To think £6,000 a year energy bills are completely unsustainable

[Butterflyfluff]

Following on from this thread but quite unbelievably the projected figure has gone from £4,200 to £6,000 now.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4607670-to-think-that-very-few-people-can-manage-ps4200-energy-bills?page=40

Where will this all end?

Hopefully it will go down.

The government will have to step in otherwise people will die.

Everyone is in denial, thinking the government will have to step in and do something.

But what if they don’t..? It will be carnage.

The government don’t care because they have no connection to reality.

I mean clearly it's just impossible

The question is whether the government will do something now, or wait until it's already here and there's massive chaos and then throw together some half-assed plan that mostly only benefits their base (as always)

I'm rather worried that if we get to 3 threads, the new thread title will have an even bigger number in it!

I don’t think they will do anything meaningful past the small bit of help already agreed. I imagine that some mps at least have got their fingers in the energy pies in some form or another and therefor are reluctant to give any help as they wont want it affecting shareholder profits etc.
im always amazed how energy companies can have side hustles and investments that can conflict with their job, in any other job it wouldn’t be allowed as a conflict of interest, not in politics it seems.

couple that with the fact they have no grasp of the cost of living and why would they help, it won’t register on their radar that some people can’t afford to pay.

unfortunately I think we’ll see a lot of deaths this winter, from cold, from having to self disconnect and from sucicide.

That should read mps have side hustles, not energy companies!

"Let the bodies pile high"

This government don't care if poor people die. That was shown with the impacts of austerity, and never mind attitudes during Covid. I think it is very naive to assume they will do anything to save people unless it's to buy votes. People will die. The fat cats will get richer. People will still vote people into power that let this happen.

Who says it’s projected to be 6000?

Depends on the size of the property! I'm sure many large estate have much higher bills!

My projected bill (1650 sq foot 4 bed) is £1640 this year

Continuing from last discussion:
The other thing that occurred to me was that a long time a go, in practically another life, I was that 20 something young professional in London with a good job, no family and renting a tiny flat (because London prices). My energy bills were tiny because you don’t really even have the heating on and you were barely at home anyway because you worked 70 hours a week. I know energy prices feed through to the real world eventually but not everyone feels it the same.
Yup, this was true for me too (when I lived in London). Not least because almost all the heat I needed drifted up from the downstairs flat. I just looked back and 12 years ago I was paying £35pm for both gas and electric. If the £6000 comes to pass, I'll be paying a lot more than 10 times that.
I am in my 20s and living in a top floor flat in London. My energy bills aren't high as a result and I am paying a mortgage instead of rent so that means my housing costs are lower. However most londoners are WFH a lot even if they live in zone 3 (like me). However we still need to be in the office at least 2-3 days a week...Tube fares have gone up a lot, its £7 per day commuting from zone 3 (both ways) so i still think its cheaper to heat a room. My DH cycles so I guess for him its cheaper to go into the office.

I was in central london yesterday and we spent £41 on a dim sum lunch! However, I think my takeaway spending has gone down as I am taking packed lunches and even if we forget, I am at home 2 days a week anyway. And I would rather spend money on a nice meal of my choosing rather than a crappy Itsu in the City! My colleagues all eat out and the food they bring back looks awful (and is really overpriced). You can easily spend £10 nowadays on a hot lunch without blinking and thats what my colleagues are getting rather than Tesco meal deals.

Auxilione (consultancy firm).

See here: metro.co.uk/2022/08/20/cost-of-living-energy-price-cap-set-to-soar-past-6000-by-the-summer-17217743/

Are you being serious?

Really? With which energy supplier and tariff? Because unless you have green energy you're selling back to the grid or using oil for heating, you're wrong about your bills.

Yes. I'm hoping it will eventually go down. Maybe not until next year. I have to hope it will go down otherwise as OP said its not sustainable.

How many times have we said that over the last 20 years

Yeah and they haven't. They only did something about covid when too many people were dying for their liking.

Totally unsustainable. We are comfortably off, however this will drain a massive chunk of income for us and we will be much less than comfortable what with mortgage rate increasing, food bill, petrol, and consequently everything else. And that's before we start thinking of redundancy.

This government is an utter shit show. If they don't do anything I sincerely hope it's the catalyst that stops people voting for these fuckers. Not that labour have actually bloody bothered to even comment on the situation!

@Catfordthefifth Labour have in fact commented on the situation and suggested an alternative approach, i.e. renationalising energy on a temporary basis and keeping the cap where it is currently. And yes, that will cost a massive amount of money - but it will save lives.

Of course the Tories won't do this, they will bleat about it being 'handouts' whilst they hand out fat contracts to their bezzie mates.

They'll wait. They always do. Always let it get to the wire to see whether people will go along with it or not. If enough people paid it they wouldn't do a thing. So manipulative and venal.

Have they? I must have missed that! I know that the Tories won't do it, but I'm glad they've finally said something.

The unsustainable part will be most felt when more and more people are spending very little money on non essentials such as restaurants, cinemas (one chain already in the process of going bust), travel, days out etc etc and the knock on effect on people involved in these sectors, which are already struggling due to being hit hardest by covid and many restaurant chains being propped up by a decade of cheap debt that's now being taken away due to rising interest rates.

It's a very worrying prospect and something needs to be done as a matter of urgency.

We are in the fortunate position of being able to pay the higher prices, though we'll obviously feel the pinch, but for many households, it simply won't be possible for them to pay these bills, no matter how careful they are or how much they cut back on non-essential items. There just won't be enough money for people to cover the basics. As a so-called civilised society, we cannot just stand back and let this happen, but alarmingly, the government doesn't seem to have any kind of plan at the moment.

Yes Labour has a comprehensive energy policy. labour.org.uk/issue/labours-plan-to-cut-bills/

It is completely costed.

Compared with Liz Truss' brilliant idea to get GPs to write prescriptions for energy bills.

No this isn't a joke, really.

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/21/gps-could-prescribe-money-off-energy-bills-under-treasury-plan

'The unusual proposal would mean people could consult their doctor for an assessment on whether they are struggling enough to require help with their bills.'

As if the NHS isn't taxed enough without doctors doing the job of social workers...