It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

London_1

I'll do my best chums , its not the fall that hurts its the sudden stop,especially when I'm draped across the tv and coffee table very undignified for a lady of mature age
(sound like a lump of cheese ) 
Thank you all for you kind wishes
Just going to have my first cuppa of the day  

JackieO xx

FrugalThymes

Ugh, T3sco moan. Haven't been grocery shopping for about 6 weeks maybe longer, because I've been doing Asd4 online shops, but we had to go out last night. The whole clubcard thing is bonkers. We forgot the card and the phone with the app on it, so really had to pay attention to prices even more than usual. 
Firstly, as my mum is visiting and has food issues (not just pickiness where I'd be like, lol, buy your own then ) I had to look for her safe foods and just prices in general, woah. So much of the value range stuff was out of stock and the 'next step up' was so expensive. The non-clubcard prices on some things were a 50% or more increase, and honestly seemed like the things with clubcard prices are just what a product SHOULD cost with non-clubcard prices massively inflated. I don't know, just feels a bit ick. 

I guess the small bonus is I've realised just how much of a difference it makes to cook most things from scratch, try new frugal dishes, batch cook, eat less meat and generally just pay more attention - so that's a bit of encouragement for when it feels arduous. 

YoungBlueEyes

I agree about tesco clubcard prices, the whole thing seems like a con to me.

I mentioned this a while ago on another thread - I buy himself facial moisturiser from tesco because it's one his skin likes.  Having been £2.79/£2.99 for ages, it then appeared on the clubcard price thing as being 'reduced' from £4 to £3.50.  It had never been either £4 or £3.50 so how are they allowed to call that a reduction?  If it's not actually illegal (which I think it should be), it is at least immoral. 

I don't shop in tesco's at all any more.

QueenJess

linz said:

YoungBlueEyes said:

I remember reading on the energy board a while ago about paying by DD or paying as the bill came.  Someone pointed out that while the overpayments and slightly increased DDs are annoying, and the 'better in my pocket than theirs' thing is valid, remember that a bank balance in the black is what keeps these companies afloat.  It's only £2 to you, but it's lots of £2's to them, and keeps them from going under.  Then when they need bailing out (eg Bulb) the rescue package puts far more than £2 on everyone's bill.....

I'm seriously thinking about this. I think I read the post that you're quoting. The only thing putting me off is how much dearer it is to do compared to paying by DD. I do this already with my water bill as they wanted to charge me £28 a month whereas I only actually use about £18 !

You can do both and have a variable DD to only pay for what you’ve used.

KxMx

QueenJess said:

linz said:

YoungBlueEyes said:

I remember reading on the energy board a while ago about paying by DD or paying as the bill came.  Someone pointed out that while the overpayments and slightly increased DDs are annoying, and the 'better in my pocket than theirs' thing is valid, remember that a bank balance in the black is what keeps these companies afloat.  It's only £2 to you, but it's lots of £2's to them, and keeps them from going under.  Then when they need bailing out (eg Bulb) the rescue package puts far more than £2 on everyone's bill.....

I'm seriously thinking about this. I think I read the post that you're quoting. The only thing putting me off is how much dearer it is to do compared to paying by DD. I do this already with my water bill as they wanted to charge me £28 a month whereas I only actually use about £18 !

You can do both and have a variable DD to only pay for what you’ve used.

You'd think a variable DD was typically offered, but 3 months ago British Gas only offered me quarterly bills or fixed DD.
I've also seen a few others post recently on the Energy board that they too couldn't get a variable DD with them. 

YoungBlueEyes

Sorry, I don't know what's going on here, I seem to have broken the quote button!

Anyway this is where I sound like a doubting Thomas and/or an ignorant person. Am I reading you right @sammyjammy - that the bail out money we gave them was used to replace people's credit that they'd built up because the companies had used it to pay themselves bonuses? Seriously?

YoungBlueEyes

sammyjammy said:

YoungBlueEyes said:

I remember reading on the energy board a while ago about paying by DD or paying as the bill came.  Someone pointed out that while the overpayments and slightly increased DDs are annoying, and the 'better in my pocket than theirs' thing is valid, remember that a bank balance in the black is what keeps these companies afloat.  It's only £2 to you, but it's lots of £2's to them, and keeps them from going under.  Then when they need bailing out (eg Bulb) the rescue package puts far more than £2 on everyone's bill.....

But also remember that alot of that bail out is refunding those massive credits that the company took with them/gave out in bonuses with them when they went under!

Cracked it! So they used people's credit to pay themselves bonuses and the folded? Or have I read that wrong @sammyjammy? 

sammyjammy

FrugalThymes said:

Ugh, T3sco moan. Haven't been grocery shopping for about 6 weeks maybe longer, because I've been doing Asd4 online shops, but we had to go out last night. The whole clubcard thing is bonkers. We forgot the card and the phone with the app on it, so really had to pay attention to prices even more than usual. 
Firstly, as my mum is visiting and has food issues (not just pickiness where I'd be like, lol, buy your own then ) I had to look for her safe foods and just prices in general, woah. So much of the value range stuff was out of stock and the 'next step up' was so expensive. The non-clubcard prices on some things were a 50% or more increase, and honestly seemed like the things with clubcard prices are just what a product SHOULD cost with non-clubcard prices massively inflated. I don't know, just feels a bit ick. 

I guess the small bonus is I've realised just how much of a difference it makes to cook most things from scratch, try new frugal dishes, batch cook, eat less meat and generally just pay more attention - so that's a bit of encouragement for when it feels arduous. 

I did the same the other day, you can still take your receipt back and they will not only add the clubcard points but refund the difference for the clubcard prices.

sammyjammy

YoungBlueEyes said:

sammyjammy said:

YoungBlueEyes said:

I remember reading on the energy board a while ago about paying by DD or paying as the bill came.  Someone pointed out that while the overpayments and slightly increased DDs are annoying, and the 'better in my pocket than theirs' thing is valid, remember that a bank balance in the black is what keeps these companies afloat.  It's only £2 to you, but it's lots of £2's to them, and keeps them from going under.  Then when they need bailing out (eg Bulb) the rescue package puts far more than £2 on everyone's bill.....

But also remember that alot of that bail out is refunding those massive credits that the company took with them/gave out in bonuses with them when they went under!

Cracked it! So they used people's credit to pay themselves bonuses and the folded? Or have I read that wrong @sammyjammy? 

No you are spot on, that's why the increase in the standing charge is so huge, all the money that people had in credit on their accounts disappears when they go into administration so the money to refund that credit to customers comes from energy users.  The worst thing is that most of these suppliers that went bust should never have been given a contract by OFGEM in the first place without robust finances in place, they offered cheap rates (loss leaders)to build their customer base and then didn't have the money to fund the business.

Good article explaining it Cut ‘unjust’ electricity standing charges, UK regulator urged | Energy bills | The Guardian

EssexHebridean

Hmmmm...there is NOTHING in that article (which is, after all, a newspaper article rather than being say, a statement from Ofgem - media bias is real and everyone has an angle they want to play!)  that I can see that says that the cost of the SOLR process was due to what is being alleged above. The extra on the SC for electricity is in relation to the whole cost of the process - oddly enough migrating hundreds of thousands of customers to a new supplier, without any loss of service and in a relatively seamless process, at a time when suppliers are making almost no money from the supply of energy to domestic customers costs a fair bit, and yes, it is fair and reasonable that those suppliers have their additional costs covered. It should also be remembered that the sheer number of suppliers that failed in a short space of time leading up to the increase was entirely unprecedented - in a usual scenario we simply don't notice the costs involved as it's only a relatively occasional happening.  In almost all cases, so far as I am aware - the customer credit balances were simply transferred across from the failed providers. Also in the vast majority of cases the failures were due to insufficient hedging at a time when energy wholesale prices were going through the roof, or in one case the company that a supplier had hedged (sufficiently) with pulling that backing. Suggesting that the additional sum on the SC is just as a result of bonuses being paid is inaccurate, and frankly akin to rabble-rousing. Not something that has a place on this forum IMO. The very fact that the thrust of the article is "Fuel campaigners say..." informs you of the standpoint The Grauniad are taking on this issue.  If you want a further example of the inaccuracy within the article, the outdated suggestion that prepayment customers pay more for their energy would be a good one - in fact in a lot of cases someone on prepayment or PAYG will actually pay LESS per unit for their electric - and even though there is an uplift on the the daily SC for those customers, often that is outweighed by those slightly lower per kWh rates.