AIBU to be worried about rising fuel and energy costs this winter?

[HonorBound]

on Monday went past Sainsbury and fuel was £1.61, went past Tesco tonight and its £1.70 - I'm guessing they've all put their prices up and there are 3 supermarkets within 1.5 miles

I'm leaving the car at home as much as possible, and certainly used less fuel than I normally would have by half way through the month

gas is going up on 1 October along with electric

things are going to be tight this winter

As I said on the other thread, it’s not “worried” that we should be. We need to be ANGRY. The millionaire politicians need to notice that we are being bitten on all sides by the ever-increasing costs (and I say that one reason for some of them was month after month of LOCKDOWN, something being quietly forgotten). If the politicians are quietly doing nothing to try to price people off the road, like Sir Tony fucking Bliar did, then they should be making other things trains more affordable. (And don’t say “get an EV, mine costs nothing to run” the set up costs and repairs are very, very high.)

Sooner or later, the people will rise up in anger, especially those who need to drive to earn their living. At the moment, they’re just tutting and sighing about high prices, and getting angry about immigration instead, but the public anger might happen eventually, when their earnings are wiped out by the cost of getting to work. The government isn’t even bothering with the Boris Johnson approach of waffling complete nonsense while doing precisely nothing.

wages are to low and if we were angry rather than passive, we’d be protesting about the low wages.

when you e got the likes of Starbucks putting staff on salary instead of hourly paid, so they don’t get paid for overtime

tesco, staff 50p over nmw (they employed 330,000 total staff) and £937 million paid to shareholders, yet a large proportion of the staff claim UC. So we pay tax which indirectly goes to a large company to top up their wages. Wages need to be raised to lower the tax burden

when are we going to be frustrated enough to protest about the greed of keeping workers on handouts

You probably know this, but in case anyone doesn’t, if your employer pays below the 55p rate, you can claim tax relief on the gap. Obviously it’s not as good as if the employer paid it but if you do a lot of mileage then it’s probably worth doing.

Also your employer needs to make sure your necessary expenses don’t take you below NMW. For NMW purposes, it’s actual expenses (so actual fuel costs), not the 55p rate.

I’m honestly thinking it would be cheaper to book a 6 mth out of season hotel room in Spain than funding a winter here .

President Fart is the root cause of it. He is so stupid; why don’t his advisors keep him busy building big structures and just make all the policies themselves?
On the positive side, currently government subsidies for air source heat pumps are very generous and as a result we are able to switch from oil heating to a heat pump which will save us thousands (currently costs us around £1000 for half a tank of oil).

We’ve just filled the oil tank at double the cost of the last fill. I’m thankful that menopause has made me run hot and no longer feel the cold.

To be fair, the current government subsidies for bus travel are very generous. It’s really helped us with the cost of our son getting to college.
We’ve switched to electric cars which also helps (no available bus routes to get to work).

If you’re on oil the BUS is very generous.
www.gov.uk/apply-boiler-upgrade-scheme/what-you-can-get

I still fail to understand how we have such a poor and expensive public transport system. I can’t understand that a train ticket costs more than a flight or that young people can’t use railcards for season tickets. Make it cost effective and no brainer for people to use trains instead of cars, better for the environment too.

Honestly, I just want to cry. Petrol is 179 here and I live 20 miles away from nearest small town, and 10 miles away from the children’s school. On an average day I need to travel 80 miles just for school and work. Buses are very limited and don’t match up time-wise at all.

Only around one third of UC are in any kind of work. Interestingly, the government don’t monitor how many hours, so how many are in full time work is unknown. But it won’t be all of them, would you agree?
The highest proportion of UC (50% and rising) is paid to the “no working requirements” group.
If employees are not being properly paid, I agree, that needs addressing, but this narrative that the majority of UC is paid to the full time “working poor” is not supported by the governments own statistics.

No investment for years & a lot of the electorate aren’t interested in voting for things that would improve the lives of the young.

In Scotland the Young Scot card allows young people free bus travel up to the age of 21 or 22. Sorry I can't remember. But it makes a huge difference to their independence as they reach high school age.

One of my DC has a C+1 as he's classed as disabled so I get on the bus for free as his companion.

Depending on which part of Scotland you live, some get free access to trams too.

More needs to be done in rUK to follow suit and make it accessible for all.

I'm really worried. I have all electric heating with old storage heaters.

Luckily I am retired so no longer have to drive to work, but I do have to drive very regularly to my very elderly parents with a 300 mile round trip. I have no choice with this, but the cost of petrol it's becoming really worrying as to how long I can actually afford to do this.
I use the bus if I go anywhere else.

I would like to see UC for working people prevented, we can't keep blaming the government for the greed of large companies.

Fuel was £1.65 last week and 2 days later the file has increased to £1.71 - the same fuel on the forecourt, a delivery hasn't come in yet the same fuel is increased in price. Whilst the government tax the fuel both duty and VAT, it hasn't increased this duty for 14 years. It has decreased the duty for a period of time.

No forecourt protests about price increases though

Who is blaming the government? And as I’ve said, the governments OWN STATISTICS do not reflect that is in an issue with “greed of large companies”
If more than 50% of UC have no requirements to work, shouldn’t we be looking at why?

Fewer and fewer people use buses. It’s a vicious circle. I know that the local bus company is run on very tight margins and the buses they use are not top of the range and I never bought brand-new.

I would say that the electorate is not interested in subsidising a transport system that mostly is being irrelevant. I wish it were different. There seems to be no comprehension that a better system would have to be paid for. Currently, it only viable if it runs on subsidies, as it is..

The only people who can use buses are those in cities . I don’t even have a bus service.

It's definitely encouraging me to only do essential journeys. However im rural so the car is our only means of transport. Also have a long journey to get ds to uni. I'm looking to buy a super mini car longer term.

We didn't have our heating bearly on two years ago. Last year it was set at 16. I was never cold as a child. Something I can't provide for my kids dispite being relatively much better off than my parents.

It's shit. I'm a cleaner and have to use my little 13 year old car to get to my customers who are mainly rural and very spaced out. It's starting to get to the point where there's no point in going to work. I can't put my prices up as I'm already losing customers who are also suffering with the cost of living.

I think we can blame the government in some ways. We didnt get a pay rise when they increased national insurance for business. Costs for businesses are rising (some of which are the governments fault) which means no pay rises.

Were i work has made a loss for 2 years. Luckily the family that own it are happy to invest to keep it running or 400 of us would lose our jobs.

I know all fuel is more expensive, but home heating oil is given much less attention and users are really suffering. Between December 2025 and March 2026, the price per litre almost tripled. I was lucky in needing a to fill up when the conflict was a little quieter (July), at which point it was just over double what I'd paid in December. Then Trump dropped more bombs and the price has risen again. At least with gas/electricity, you can get a fixed price for a period of time. With oil, there is absolutely no control. And, due to the laws around distribution of oil and calibration of delivery vehicles, you can rarely order less than 500 litres.

My mum lives rurally and doesn't have gas, so has an oil tank instead for her central heating. She enquired a few weeks ago about getting it topped up for winter, and was quoted 99p per litre. She says that's the most it's ever been in 15 years of living there! It's normally somewhere between 70-80p. As a result, she cut her order size down, and just got a bit. She's hoping the prices drop a bit, and then she'll top up again.
Fortunately, she's not short of money, so it doesn't really matter a jot if she ends up paying more, but for her it was more the principle of the thing.

The petrol station nearest me was 171 this morning. It's usually one of the cheapest in town.

I've just been looking at my Octopus account online. I was loads in credit, so I've requested a refund, and reduced my direct debit by £18. I'd rather keep my money in my own account, thanks.

Yup - I’m basically being extremely frugal with my oil heating on and just saving my supply for the coming winter. I have an electric blanket which is pretty cheap to run and keeps me warm at my desk and during the evenings.

I use electricity sparingly already though my standing charge is a third of the bill annoyingly. Rarely put the oven on as I have an air fryer.

I think it was actually more than that earlier this year. It’s normally around 68p a lite plus VAT.

It’s horrendous being on oil and there’s no financial help.