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

Slinky

Rosa_Damascena said:

If you haven't already seen it, do take a look at @MSE_Martin 's latest update on fuel. We're looking at an average energy bill of £2,400 pa from October

Yikes. I must say I'm treating energy as a much more precious resource than I did, so I guess that's better from an environmental point of view. I'm waiting on my statement for February - we came off fix on 2nd - to see how much my attempts at economising may have reduced our usage, if not the price.

bouicca21

I’ve been informed that my gas and electric are going up by 72%.  Add that to the water bill and council tax and that is just a few quid less than my state pension.  Fortunately I have a small private pension, but heaven knows how anyone on benefits or a state pension is going to manage.  I checked and if I were totally dependent on state pension I wouldn’t be entitled to pension credit.

euronorris

Be sure to claim your winter fuel payment if you are of state pension age also.

joedenise

You don't need to claim the winter fuel payment - it is paid automatically once you receive your state pension.

The only time you'd need to claim it is if you defer your state pension but don't think that applies to many people!

EssexHebridean

OrkneyStar said:

EssexHebridean said:

The suggestion that people should shop around and buy everything from where it's cheapest assumes that people have the time available to do that - again it's easy to forget that this level of time is, in itself, a privilege. 

Essex Hebridean I agree with you on that point. It also assumes that everyone has access to a range of supermarkets - I love where I live (beautiful island), but one of the downsides is that we don't have the same variety of stores to choose from.

It won't surprise you to know given my username that this rather stood out to me. The Hebrides are even less well served for supermarket variety - particularly Uist/Benbecula/Barra. The islands each have a co-op store - but nothing like the size of mainland "full" co-ops - more like the level of a sort of "local" type neighbourhood store. There are odd small convenience types shops scattered about, and a couple of independant supermarkets - 2 in Balivanich, the main town on Benbecula and one down on South Uist. The convenience store type shops are - as you'd expect - quite a lot more expensive but for some folk without their own transport they're the only real option. The prices in the "main" supermarkets are generally quite competitive, even compared with mainland prices in the sort of Tesco/Sainsbugs level shops - but inevitably there is an uplift because of the increased costs in supplying those stores. The nearest Tesco is up in Stornoway - not somewhere that most islanders would visit unless they were up for a hospital appointment and had time to kill before the return journey, perhaps. A lot of folk do a stock-up shop on various things when they're across on the mainland for another reason - but that again relies on having your own transport. (And as a point of curiosity - I've bought 20p spaghetti in the Kirkwall Tesco store - that seems somewhat relevant given the conversation at hand! ) 


In answer to the disagreement with my point about having the time to shop around being a privilege. Take the example of a full-time working single Mum. She's got a child in after school club, and another with a childminder. She works her lunchbreak with the agreement of her employer to enable her to leave in time to collect the children, she only just earns enough to make ends meet and can't afford to be late collecting or she gets hit with charges/the risk that the after school club will say they can no longer accommodate child 1. She passes a Tesco store on her way from collecting child 1 to the childminder and just has time to dive in there for oddments of shopping as needed. If she was to go anywhere else she'd risk being late for the childminder. Sure - she could risk being late, but then what happens if she gets charged for an extra hour? It IS a privilege to just be able to blithely assume that it's easy to shop around and save money that way. I can do it - absolutely, but I'll 100% acknowledge that I'm fortunate to be able to do so, and would never offer it as an "easy" fix because for a lot of folk it simply isn't! The single Mum example is just one I've seen on DFW. There are also elderly folk without their own transport who only have a single shop within (their) walking distance, those who for whatever reason rely on someone else to do their shopping for them, and as OrkneyStar points out - those for whom their simply aren't a variety of shops to choose from....a whole host of other variants on the problem.  I live in a town with no fewer than 3 Tesco stores, a Sainsbugs, an Asda,  Lidl and Aldi, Food Warehouse (?) Iceland and FarmFoods plus a host of smaller co-ops, Spar shops etc all quite literally within a 2 mile radius of the town centre. (Unsurprisingly though very few independants.) I can absolutely do my shopping list using several of those shops to get the best prices for what I buy - but I'm a healthy, able bodied person with my own transport to use as needed, plus I am able to carve the time out of my other commitments. Sometimes the commitments simply don't allow for that time to be found without compromising on the ability to earn money, to cook decent meals from scratch, or to read a child a bedtime story - and none of those, IMO are things that people should have to compromise on simply in order to buy affordable, nutritious food. 

We've been making efforts to make sure that our storecupboard is stocked up. Ideally I'd be filling the second freezer too but we're having some building work done at home shortly which means it will need to remain empty as it will have to be unplugged and stored elsewhere for the duration, annoying at just the time I could do with being able to make the most of any available bargains! with the best will in the world, I think we're far from seeing the end of the price increases on even fairly basic items. 

Rosa_Damascena

I have no idea how the denizens of the Hebrides or Orkney manage their energy bills. So exposed, so cold...

TheAble

Rosa_Damascena said:

If you haven't already seen it, do take a look at @MSE_Martin 's latest update on fuel. We're looking at an average energy bill of £2,400 pa from October

Could be up to £3000 pa by the end of this year if things continue in this vein, according to one analyst:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60584798

@EssexHebridean - regarding the situation you describe, would not a click and collect be the solution? I swung by Tesco after work the other day to pick my own up and the fee was a mere 25p.

I suppose now you're going to throw "Oh but she doesn't have a car" into the scenario. But I can't give an exhaustive solution to every situation.

Slinky

Well so much for my attempts to cut back on the electric, we're having building work done and a load of aggregate has been dumped on the drive today. It turns out the 'pour' of concrete footings involves the guys making the concrete themselves onsite using our electric and water rather than ready made turning up.

I've just sent OH to read the water meter so hopefully when the work is finished I can claim a reduction on sewerage charges as we won't be returning 90% of what's going through the meters.  And I've just remembered we will need to turn the water softener off - no point wasting salt.

euronorris

People who have deferred taking their state pension make up 7.7% of all state pensioners. So there could be a few.

Flugelhorn

Rosa_Damascena said:

I have no idea how the denizens of the Hebrides or Orkney manage their energy bills. So exposed, so cold...

we have found it has made a huge difference leaving Yorkshire to move to the SW- never gets quite as cold