WINTER FUEL PAYMENT

[cobden28]

A couple of days ago I received the official letter from the DWP telling me I'm not going to receive the Winter Fuel payment this year because, although I am within the required age group, I'm not in receipt of the listed benefits. I am 69 years of age.
On the same day I also received notifiication from my energy supplier of the amount of my next Direct Debit monthly payment and a request to submit my meter readings. I've contacted the energy supplier and arranged for them to send round a meter reader, so they can't be in a position to dispute the readings oobtained.
Then once I get my billing sorted i'm going to have to work out how to cut my energy bill. My proposed method is to turn off the central heating and only use the gas fire in the living room for heating - I feel uncomfortable if a room is too warm and the gas fire chucks out lots of heat anyway.

People's circumstances can and will change. So that letter (the majority of which is about how to claim pension credit etc) is very necessary.

So it does need to be sent each year. In fact there's more reason for it to go out now, than there was for the previous years' letters which just said ' you qualify and you'll get your WFA soon'

Read the thread. Letters have always been sent out at this time of year, to let people know that they will get WFA. There's no extra expense at all.

Or how about we just don't give it to those who don't actually need it. 😵‍💫

We used to be contacted individually to tell us that we would get it. Personally, I prefer communication over non-communication.

Why don't you RTFT?!

That's a full New state pension. Most pensioners are on the old state pension which is considerably less.

Isn't that what they do for Gift Aid?

And that’s the ceiling for pension credits, ie the point which you’re ineligible for WFA, which is the answer to the question that was asked. 🙄

Older voters are supposed to be traditionally blue so probably a good group for labour to punish Governments tend to be elected on 40% or less of the vote. so it doesn't take much maths to work out that older voters being more likely to vote Conservative doesn't mean that a majority of older voters b=vote Conservative.

Education is another indicator of voting, with higher education levels associated with voting Labour. So are elderly voters voting Conservative because so few of them had the chance of a university education, or are university educated voters voting labour because they are on average younger?

Not at all.

I have already donated my own money when a charity reclaims the tax I have paid.

I'm 68, born very working class, went to university, I have voted Labour in every election since February 1974( just after my 18th birthday). Not always happy with Labour but think the others are much worse.

Yes, the government gives to the charity the tax the you have paid. So it's precisely the government giving you money (refunding the tax you paid) for you to give to the charity of your choice. It just cuts out the middleman.

That's why I don't automatically do gift aid. I dont think every charity necessarily spend money better than the government.

The limit for pensions credits is £218.15 which is less than the new state pension but considerably more than the old state pension which most pensioners are on.

This was an official letter from the DWP, so I'm sure it wasn't a scam.

I've also decided to get a smart meter installed so I can see where my energy usage goes, and fron there I can cut my energy usage and thus reduce my bill somewhat.

You don't need a smart meter to do this. The smart meter won't say "this amount of energy is being used by your freezer, and this amount by your central heating pump. It'll tell you how much you're using at the moment and leave you to work out what's running at the moment and what's causing the high demand

But there's another way to do this. Everything electrical will have a little metal plate on it giving various numbers including, eg "300 watts" or 3 kilowatts". I kilowatt (1000 watts) for 1 hour is a unit of electricity. So something which needs 300 watts takes over 3 hours to use a unit of electricity, whereas something like an electric heater using 3 kilowatts will use a unit of electricity in 20mins.

Or you can google energy costs for various appliances.

So you don't have to wait for your smart meter to find out where your electricity is going.

I think you have to look at what goods you have using electricity/gas. It's very well known that white goods guzzle electric. If you have a second freezer or a tumble drier these are things you could cut back on easily. My nan has three freezers (like WTF there is only two of them in the house) and then complains about her electric bill....

I WFH and during the day whilst I'm working I don't have the central heating on. I do shut the office door and have a small electric radiator. This heats the small room easily. Then when I finish I leave the door open and it makes a noticeable difference to the warmth of upstairs. If you switch to using just a gas fire as previous people have said ensure its serviced and you have a CO monitor nearby. Also be wary of damp in some rooms as they won't be heated as well as before.