Feeling the pinch of the price rises...

daelaan

I recently signed up to the british gas price lock-in till 2011 - nice of them to only advertise price lock-ins *after* they'd put up the price by 33%, but still....

Haven't used the gas much since the price rise, as I wanted to remain as economical as possible with usage, to see if a much lower rate of use would equal much lower bills, or if the 33% increase really was going to kick me where it hurts regardless of what I'd consider "minimal" use.

Well, haven't had the updated electricity bill through for the last 3 months, but the gas one came in today - my old DD was 40 quid, its now going to be 75 quid a month from december! :mad:

unreal. shall i take bets on when the riots in the streets begin? i can't see anything but "huge breaking point" approaching with these kinds of prices coming into play.

1carminestocky

There will be millions of people shocked over the coming months. We have to accept that we on this forum are atypical of the population at large - most people even when they read of the rises in the papers don't actually give it a second thought and go on using fuel like they always have. Then the bill arrives, lol.

I'm currently driving my neighbours/best friends mad telling them they really should use fuel more frugally. Tumble dryer going all day, on a perfectly sunny day all EIGHT halogen lights on in the kitchen, TV on upstairs even though it hasn't been watched since breakfast time, outside security light set to ALWAYS ON. Madness, I keep telling them their domestic fuel cost has effectively risen 50% since the last Winter and the bill will be horrendous but to no avail.

Premier_2

Oh dear...another one who doesn't understand how payment by DD monthly actually works.

If the £40 was really what you were consuming previously and the price rise was the advertised 35%, then you should only need to pay £54 due to the price rise.

However, you were probably consuming more than you were paying previously and that probably hasn't changed so now not only have you to find the funds to pay the increased unit charge, but to pay off the debt you have built up.

There is already an Ofgen report stating that the current situation of giving those on DD substantial discounts should end.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1202771

The quicker they implement that, hopefully the quicker people will revert to paying on receipt of bill and avoid all this confusion

Magentasue

daelaan, do you know how much gas you used last year? If your usage in kwh is likely to remain the same, or will be less, calculate your annual bill and divide by 12. If the required monthlt payment is nearer £40, than £75, run you figures by BG and negotiate. If it's nearer £75, at least you won't have a large debit balance next summer.

iamesbo

What is going on with gas prices is criminal.
The price of oil has more than halved.
The price of heating oil has halved.
The price of natural gas in the USA almot halved.

All those prices are linked you can see it from the price charts of each commodity.
http://markets.ft.com/markets/commodities.asp

The price we pay for gas is also linked, but only when the price goes up apparently.

You won't find the real price for natural gas in the UK on the FT site though because it a 'bit of a secret', they don;t want you to know you are paying twice the price you
should be paying.

The people who run the gas market are crooks who are rigging the price and vastly over charging the customers. If I ran the country I would throw the lot of them in jail
(at the very least).

iamesbo

Natural gas prices in the USA.
http://markets.ft.com/tearsheets/performance.asp?s=us@ng.1

Price of oil in the UK
http://markets.ft.com/tearsheets/performance.asp?s=GB@IB.1

Note the similarity, note the peaks note the drops.


So why have our prices not dropped?

Answer - Criminial price rigging and corruption.