household income of c.£150k and you can't manage a budget. Even in London that's rediculous and is not indicative of rising costs, just poor money management.

If that’s paying a £500 gas bill and rent of £1.5k and that’s being really conservative in the sour. That’s £500 left for everything, food, other utilities, council tax, commuting. With kids, that’s not going far.

Someone with 2.5k and paying 1.5k in rent has options that many many many poor people don't.
Some people have to live monthly on what your example has left over.. £343.. that's the monthly UC for an adult.. to pay gas, electric, food, council tax.. so someone on 2.5k may feel the pinch, may have to move to a cheaper house..
But me on my £343.. what options do I have?

I hate the thought of the knock on recession this causes, though I know it’s going to happen. We are fortunate that while we will have to tighten our belts and watch our expenditure, we will be ok.

But “belt tightening” means spending less money on haircuts, clothes, food… I don’t want to be in a place where I’m depriving all these local businesses of income, but that’s naturally what happens.

Without making a judgement about someone with an income of £2.5k compared to someone only on the standard element of UC, someone whose only income is the standard element of UC would be eligible for council tax support and will have received the first part of the cost of living payment. They may also be eligible for the warm home discount among other things.

But your answer is handouts to more people? Who the hell do you think pays for those? There's no money in the pot to pay for anyone's bills. The country is £trillions in debt already. Getting further into debt is never an answer.

I agree with this. Ultimately wholesale energy prices have rocketed globally. Our public debt is already frightening, they can't just keep spending.

DH and I are lucky that our current outgoings are affordable (no car, small
mortgage, no additional debt) and we are able to absorb the increasing costs. Our flat is too small but we are holding off moving for the time being and feeling quite relieved that we didn't stretch ourselves with a bigger mortgage.
We will have to cut back; we'll stop having meals out, no more coffees when out and about and no more cinema. We've cancelled most of our memberships and are more frugal with the grocery shopping.
I feel fortunate that we are in this position and I hope the government supports people who cannot absorb the rises.
I do worry about our local independent businesses. Like some pp have said, it is not just households who will suffer, our service economy is likely to take a hit and I fear the recession that we are heading into.

Liz Truss is out there refusing to tax the massive profits of oil companies and talking about disliking handouts.

But they are taxed, as with other corporations in the U.K. Plus the new windfall tax. The likes of BP and Shell are benefitting from high wholesale energy prices, which is a function of global supply and demand. Not helped by the invasion of Ukraine.

You also need to be careful that you don't end up encouraging some of the single/dual HQ oil and gas companies to relocate their HQ out of the U.K.

I know you didn't but quite a few posters conflate mining and refining companies with energy suppliers, many of which have gone bankrupt from having to buy energy at a higher price than customers were paying under fixed price contacts.

Me too. People assume rather than actually read what has been said.

I don't know for sure, but if you're in the top 10% salary wise, isn't that about £80,000?
I am pretty sure you should be able to find ways to manage.

Our household income is in that region and we will manage because we have some savings, and yes I realise how extremely lucky we are to have those, but it does very much depend on individual circumstances. We have disabled DC who cost a lot, so much so even the government recognise that and if we didn’t have savings we would be eligible for UC.

We can manage but it means DS will remain living at home for longer than anticipated. MIL will struggle a lot and we don’t have enough room for her to live with us.

We are not high earners. Dh is self employed, and I am on just above minimum wage.

We are lucky that we have no mortgage.
This is going to hit us hard, but we have options. I may need to get a second job, and we can manage our money better.
The people who are most vulnerable are those who can’t cut back anymore. The older people who can’t just get more work. The people who can’t afford to feed themselves as it is.

This is a really crap situation. I don’t think the majority of the population understand how bad this is going to be yet.

Could someone please explain why it would be too expensive to means test the winter fuel allowance rather than the current system?

Most older people I know are mortgage free which is most people's biggest expense. Combine that with no commuting costs, childcare etc that I would wager there are far more working poor amongst the younger demographics than older. I'm not saying they are by any means rich but they lack the big hitters in terms of monthly expenses. Why could it not just be linked to receipt of UC or other in work benefits or something as well as state pension?

in response to my comment regarding the £400, I based it on the information in the attached photo which had been shared on SM.

Our current gas/electric rate is fixed until November 2023 and we are very frugal with our usage, so will we instead just have a credit? TBH that suits us fine as we’ll need it next November! Apologies if I have caused any confusion!

With regards to moving to be mortgage free, house prices in our area are bonkers so, yes, we have been fortunate but we are not cash rich! A three bedroom house, no garage/carport and a small garden, one reception room and small dimensions is on the market for £550k, it’s literally 300 yards from us and whilst a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay, our area is seeing huge interest from those desperate to leave London and the East End.

Where is the end to it all I have been asked.
Answer is, I dont know.

Our household income puts us in the top 5% of earners in the UK. We are incredibly privileged, I am aware. But we will also be in fuel poverty come October. I have no idea how anyone is meant to weather this storm, it's ridiculous.

It's unclear what the exact definition of "most vulnerable households" is, but I think help should only go to people on Universal Credit. What's the point of having a system to help the poor, and then creating a second ad hoc system to help a different subset of people?

By all means redefine who should be eligible for universal credit, to include a larger number, if you think you need to. Argue for changes in the amount Universal credit pays, if you thing they are needed. But stick to one definition of who needs help, one formula for how much help to give, and one carefully thought out way of reducing help as incomes rise. Don't invent multiple ad hoc systems targeting multiple differently defined subsets of people.

It makes no difference whether the £400 is paid into peoples bank accounts or into their electricity account, nor whether it's paid all at once or as six £67 payments. In all cases, they will be £400 better off than they would otherwise have been, and they can save that money if they want to.

To view it mechanistically, every time £67 is credited to the electricity account, they can move £67 that isn't going to be needed for that months direct debit to a savings account.

The Guardian were reporting that energy bills this winter will be more than 2 months take home pay for someone on an 'average' salary. Universal credit or not, that is simply unaffordable.

Are you sure?

It's predicted to be £500 in the winter months for some people.

The problem is with UC is you can have a family earning 15k clearing more than the higher rate taxpayer next door on 50k who get no help and will lose their home.

Our Direct Debits have increased- this is in the summer- from £100 per month to £350 for gas and from £20 a month to £130 for electricity.
So we have gone from £120 a month to £480 and I am really not sure that will pay our bills come Christmas.
I have turned off every plug socket I can think of that we don't use all the time.
Our heating has not been on at all since April- it is the only gas in the house.It won't go on until October.
I have stopped using the oven and turned it off at the wall switch.
Kettle, microwave and toaster and tv only turned on at socket when in use.
We hardly ever have a light on (in the summer).
Any charger is turned off as soon as the item is charged.
I have turned down the temp controls on the boiler by 60% on the hot water.
We have had a woodburner put in the back sitting room so we are not heating rooms unnecessarily if we don't use them.
Second fridge has been defrosted and cleaned and turned off.
Using washer less than half the number of times we were every week.
We don't use games consoles, rarely watch tv, don't have lots of gadgets.
I don't know what else we can do. I can not believe 6 months of heating 2 hours a day is going to cost us £4000+ a year but it looks like it. I have no idea why our electric bill is so high but it's looking like it will be about £1600 at least. Grand total of £5,600 minimum.
We will pay it but we'll struggle and we are scrimping on it not using energy extravagantly.