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?

The thing that uses the most electricity each day in my house is my fridge freezer. It's where my insulin lives, so not having it on isn't an option. There's really nothing else significant I can cut down on.

I'm scared. My husband said he would kill himself before he allowed me and the kids to have to live in a cold house or lose our home due to mortgage rises. His death in service payout, granted, would make me a wealthy woman....
.but I'd rather have my husband.

How can suicide be considered a way out?? I cant believe we ever had this conversation. I grew up poor, we were poor in our early marriage, this feels so much worse as it feels out of our control as opposed to bad money management in our younger years.

I’m so sad to read this.

I think mental health is really going to suffer because of all this. My own dh has bipolar / severe depression and is really struggling at the moment. The stress and pressure of it all is just dreadful.

Unfortunately I also think for the first time that people will take their lives.
I didn't think this during any recent crisis but with the Pandemic and now this, it's too much
.
People were getting back on their feet again!

I agree the MH issues will escalate and I am sure there will be suicides

The cap is set based on the wholesale price, plus costs and a limited amount of profit. It's the wholesale price that has increased, hence the increase in the price cap.

So the French government has made EDF take the hit for capping price increases at 4% for its population. Could EDF be charging UK customers a lot more to offset that hit ?

My projected bill is £7,000. SEVEN THOUSAND. Four bed semi. It is not possible to have that much to spend per month. It's just not there. So we will go into fuel debt.

Not just picking on EDF, but how can one country's Government ensure a very manageable cap and yet the UK Government is basically greenlighting mass fuel poverty ?
Does anyone know how the £400 promised by the Government, is going to deducted from peoples fuel bills ? How will it actually work ? I thought it was £66 a month off the fuel bill, how will people see that in their bills, so if you have a fixed rate of say £500 a month, will that direct debit be reduced to £444 ?

Based on every other crisis. Tory in charge will say "its down to the individual". This will be followed by pensioner freezing to death and said Tory in charge will deny they were told that could happen, followed by proof that they knew, followed by an enquiry.

Lots of people will cancel Christmas or have an incredibly simple one. I know my family have decided on not spending on anyone apart from the small children.

Apparently it will be applied to your account monthly. I don’t know whether the energy companies will take it off exactly but I think we all need to be very mindful about direct debits we are paying nowadays and especially from October. As now, I’ll be calculating myself what I expect to spend over a year, taking off my current credit and my £400 and dividing by 12 and I will not pay a direct debit arbitrarily set higher than that by my energy company.

Octopus are just reducing your direct debit by £66/month for six months re the £400

Not just picking on EDF, but how can one country's Government ensure a very manageable cap

The French nuclear company EDF is suing its own government for €8.3bn (£7bn) after it was forced to sell energy to consumers at a loss.

It posted its largest ever half-year loss last month, notching up €5.3bn, compared with a profit of €4.2bn a year earlier.

EDF is 84% owned by the French government and last month officials revealed plans to buy the remaining 16% for €12 a share, working out at an estimated total of €9.7bn.

www.theguardian.com/business/2022/aug/10/edf-sues-french-government-for-7bn-after-forced-to-sell-energy-at-a-loss-macron-price-cap

Wouldn't EDF clearly be charging higher rates than other uk suppliers in that case?

There is no such thing as society, remember. Already there are ministers saying that it is a personal decision whether to put the heating on this winter. Tory individualism states that if you can’t afford food or heating then, meh, that’s on you. Should earn more. Non-Tories say: if you’re a low-income Red Wall voter who voted Tory at the last election because Get Brexit Done then it’s kind of on you too.

Don’t they all just charge the cap amount now? (apart from new fixes, they can offer what they want I think on those but you don’t need to take it)

4% cap in France.

Compare that with a 136% rise in the UK, if you combine the April and October rises of 56% and 80%. That isn't taking into account the next increase due in the new year, when inflation is also predicted to hit 18%.

I appreciate that as a nation we are not traditionally as likely to kick off as our French counterparts, and I am not for one minute suggesting any type of violence as a solution, but look at those figures, 4% versus 136%

4% versus 136% !!!

@Clavinova yes I saw they were suing the government for the shortfall, but it still stands that the population of France are only seeing rises of 4% compared to the 136% rise in six months here.
The amount EDF is suing the French government is about half what track and trace cost the UK in the first year, to put it into some sort of perspective.

Life in the UK in 2022 sitting in a dark freezing house, with nowt much to eat except a sandwich, having not had a shower for days, in unwashed clothes, with ice on the windows, damp clothes on airers, watching mould grow up a wall because you can't watch TV.

Fuck that shit.

And we have eco warriors telling us the "party is over" some people never got an invite, and they'll be the first to freeze to death.

We need to drastically rethink our politics and economics. Its all very well exchanging ideas to save energy, but that won't cut it if this continues, and it's from a certain privileged position that some of us can indeed make savings.

For those who never went to the party, they have no way of making further savings. And spouting a lot of ecological religious zealotry about saving the planet whilst ignoring the suffering of individuals is immoral. Some of the advice about turning down the thermostat by a few degrees or scrapping the dishwasher is a bit insensitive when we consider just how many people have been doing this for years.

As for people saying things wouldn't have been different under Labour and Corbyn.....did you actually read the manifesto? and all those liberal left flakey light people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for a 'socialist government' but claim to be Labour supporters, hang your fucking heads in shame. Its not the 'ignorant' ordinary man who voted Tory that deserves ire, but those middle class liberal left of centre nitwits who wouldn't vote for Labour because they don't like socialism.....haha, many calling for strike action, and nationalisation now though not too surprisingly the water is washing up around their knees.

Very well said.

I'm seething that we have no govt in place, how, just how is this actually happening??!!

@MiniTheMinx remind me when the next GE is ?

Because you can blame various sections of society for voting the 'wrong' way until the cows come home, but it won't make the slightest bit of difference to what is happening to everyone now.

'We are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us'

Depends who you're with I think. We had an email from British Gas saying that they'd take the monthly direct debit as normal, then refund the £66 to your bank account. If your monthly DD is less than £66, then they refund the full amount and apply the rest as credit to the account.

I live in a deprived area (we have two of the most deprived wards in England here and a third of children live in poverty - and the majority have parents or a parent that are working). Many have prepayment meters - what will they do if the money/fuel runs out? I am really worried for them.
Ive seen a few comments on various platforms where people have said they just won’t pay their bill/direct debit. Once the money runs out there is not fuel for these families.
I am gobsmacked by a comment above saying that it’s right that those on prepayment meters pay more. Part of the reason that the poor often stay poor is because credit and fuel costs more for these people. Many rented properties have prepayment meters already installed and cannot be changed.

I’m so sorry to read this and concerned by what you mean by this.