EH - Essex > Hebrides...the next step of the adventure?

EssexHebridean

I'm (relatively) low income, my OH would qualify as middle income I'd say - and I know we'll certainly notice the difference come April. we're fortunate - although in part due to foresight and hard work with regard to first taking on a relatively small mortgage rather than over-stretching ourselves, and then working to pay it off early - that in our position our money-into-savings will absorb the hit, if we were paying the 4-figure mortgage that a lot in our age group and household income bracket are still dealing with then I could see that there would be a very different picture playing out though. 

And yes - charities, already in a lot of cases hard hit over the last few years thanks to the pandemic, will certainly get squeezed even more. I suspect  a lot of smaller ones will simply not survive much longer. 

Ironically enough literally as I've been writing that I've just had the email through from EE confirming that my mobile bill will be increasing by best part of 10% too. It'll still be a reasonable amount for what I get - but still, it's another thing to see increasing. Sigh. They won't be the last either - I'm expecting broadly similar from Sky and Vodafone too. 

@Staffordia that's a tricky one with your OH's Mum - I agree she absolutely shouldn't feel she can sit around in short sleeves indoors in the middle of winter though - I bet she wouldn't be so keen to do so if she was picking up the full bill herself! 

The surplus this month is looking a bit thin on the ground - MrEH tells me he forgot his oyster card yesterday so had to apply some travel costs to his own account, so he'll be transferring that, and the Prime payment defaulted to my account this month because of having to get the new joint account debit card so I've just transferred that, too. Aside from that all looking OK - just the one last DD to come out this month now I think - to EDF. 

It feels very middle-of-the-month-just-ticking-over here at the moment. Nothing much going on, nothing to report. I'm intending to go to the gym tonight (but for various reasons that *might* yet change) and unless it stops raining I will most definitely not be going for a walk at lunchtime. 

Tried a small tweak on the heating settings last night too to change the hallway heating to only coming on as the night rate ends - this should mean it's more efficient because it's not trying to charge up AND give out heat at the same time. Allowing we agreed it made relatively little difference this morning I'll probably make the same change to the other weekday mornings now too. (Although that heater is one of the new high-heat-retention ones there is inevitably still a degree of heat-loss while it's charging, and the theory is that this heat loss will do a decent job of warming the place up before the charging stops.)

lucielle

Sounds like a plan regarding the heating. 

L

savingholmes

I think the cost of living crisis is going to hit hard over the next few months. I don't think the current schemes are well thought out. I object in principle to them increasing our debt.

EssexHebridean

Rest of the heating settings altered last night so hopefully we should see at least a small saving off the back of that. 

In other energy news, having accepted my request to increase my gas DD to £10, EDF have now set it at £9 instead. Sigh. That will mean we'll be paying slightly more than we need to until April, but then slightly less than we need to - again. I've just reapplied to change it back to £10 - presumably they thought I just plucked a figure out of the air when I asked before rather than actually doing the sums based on the new figures from April. 

Made it to the gym last night so need to alter my signature again. I'm quite chuffed too - I nearly bottled it last night (As my comment in the post above suggests!), had  various excuses milling about in my head, TOTM; not being able to get out of work early and not being able to collect the car at lunchtime because it was stupidly wet outside - I didn't even go for a walk; "I'm planning on going an extra day this week anyway so I can just switch things around..."  but in the end I got out of the office on the button of my finish time, had a decent run back up the motorway and made it there before 6pm. Of course as so often happens when you nearly don't go I ended up with a good session - and am definitely starting to build in some progress again, particularly on upper body stuff. Also got into London this morning in good time and fitted in a nearly-5 mile loop on the bike before work too meaning I've already hit 18 miles this week (I know, plenty of folk go out and cycle that or further in a single jaunt, but not on my little foldy bike with it's "only" 6 gears, they don't! ). 

Surveys still seem slow, but I have had confirmation from TCB that they're now forwarding my v0d@fone ticket to the retailer for consideration. Allowing that I have an order number, and it can only have been due to a glitch that it didn't track properly (the click shows but never tracked) I'm at least slightly hopeful that it might yet pay out. 

lucielle

Fingers crossed the survey comes through.  Well done on the training!  I should back at the gym on Friday
L

EssexHebridean

Morning all - quite a blustery one down here today again although nothing compared to what's been hitting up North. Tomorrow however things turn around rather as we have an amber warning for wind down here - this is almost unheard of for our area, and you can guarantee there will be sufficient numbers of idiots who decide it's not really that serious that it'll keep the emergency services busy.  Today though we have brilliant sunshine, the clearest blue sky imaginable, and just enough of a wind to make cycling this morning rather more difficult than it needed to be! Still, another nearly 5 miles racked up, and that takes me to over 25 for the week. 

Port stir fry for tea last night was lovely - honestly, that bargainous pork shoulder has given us some really nice meals and there's still some left too. I'll certainly happily grab another one if Mozzas repeat the offer and I can get to a supermarket-sized store. Talking of Mozzas I've just reserved a TGTG bag from our local "daily" store to collect this evening - two reasons, first it'll work as an incentive to go to the gym tonight - otherwise I'll have to go out specially to collect it which will be a pain, and second that I'm curious to see what it will have in it as that's really more of a convenience store than anything else. It *might* influence plans for tea tonight too - I've got omelettes pencilled in, but will judge whether I stick with that based on the bag I think. I'm also hoping that might provide something interesting for tea tomorrow evening - fingers crossed. 

For the gym tonight then the plan is to do mostly cardio with possibly a core strength set and a decent stretching session. Then I'll go for my second full strength session of the week on Saturday - MrEH has rugby anyway (unless it's cancelled which is possible if the side they're travelling to have waterlogged pitches) so I may as well go then. Gym's usually lovely and quiet on saturdays too! 

Looks like our electricity bill is likely to pretty much double when the cap changes thanks to the way our provider is structuring their pricing - our night-rate is looking likely to go from just under 8p a unit to best part of 19p - and the SC pretty much doubling too. Eye watering. "Just" the 4p a unit on the day rate - never thought that would come as any sort of relief! It's annoying because the whole point of the way the cap is being dealt with is meant to mean that the electricity unit rates get affected less - sadly it doesn't work that way if you're on E7 though and there will be a lot like us for whom a 54% increase would have been an absolute steal. We get hammered with the increased SC AND the unit rate. Ironically it may still be that our provider will be one of the cheapest as well. Sigh. 

RelievedSheff

Just had our new rates through as well. They estimate that we will be paying an extra £533 per year after April and that doesn't factor in any more increases come October when the cap is reviewed again. 

Our standing charge for electric has gone from 18.9p to 44.75p per day with the unit rate changing from 20.89p per kWh to 27.62p per kWh.

Gas standing charge was 18.9p and has gone to 27.2p per day and gas rates are changing from 4.2p per kWh to 7.28p per kWh.

girlatplay

@RelievedSheff your new rates are sounding very similar to mine although my elec sc is going from 18.9 to 49.646.

You are really getting there with the gym cost EH.  Good plan to collect the TGTG bag in the same trip.  I hope you get some nice food in it.

savingholmes

Good luck with the energy... They will hopefully manage to reduce carbon if they get to the point where no-one can afford it any more!!!

enthusiasticsaver

Paspatur said:

enthusiasticsaver said:

 

We are able to afford it but even those on middle incomes will find it tough with the NI raise from April. 

I don't understand the NI part of this comment as I no longer know what middle income means
I did a calculation for various scenarios:
My income before retirement £86k - an extra £955 a year - would I have noticed - no
My income now part time post retirement for a charity £10.5k - an extra £11 a year - will I notice it  - no
2 people on middle income (is that £45k each) an extra £443 a year each - they may notice it but their income is still high
Person on minimum wage £18,525 an extra £112 per year - you better believe they will notice it on top of increased fuel bills
And the charity I work for will also notice the employers NI increase on top of fuel bills increasing by 50% and more while suffering cutbacks on funding as our funders also suffer increased costs and goverment cuts

I would count middle income as the average salary in the UK which is about £25k.  £86k is high so not surprised you would not notice it.