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?

There's no incentive to work if even putting in fulltime hours, you can't afford the basics for survival ie food and heating

I've seen people write this a few times. I'm not entirely sure what it means. If working full time only pays for the basic then working anything less ...won't pay for the basics. That's a pretty big incentive.

In a lot of cases, you could work part time and get top up benefits.... Why wouldn't you? Youd be no worse off.

Well no it’s not. Especially if you can claim benefits to cover the basics and get handouts which is where support will be targeted.

Exactly, most of this help won't get given to people who work, who incidentally will also need it because minimum wage won't cover rent and gas and electric let alone anything else, childcare, food, council tax....

There is not a cats chance in hell that I will be paying £6000 a year for gas and electric. I will pay what I can afford and they can take me (and the millions of others who in inevitably end up in debt) to court if they aren't happy about it.

So, what's the plan? Quit your job, wait it out for weeks on end till UC kicks in and put yourself and your kids at the mercy of the Tory party who, let's face it, aren't renowned for their benevolent treatment of the poor?

Or carry on working and get more and more in debt whilst being freezing and starving? But you work 40 hours for the benefit....

It's going to reach a stage for lots of people where it's more cost-effective not to work full-time. If you work under a certain number of hours per week, you're entitled to benefits, hardship grants, etc.
Working full-time entails costs eg commute, clothes, mobile, etc. If people can't afford basics, of course they're going to start to consider if actually working less or not working at all are the better options. When people are forced into survival mode, they don't care about helping their employers turn massive profits. They care about surviving.

My concern is what’s going to happen if my kids school can’t afford their electric bill? There have been muttering about a four day week to reduce costs, which would mean I could no longer work 5 days and would have even less money!

And working 40 hours so you can freeze and starve - benefits the Tories. Their big business funders rely on their workforces turning up. If they think high fuel bills mean they'll lose their workforce, you can guarantee the government would come up with other solutions.

you can guarantee the government would come up with other solutions

Yes, like impoverishing those on benefits further so that those still working can see some tangible benefit for their hours.

This is a concern for me too. There is no available childcare either, so I would have to drop a day which is not an insignificant amount of money.

I think the trouble is that if you have a smart meter they won't need to take you to court ... they will just "flick a switch" and you won't have ANY electricity... you will be on a pre payment meter. the only way your'll get it back on is to apply some money to your account. The first £10 or so will go towards your arrears ... so for the electricity companies they win either way ...

What is actually the answer though?

Suggestions could be the government invests in owning wind turbines/solar farms/nuclear power stations and supplies energy to it's population.
Then they could control the cost in as much as it'd cost an arm and a leg still to pay back the costs of building them.

perhaps not as creative though. Only a tory could try to get doctors to fix peoples energy bills...

I don’t know if I’d be allowed to work four days. They might say it doesn’t fit their business needs and I either have to work five days or resign. This is a bigger worry than stretching to pay energy bills tbh.

as a family with two children with complex needs our bills are already over 6 grand !
We have a load of medical equipment that has to be on 24 /7 to keep them alive and we cannot allow our the kids to get cold as it is life threatening esp for our youngest. .We also have mountains of washing due to vomiting and incontinence etc so that only adds to it.
we have done all we can to cut back and make the house as energy efficient as possible but we can do no more so after octobers costs rises we estimate we will be on 10 000 or so. And if they rise in jan again well I dont want to think.about it.

See I don't see what we can do? surely you should be sacked for breaking the law or being shady or like whatever else they do, but when they are the rules they just get away with It?

And I feel like people are being bombarded so much that they just can't protest.
I mean you can't protest every week. Tha k God for the rail strikes I say.

Going off topic, but if you have a person with incontinence our water company (southern) literally cap your water rate - even if you're on a meter ... maybe useful for you if you didn't know this already? ... fingers crossed that there is a similar option on the horizon for people in your circumstances for your energy bills too. Must be very worrying for you.

I think its to do with the fact you'll be struggling either way so why not go on the dole and struggle at home instead of struggle at work.

Also more time at home means more time to cook from scratch, do things that working full time limit your time to do, such as shopping around.

It makes sense. Especially as you can get grants and help if you are on benefits but don't qualify if you aren't.

@Shouldbeworkingnotreadingtalk
No didnt know that though not on a water meter thankfully but will see if I can get a rebate!
And yes v v worrying though actually most worrying of all is the fear of blackouts as one child depends on a ventilator overnight and oxygen etc.
In fact we are in the process of spending our savings on a generator to keep our kids alive if it all goes belly up as we just cannot survive without electricity. It us v worrying indeed.

This. This. For God’s sake don’t keep voting conservative people!

Until Starmer supports the strikers then don't automatically vote Labour either. Part of the reason we're in this mess is because of the lack of effective opposition.
As for Boris, yy he should be held accountable. In any other role where the decisions you made resulted in deaths, there would be corporate manslaughter charges.

They are clearly going to inflate them to £6000 temporarily, then the government will say its stepping in to bring it down to say £4000, and everyone will be celebrating and thinking it's cheap, even though its twice the price of now. Just like petrol.

Do you think a few years ago anyone would be thinking if petrol was £1.50 a litre that they'd found a good bargain?

I honestly believe that it's part of a wider conspiracy to get us used to a massive reduction in living standards and think we've got a good life.

why is there no appetite whatsoever to try and claw some of the £37 BILLION wasted on test and trace? The firms that took cash fraudulently to deliver PPE but never actually delivered a single item....How is that not criminal fraud?

Why is nothing being done to try and recoup that money? even if they only recovered a billion that would go a long way to helping people...

Or is it because it will showcase the utter incompetency of the government?