MSE News: MSE's new Bills Tracker reveals the REAL cost of inflation on bills

Former_MSE_Rosie

MoneySavingExpert.com has launched a new monthly Bills Tracker which uses official data to show how a typical household's bills and expenses change each month - and the first figures show average costs increased by 2.1% in the 12 months to July 2017...

Read the full story:
'MSE's new Bills Tracker reveals the REAL cost of inflation on household bills'

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max2002ad

I found this really interesting and could see the potential for a website where we can enter our own information and see how that tracks against your measure.

onesixfive

Bills tracker - great - but please point out the Insurance rises are mainly due to tax !
The government has doubled it

4 January 2011 to 31 October 2015 - a standard rate of 6%
1 November 2015 to 30 September 2016 - a standard rate of 9.5%
1 October 2016 to 31 May 2017- a standard rate of 10%
From 1 June 2017, the standard rate is 12%

liviboy

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41017972

BBC Article about the MSE tracker suggesting we are all imagining the squeeze on our incomes....

Charis

I wonder why you chose to leave out the food and council tax bills? As a retired pensioner, my food/cleaning/basic toiletries bill is my largest, followed by my council tax bill. Even with the single person discount, my council tax is higher than my fuel bill for a three bedroom bungalow. Our council added an additional 3% precept this year, for the care of elderly people in council funded accommodation, as well as the usual annual rise.

torphi

We've focused on bills rather than expenses such as food, and stripped out items included in the CPIH that you're unlikely to buy often, if at all, such as rugs, door handles, a ten-pin bowling session and knitting wool. In other words, this is designed to be a real bills index reflecting typical household costs.

So everyday cost such as food, toiletries and household consumables are not included. Not sure why this is likely to reflect typical household costs more accurately. A family could easily spend £2,500 to £5,000 a year on these items which would be a significantly greater expense compared with insurance, TV licence or many of the other items listed.

eskbanker

The cynic would observe that MSE's criteria for inclusion are likely to be based on driving traffic elsewhere on the site - the "How can I use this info to save money?" section at the end includes:

Our Bills Tracker also highlights price rises and falls in specific areas, which should give you a better idea of benchmark-prices, what may cost you more and what you can try to save on. MSE has a full range of guides showing how to save on the bills we look at, for example:

i.e. the selected bills are those where comparative benchmarking is both relatively straightforward and already performed in existing MSE articles....

[Deleted User]

Lies, damn lies and statistics.
So home energy prices only went up 5.1% over the year?
Well my new gas deal will be 17% more and the electricity was 20% more (1 year fixes from low cost suppliers last year to the latest lowest cost deals) and I cannot get anything with less of a rise than that.
And there is the problem with averages over a whole country over the whole energy market.
I know what my inflation rate is and it is not 5.1% by some way.

eskbanker

gsmlnx wrote: »

Lies, damn lies and statistics.
So home energy prices only went up 5.1% over the year?
Well my new gas deal will be 17% more and the electricity was 20% more (1 year fixes from low cost suppliers last year to the latest lowest cost deals) and I cannot get anything with less of a rise than that.
And there is the problem with averages over a whole country over the whole energy market.
I know what my inflation rate is and it is not 5.1% by some way.

On the flip side, I signed up to a new dual-fuel energy contract yesterday at 5% lower than my previous one (although to be fair that was only from April rather than a year ago).

Of course, this endorses your point about averages and how little relevance they have to individuals!

The_Jakal

Surely not? :rotfl:

eskbanker wrote: »

The cynic would observe that MSE's criteria for inclusion are likely to be based on driving traffic elsewhere on the site - the "How can I use this info to save money?" section at the end includes:i.e. the selected bills are those where comparative benchmarking is both relatively straightforward and already performed in existing MSE articles....

prugone

I'm afraid stories like this hold little store with me. In April this year Eon informed me that it was putting up my Economy 10 tariff by 16% (day rate) and 22.5% (night rate) resulting overall in a 20% increase in my next year's costs. When I asked the reason for the differing increases I was told 'it's a business decision'. Economy 10 doesn't appear to be widely available so I don't have much choice. As energy costs probably rate only second to mortgages and rent in people's budgets I would suggest increases in this area have far more impact on budgets than decreases in smaller ticket items!