This is getting ridiculous (energy prices - Strictly NO referrals!)

Caporegime
Joined
20 May 2007
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39,703
Location
Surrey
Just ordered 1100 ltrs of heating oil - 60p a ltr so total bill of £700 ish.

Filled up with Diesel this morning at £1.53 ltr.

Elec I was paying £14 for 72 units and now paying same for 60 units a week.

Won't be able to buy loo rolls now till next year.

Well you can sleep soundly knowing that because of this, the rich will only get richer.

They will be picking out new furnishings for their yacht with the extra money you are spending.
 
Soldato
Joined
29 Mar 2007
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4,484
Location
Swindon UK
Most modern LED or LCD TV's probably use less power for a 55 or 65 inch screen than the old 21 or 24 inch square TV's. We long ago replaced all our tungsten bulbs with CFL or LED bulbs. We have stopped using the home cinema amp most evenings.
As regards heating, well as I mentioned our boiler is waiting replacement so in the meantime no option but to burn through electricity with the immersion for water and lugging convector heaters around as needed. We live in a country where it is cool if not downright cold for a greater part of the year and there are few options if you want to keep warm.

Not sure what the answer is... Rollback the price cap to what it was before but that would take guts from the government, something they don't have. Renationalise power? Not going to happen with a large majority right wing Tory government, even then you still have the wholesale price over which they have no control.

So I guess there's little option but to up and pay it, just hope when CPI/RPI for upcoming pay and pension rises is considered, the changes will be factored in.
 
Soldato
Joined
15 Sep 2008
Posts
2,521
I've received a few quotes for 1,200 litres of heating oil today, so far:

- 61.9ppl ex 5% VAT, total - £779.94
- 69.0ppl ex 5% VAT, total - £869.40

Still waiting for other quotes to come in. Switched over to the biomass boiler for the meantime. Think I'll be getting another 20 tonnes of logs from the forestry commission if oil prices keep going up like a ballistic missile (oh, how on trend :D).
 
Tea Drinker
Don
Joined
13 Apr 2010
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18,419
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Sunny Sussex
My view is it’s our own fault, two decades of wanting everything the cheapest no matter what 4p tins of beans, a weeks shopping for £40.

Only the big boys with cash could keep trading, the smaller fry couldn’t keep up now they can charge what they want.

See Amazon after driving high streets to closure are now on the high street like an Argos.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Aug 2006
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10,034
Location
ChCh, NZ
Inflation apparently hitting 7% here in NZ but I can honestly saying we're not feeling it. We've switched electrical suppliers and get 3 hours a day free electricity use. Which means we absolutely cane it and use dishwasher, showers, tumble dryer, heat pumps in that time. Our bill has literally halved. It's now roughly £60 a month for electricity with someone at home at all times.

Fuel is a biggie but I have a company vehicle with fuel card. Wife WFH full time so very little driving with her car. But I can see how much fuel has increased when we fill her car.

Food we just bulk buy specials so we're still only spending about £70 a week for a family of 3.

There's ways and means to hold expenses steady or even decrease it by cutting unnecessary spending.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Mar 2006
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22,990
Location
N.E England
Personally I have already started my medium-term budgeting on where I can cut costs, planning to cancel subscriptions when the contracted period ends etc. My Sky subscription is already gone (saving £60/month) and likewise when things like mobile contracts lapse, we'll scale everything back. If it comes to it we'll stop the extra-curricular activities for the kids too, no more swimming lessons, music lessons etc (swimming lessons are £50/month per child at our local pool).

Why should you lower your standard of living though?

Demand more pay!! Everyone should have or should be having that conversation with employer
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
91,168
Why should you lower your standard of living though?

Demand more pay!! Everyone should have or should be having that conversation with employer

Many larger companies the only way to get any kind of real pay increase is with collective bargaining and the likes. We have set pay bands at work and no flexibility - the only way to increase your pay is moving into a new role or picking up extra responsibilities which aren't necessarily there.

For an individual often the only way to get a meaningful pay increase is to leverage the experience they have at one company to get a higher paying job elsewhere and that is easier said than done.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Mar 2009
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6,607
Location
Nottingham
My view is it’s our own fault, two decades of wanting everything the cheapest no matter what 4p tins of beans, a weeks shopping for £40.

Only the big boys with cash could keep trading, the smaller fry couldn’t keep up now they can charge what they want.

I agree with this other than the last part as your assuming the big boys are just charging what they want for the sake of it. Most of this ******** is due to increased network costs, increased wholesale prices and paying for the small boys who played the game too close to the wire and paid the price so now everyones copping the cost.

I work for one of the big boys and i've had 4 years of pay freeze without a penny more while RPI/ inflation continued and my living costs increased. Finally for 2022/23 we get a pay rise of 4% which doesnt cover the last 4 years of pay freeze.

One of the biggest problems is people are way too wasteful with most things or living beyond thier means so increase in prices hit hard and the outrage swells
 
Don
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Why should you lower your standard of living though?

Demand more pay!! Everyone should have or should be having that conversation with employer

Because thats the short-term future we face. Covid has caused a massive hit to the economy, furlough schemes, incentives, healthcare costs (including costs of testing and T&T which were estimated to cost £2billion PER MONTH for the UK).

We will have a recession in the next 1-2 years, and better the devil you know with employers and working conditions. My current job is stable with low chance of facing redundancy, and a long service history means that even if I were made redundant, I'd walk away with the equivilant of a years salary to keep me going.

A job change is certainly in the future, but with dependents and bills to pay, some of us can't afford the risk to change jobs right now.
 
Associate
Joined
23 May 2004
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2,178
Because thats the short-term future we face. Covid has caused a massive hit to the economy, furlough schemes, incentives, healthcare costs (including costs of testing and T&T which were estimated to cost £2billion PER MONTH for the UK).

We will have a recession in the next 1-2 years, and better the devil you know with employers and working conditions. My current job is stable with low chance of facing redundancy, and a long service history means that even if I were made redundant, I'd walk away with the equivilant of a years salary to keep me going.

A job change is certainly in the future, but with dependents and bills to pay, some of us can't afford the risk to change jobs right now.

I think many thought that Covid was free and shutting the country down for a year would have no cost what so ever.
 
Soldato
Joined
12 Mar 2006
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22,990
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N.E England
Because thats the short-term future we face. Covid has caused a massive hit to the economy, furlough schemes, incentives, healthcare costs (including costs of testing and T&T which were estimated to cost £2billion PER MONTH for the UK).

We will have a recession in the next 1-2 years, and better the devil you know with employers and working conditions. My current job is stable with low chance of facing redundancy, and a long service history means that even if I were made redundant, I'd walk away with the equivilant of a years salary to keep me going.

A job change is certainly in the future, but with dependents and bills to pay, some of us can't afford the risk to change jobs right now.

It's not just about changing jobs but I would hope that you've had the conversation about a pay rise in your annual appraisal. Stressing the things you've had to cut back on, and effects of inflation? What was the company's profit and turnover result?

Too many people aren't pushing forwards and just accepting this.. something has to give
 
Don
Joined
24 Feb 2004
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-
It's not just about changing jobs but I would hope that you've had the conversation about a pay rise in your annual appraisal. Stressing the things you've had to cut back on, and effects of inflation? What was the company's profit and turnover result?

Too many people aren't pushing forwards and just accepting this.. something has to give

I've had a payrise but at just 5% it doesn't even cover the increase in energy costs from April, let alone the increased 1% NI, fuel costs, insurance costs, food costs etc. And we're expecting another 50% increase in energy costs in October this year. Even with a payrise we are seeing a massive hit to our "disposable" income hence cutting back on the non-essentials too. To *only* cover the increase in energy costs I would need a 12-15% payrise which is never going to happen without changing jobs.

We're far from becoming destitute but small adjustments now means we can avoid big issues in the future.

If things get really bleak then we can pull back from pension contributions too.
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Jun 2005
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In the middle
Why should you lower your standard of living though?

Demand more pay!! Everyone should have or should be having that conversation with employer
Isn't the argument that that will just fuel inflation, and the merry go round continues? Anyone not rich enough is going to feel the squeeze over the next few years.
 
Soldato
Joined
21 Jan 2010
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22,248
Isn't the argument that that will just fuel inflation, and the merry go round continues? Anyone not rich enough is going to feel the squeeze over the next few years.
Yes, but who GAF? We aren't that socialist that we'll take a dent to our personal pockets when there are fat cats sitting on billions.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2008
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11,493
Location
Lisburn, Northern Ireland
I have no idea how some people are going to handle next winter. I assume the government will do what they always do. Lump the costs on the poor and then when the poor can't afford it they will just move the burden onto the next rung up. Wouldn't want the wealthy or multinational companies to suffer would you.

Thankfully we are just coming out of the winter so bills should be going down again but for many they will just be counting down the days until the winter sets in again.

There seriously should be some sort of uprising when the average person can barely heat their house and run their car and the companies who providing the service are posting record profits. Its utterly scummy and disgusting and the perfect metaphor for the state of capitalism.

Nailed it.
 
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