F*ck it. I am not having heating on ever again....

[Flamesparrow]

"So for a home with average usage, Click Energy 5 gas prices have risen on average by 42% and electricity on average by 21%."

42%!?!?!?! They are already taking £69 a month from me for gas, which leaves us with sod all for I dunno, food etc!

yes, you can!

in fact, last month, someone posted their recipe for slow cooker porridge on here and i used it.

it was good.

Definitely check on Uswitch Flame, Eon came out best for us and I got money back going through Quidco. But I guess you are a few miles away so it could vary. Ours is a capped rate and we are paying £65 a month for gas and electricity combined. I have started putting away another £10 a month as I don't think £65 is quite going to do it.

We've only had the gas on for about 1.5 hours so far and the house is covered with fleece blankets, sleeping bags etc, which has helped a lot with keeping the central heating off.

im only paying £78 pm - i was so concerned , i even phoined them up after reading this thread.

so anyway just came to gloat

This is about the only time I wish I was over 60ys old...you get help with your fuel bills by virtue of the 'fuel allowance'....why can't that same allowance be given to families with young children? I'm sure there are plenty of over 60's in this country who are better off financially than us who are struggling to make ends meet.

@ Custy!

I have no idea what ours is realistically - they set up a DD when we changed to them, assured me many times that it was the right amount, then sent me the last bill telling me it was ridiculously low and upped it by £stupid to pay back what we owe and cover future stuff. I have no idea how the next 1/4 will work out as a result.

As a general rule I am a fairly intelligent woman who understands most mathematical things - but gas & elec bills leave me just gazing blankly at the numbers

When we had our last lot of electricity and gas statements (back in the Summer) both our DDs were put up to £80 each per month. I rang the supplier (SEB) and told them not to put them up because we simply couldn't afford it. I asked why they'd put them up and they admitted they did so to cover us through the Winter (and their rises in charges)...so in effect we would have had to pay that extra charge just to keep them happy over the Winter - ie start paying them up front for our Winter fuel costs. They agreed to leave them as they were and should our bills turn out to be a lot higher, and us in debt, we'll pay them with a cheque.

I'm sure there are plenty of over 60's in this country who are better off financially than us who are struggling to make ends meet.

Well exactly Whispy. My ILs are just off for a quick few weeks in Costa Rica to 'get them by' before they spend a couple of months in NZ in the new year. My parents are just back from Namibia and wondering whether to replace the BMW.... Both sets have completely paid off the mortgages on their 4 bed houses and have nice final salary pension schemes. They all get bus passes and winter heating allowances.... They're not worrying about putting the heating on or how much petrol the car uses but we are and I'm sure the cold etc would affect the baby to a greater extent than them.... I'm sure that there's huge numbers like them but I suppose it'd be too expensive to do it on a means tested basis.

woops italics didn't work but you know what I mean

so true, whispy.

do you all live in mansions?

we had a huge 3 bed terrace and our gas and electric was about £80 all in

COCK

I moved to Click Energy 5 a fortnight ago

COCK COCK COCK

Whispy & Catz - you're right with old uns being well off - I was talking with my ma the other day, & we both agreed that her generation (mid 60's) are probably the last one to be comfortably off in retirement.

I think dh and i will have to work till the day we die, and forget about ever retiring

How could this situation arise?

nope, OO. we rent a 3bed bungalow that was built in 1902, has crap secondary glazing, tons of big windows, stone walls, an old boiler, old radiators and LPG.

MP - move to click 6, tis lower

Oh, we're in a 2 bed mid terrace with a v drafty back door. I have always been one for having a hot house though

this happened to us too flame, we ended up £700 in arrears after paying the dd amount they requested -awful!!! Then, to cover the backlog they suddeny wanted to increase our payments to £190/month. I nearly imploded with panic as was on ML at the time

We are all in woolly jumpers this year!

Yes I will move to Click 6, dammit

they are so crafty

haven't put heating on yet though, although I AM wearing a scarf and hat indoors

I've realised I spend most evenings snuggled under a duvet anyway (for the comfort factor) - the kids don't feel the cold, so tis only DH that will suffer mwahahahaha

its ridiculous wer paying about £160 a month for gas and leccy and we dont even have the gas on, wer playing catch up from last winter.\its the price of a car loan!! next door pay £340 a month for theyr gas!!!!

£340 per month for gas!!!! My last quarterly gas bill was £40. I have yet to put the heating on and I am in Edinburgh.

Just checked and our gas bill is currently £63 a month - including a recent increase. That is for a big draughty three storey Victorian house, admittedly with a new (two years old) energy efficient boiler>

Horrified at some of the numbers others seem to have to cope with.. we pay £45 pm gas and £34pm elec... 1932 semi much extended but with new boiler (2 yrs old), but do have room thermostats and insist on vests and jumpers!!

Just to annoy you all a bit more-do you realise that even pensioners who live abroad get the winter fuel allowance? Even those who live in hot countries still get it.Mad!

We've just had a plumber round tonight to quote us for a new combi boiler, in the hope that our bills will go down. But they're not that bad compared to some - we pay 100 a month for both! We are careful yes but probably no more than a lot of people now.
The last owners of our house installed v expensive lighting and underfloor heating, we don't use any of it and instead have rugs and energy saving lamps... got rid of tumble dryer. For half the year we don't use our boiler, shower is electric.
npower screwed up and say we still owe them arrears, that one's still in dispute!
Am over some of the amounts here..

I have a ground floor 3 bed flat with Economy 7 storage heaters no gas and was getting £400 quarterley bills from Eon, the storage heaters are useless unless it is really cold for a long time as they take so long to heat up and if you are out all day which we are then you are missing all the heat anyway! but after two years of these bills i had a chat with a chap at eon and we talked through what aplliances i had and how often they are used and shock horror the culprit was an electric towel rail in the bathroom which i had on 24/7 as there is no other heating in there so switched it off PDQ and switched to scottish power and hey presto my quarterley bill have been reduced dramatically to under £200 per quarter, that towel rail was costing me over £200 every quarter!!!Need less to say it is heading for the freecyclers with a warning!!! It is also blankets and lots of layers, also the slow cooker is being dusted off along with a little fan heater which will be used in dire situations such as snow just to take the chill off !!