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?
Water: In case it's helpful to someone many water companies offer a 'social tariff' for the most fiscally challenged. You do not have to be on benefits, just have a household income below £17k. When I moved into my flat a few years ago the rates were £32pcm, a water meter took this down to £20ish and with the social tariff it's about £6pcm. The initial 60% discount is revised to 40% in year two of a two year contract but it's still a big discount. That's with Cambridge Water on their Assure tariff but Anglian Water for example have several schemes including support for high use/low income households. Google your water supplier and 'discounted tariff' to find theirs. The stated criteria (for Cambridge Water) are as follows:
Low household income
If your household income is less than £17,005* per year, you may qualify for a discount on your water charge. If you are eligible and your application is successful, your charges will be discounted for two years, in the first year by 60% and the second year by 40%.
If you have a dependent child living at your address, an additional allowance of £1,500 per child may be added to the household income threshold amount of £17,005* per year.
Non means tested benefits such as PiP and DLA are not counted as income.
Electricity and gas: The Warm Home Discount is being expanded this year - at present only Pension Credit automatically enrolls you but again anyone can apply and means tested benefits are pretty much guaranteed acceptance. £140 is a drop in the ocean right now though unless you live alone, hopefully it goes up a bit this year with current inflation in mind but not holding my breath. Increased standing charges are especially unfair on very low usage households, my bill is doubling before I use anything and there are no social tariffs for power.
Broadband and home phone: For broadband and internet again most big suppliers now have a social tariff but after investigating it myself it wasn't worth it, BT magnanimously supply 36mb/s for £20 when I negotiated 350mb/s for £22 with Virgin.
Sky and Virgin: The best advice I can give based on many experiences with Sky/Virgin is to fully cancel at the end of your contract. As in cut the service off. Politely advise the customer advisor that you don't wish to discuss it and just want to cancel. The initial discount they will offer will be crap unless you do this. Every time I have done this I have received a call from the 'loyalty' team within two days. They are the ones with the power to give big discounts, the standard rate for my broadband is twice what I now pay. I also snagged a decent phone contract for £2. Negotiate, especially now. There is nothing to lose and much to gain, you can still cancel the cancellation for a month.
Something which really winds me up is the way both Virgin and Sky offer the ability to do everything online except cancelling. I wasted three hours on 'live' chat trying to cancel Virgin before having to ring them anyway. Then it was a protracted sales pitch asking exactly how I use my services etc which only ended when I politely asked the agent to skip to the end.
They have to stick to the script otherwise in the hope people will get bored and give up. It's a shitty policy. My friend has been trying to cancel their Sky for weeks but keeps getting fed up with literal hours on the phone and puts it off another day. Their Sky contract (TV and broadband) has increased from £45 to £80 overnight and all Sky are offering on standard renewal is a tenner off.
Sky switched to something called a wide range LNB dish for the Sky Q rollout, up until recently this locked you into Sky unless capable of modifying the dish. Freesat now offer a box which records four channels at once and works with a wideband LNB. In the case of my friend it pays for itself in just five months and they will never have to pay for TV again outside of the license fee. Plenty of HD channels too!
Sky still charging £8 for 1080p HD in 2022 is a fucking pisstake when Disney is streaming in Dolby Vision/HDR10+ 2160p 4k for a penny less. I will never use Sky again after dumping them years ago and saving a fortune in the process. Terrible value for money and the worst customer service I've experienced. Standard definition channels are near unwatchable on a modern TV. Virgin are great as long as you know 'the game' upon renewal, the loyalty agents freely admit this.
Sorry for such a long post with so much detail but a) I'm autistic and b) I've got pretty good at being poor and want to share anything useful I can. I wouldn't have any streaming services if not for account sharing and don't have a TV license. With the ever increasing numbers of streaming services a lot of people have returned to piracy for their entertainment needs which doesn't help anybody.